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Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#451

Post by IceWreck »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #403
floxy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple

Glad to see people put those others in the list. Too many people assumed that Microsoft, Oracle, Yahoo, and related companies weren't matching offers and were somehow "worse" to work for. It was exactly the opposite. They were matching offers, and even poaching engineers from the other FAANGs. Yet they never got any respect.

You're missing out the fact that OP listed those because he wanted it to spell YOMAMA and not because he thinks those companies are FAANG worthy.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#452

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

dugmartin wrote: post #298
kristopolous wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a cold and calculated layoff. It's always been exasperated irrational arm-waving risk mitigation. The "good" people aren't kept - instead it's the ones that can navigate the political waters. For every one competent executive there seems to be 3 deluded narcissistic idiots who will slash and burn people who are overqualified and under-utilized for the positions they've been incompetently assigned. Now…

Good advice. It reads like the start of a modern corporate version of "The Prince".

The modern version of this is the 48 Laws of Power.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#453

Post by raydev »

anonporridge wrote: post #24
Xeoncross wrote: post #4

I'm wondering what data really drives the back-and-forth at big tech. We've seen google, amazon, microsoft, meta, etc.. do hiring freezes, then layoffs. Hiring freeze, then back open, or layoffs then more layoffs later. I would expect a longer term plan than just looking forward or backwards one quarter which seems like what has been happening the last year. I would assume they had better information and insights tha…

Mass layoffs give you the opportunity to quickly purge poor performers without as much paperwork. It's advantageous to have regular rolling layoffs because of this if you can justify them by economic conditions. There's also an effect of wanting to do smaller, pulsating layoffs over the course of many months or even years rather than one massive layoff of the size you actually need, because ultimately no one knows ex…

> Mass layoffs give you the opportunity to quickly purge poor performers without as much paperwork

This is repeated a lot but having lived through 3 layoffs (and survived 2) in my career, that has never been the case. Every time it seemed random, one in particular where EMs were upset that they didn't have the chance to pick their faves.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#454

Post by raydev »

rossdavidh wrote: post #256
havblue wrote: post #142

This isn't a moral justification, but isn't laying off workers when other companies have layoffs a simple supply and demand response? That is, the demand curve is the same for these workers but the supply curve shifts to the right and prices for the same job drops. They're betting that the people hired in a recession will perform better per dollar than the people let go.

A layoff of ~5%, especially if it is the first one in a while, is usually (at large corporations) just a way to get rid of (perceived to be) non-performing staff without having to do as much paperwork as actually firing someone. This isn't to say they are correct about those 5% not performing, and even if they are it may not have been that person's fault, but the real motivation for a layoff of this type (first one i…

How old is your data on this? This is repeated multiple times in this thread, but my experience with layoffs hasn't shown that poor performers are cut. It's random or it's entire teams/orgs.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#455

Post by kristopolous »

adasdasdas wrote: post #419
kristopolous wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Most layoffs are done by the managers being given either quotas or burn rate caps and tasked with producing lists of people to layoff. The point of "many bosses" is if your manager knows you work on other projects, it's easier to leave you off the list. The point of "no bosses" is no manager is tasked with considering you. You're not on anyone's books. There's numerous ways of doing this if you're interested. If…

At least in my circle, I've found (for mass company wide layoffs) 1. Lower level managers usually find out them at the same time as IC's 2. Managers and directors can be part of the layoffs. 3. If a manager/director is part of the layoff, they are even less likely to be consulted in the process.

Sure. That's because the org chart isn't ever the real chart. I mention elsewhere the real chart looks more like the Habsburg family tree especially the higher up you go - a bunch of surprising actual plays.

The rule of thumb is if they can't fire you they aren't really your boss.

For instance, at a previous firm, the COO, which ostensibly can be fired by the CEO was actually the brother of executor of the chief investment in the last round so the COO has a direct board connection and so he could actually fire the CEO with enough effort. Underneath the COO was a finance guy who had just come from a possible acquirer so really that guy could probably get them both fired if it meant a good payout for an acquire.

The tendrils are wacky which is why when a room of those people have to do actual work, it's not some shrewd rational calculated execution but instead just some hot mess

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#456

Post by robertlagrant »

morelisp wrote: post #221
robertlagrant wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertisers _constantly_ are complaining about "X is being shown next to Y news event. Please stop that", and its impossible to predict X, or Y. It would be interesting to have a UI that lets them say that they don't want to be next to X, or they do want to be next to Y, and they pay different prices to appear next to more/less popular things.

This is table stakes for ad platforms. You still also need to be reactive to new events.

Why not use the same tools?

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#457

Post by inawarminister »

shagie wrote: post #87
ethbr0 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically (not sure if still true), Microsoft had top tier profit:employee.

They're likely still up there. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Microsoft+vs+Apple+vs+G... They're not the best best, but $919k/employee/year is impressive. Google is at $1.5M/employee. Apple is $2.4M/employee and Netflix is $2.7M/employee. (and to the dead comment reply claiming $10M/employee for Musk companies) Tesla: $158,613 https://csimarket.com/stocks/TSLA-Income-per-Employee.html SpaceX: $210,526 https://w…

I think Starlink is still part of SpaceX for now, so it's already counted there.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#458

Post by Gartent »

endsync wrote: post #78

Bloat is real, but there's another labor market dynamic in play here. There was a huge run-up in corporate employee compensation in the tech sector over the last few years. (Some called it a "shortage," remember. Some of it is genuine growth in the sector, some of it was definitely "labor hoarding" by large companies that could afford to carry excess staff in a tight market as a hedge against being unable to fill cri…

[dead]

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#459

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

endsync wrote: post #78

Bloat is real, but there's another labor market dynamic in play here. There was a huge run-up in corporate employee compensation in the tech sector over the last few years. (Some called it a "shortage," remember. Some of it is genuine growth in the sector, some of it was definitely "labor hoarding" by large companies that could afford to carry excess staff in a tight market as a hedge against being unable to fill cri…

i always found that word "talent" condescending, like "consumer".

this is HR-speak. i see my colleagues as (code)monkeys not as talent, and i hope they see me the same.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#460

Post by ClumsyPilot »

dmix wrote: post #449
kika wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just Powell, every Fed kept talking about "we don't want to repeat history". What they meant is 1970-1979, when they were beating down the economy for a decade and when they decided to let the pressure go, inflation went right back where it was before the beating. Because the wages were still up and with the power of the unions it was very difficult to bring them down. At least that's how it was explained to me b…

The top end company stock prices are just like real estate, the money experts always use them to reduce the entire economy to simple terms and over-generalize. If our only two options are the Fed or FAANG winning I choose neither. The macro market (and their truthsayers) are obsessed with reducing things to the [current price] of public companies. Even though there is never ending increasing disconnect between their…

> The top end company stock prices are just like real estate, the money experts

Anyone celebrating expensive real estate is celebrating destruction of our economy.

Real estate is an economic input, same as food and fuel. When those get expensive, it is understood that it will lead to widespread misery and poverty.

The people that make money off sitting on real contribute nothong, they should be treated the same way. assomeone who'd make money from hoarding canned tuna.

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