Perhaps its a false dichotomy, but I'll take a pay freeze/cut over a layoff any day.
Except they already did layoff 10,000 people....
Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
61–70 of 597 posts
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because executives get issued an order of magnitude more stock than you could ever reasonably buy?
That doesn't prevent you from trading the stock and making (or losing) money.
Sure, but there is a clear disparity between how much you make on the amount of stock you can reasonably have versus how much executives make on the amount of stock they have. The parent comment implies there is some kind of level playing field here, which there really isn't.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#63Correct headline: Microsoft cuts salaries for 2023. Even in a good economy inflation and cost of living increases are a thing.
I never understood the idea that salaries should be expected to always be corrected for inflation, and that not doing so is somehow secretly a "salary cut". Salaries are driven by supply and demand, and individual companies (maybe not Microsoft though) can generally only afford to raise them by a given amount. If that amount is less than inflation then that's that, right? Most companies (again, maybe not Microsoft th…
I think this is a general issue.
An inflation measure is defined by a particular basket of goods, and sometimes their prices move for good reasons. We shouldn’t expect it to always cancel out in such a way that our salaries end up with exactly the same buying power for those particular goods.
But my cost of living is factored into whether or not I’m making enough money to, uh, live. My code output is not very good while I am dead.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the people that gain the most income from stock decide to limit the income of those who don't. So their salaries effectively increase.
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First time I have ever been called "anti capitalist" and I've been called many things:} Believe it or not there are employees of M$ that do not receive stock as compensation. Those of us (I include myself) that do live in the capitalist/libertarian bubble and get such things tend to forget that. These non-shareholders are also the ones most impacted by inflation and tend to work hourly.
I was not trying to imply there is some grand conspiracy. I was however trying to point out how the incentives of large companies are structured and are often skewed. God forbid any of those non-shareholders try to form a union.
Maybe it would be good if more people in the bubble walked a mile in some one else's shoes.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#65Reposting a comment from Reddit[1]: Microsoft has been bleeding talent for the last 5-6 years due to low compensation. It's why the SLT authorized a "correction" in pay last year that saw many people get a significant pay bump. Lots of new college hires have even stated that Microsoft's offer was the lowest offer they received. Levels.fyi tells basically the same story as well if you compare Microsoft to many other t…
Every time a company is one day telling the employees that they need to take a pay cut to keep the company "competitive" (and this pay freeze is actually a pay cut), and the next day they're doing a stock buyback and the C-Suite is giving themselves enormous performance bonuses they need to worry about unionization.
Not to sound too much like a libertarian, and I'm not against unions, but isn't this something that can be more or less corrected by a lot of engineers finding work elsewhere? It's not like Microsoft has anywhere near a monopoly on the software engineering space anymore, and most of the engineers there can probably adjust to remote work without too much of an issue.
Then we get the cycle of Microsoft complaining that they can't hire enough people, and then they bump salaries up again to be competitive.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#66You know, nearly anyone qualified to work at Microsoft (at least as an engineer) is qualified to work for some yuppie Wall Street job paying obscene salaries and bonuses; I think this is going to have the selection bias effect of the people remaining are people who cannot find work elsewhere. If their goal is indirectly lay people off, I really think that they have not thought this through.
Having friends and former colleagues who work in the "yuppie Wall Street job", it doesn't pay the obscene salaries you think it does, even at the major hedge funds and investment banks, even in NYC and Chicago. The number of super-high NFT development jobs is vanishingly tiny. Most jobs at trading and investing firms for developers pay the same or even less than elsewhere. Sure, if you're a Calypso or Endur or Murex specialist you can command the $300+/hr rates, but then you may be out of work for six months or more when the project finishes. There's no easy move from FAANG while keeping the high salaries, there's 1+ orders of magnitude more jobs in FAANG (or at least there were) than in high paying non-FAANG development jobs. Most development jobs pay not much more than an experienced public school science teacher, and without the job security.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#67Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.
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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gosh I like this comment so much. This is exactly how I felt and saw ourselves whilst sitting in hipster startup offices getting way too much money compared to the rest of society. That said, tech people in general publicly don't get enough respect or disrespect for their work.
> getting way too much money compared to the rest of society A good engineer can make a great deal of money for the company, far more than a plumber ever could. I.e. an engineer has leverage .
The plumber at the house with an overflowing toilet sure has some leverage, too.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#69Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.
Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.
Would be better to cancel bonuses instead.
Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023
#70Yet CEO's bonus in 2022 was 20x bigger than his salary. I don't think it will be less this year either; with all-time high stock price and these "cost cuts", he will be wholesomely rewarded.
Anyone can buy MSFT and get their share. As for the employees, they have stock options and are getting a piece of the all-time high stock price. Although MSFT's all time high stock price was in 2021. This goes for all public corporations. Anyone can get a piece of the action by buying some stock in them. As for the size of Nadella's compensation package, speaking as a long term MSFT shareholder Nadella has earned it.…
Wait, so why don't current employees of MSFT also deserve a raise?
You know, the people who actually built and sold the products?