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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#181

Post by eschaton »

gumballindie wrote: post #171
pydry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

Just like us engineering workers have groups and forums where we share ideas so do ceo workers. They want to keep their bosses, the shareholders, happy and so they share ideas. Right now layoffs are so hot, and as ceos dont innovate much that’s the trend they follow. No need for illegal backchannels. Just a cool trend. I just hope that those layer off workers that are lucky and smart enough are working on replacement…

When you’re an executive of a publicly traded company, coordinating with other executives at publicly traded companies like this can be illegal.

Executive management aren’t workers.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#182

Post by jhp123 »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #154
jhp123 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all large tech employers play follow the leader then it's not natural reversion, it's a textbook example of tacit oligopoly coordination.

Or the pattern is due to a common cause between the high tech firms, and we know what that common cause is: they overhired 2020-2022.

Come on. If Google broke ranks and started aggressively poaching people for GCP and going after market share, Amazon would realize in about 5 seconds that it hadn't "overhired" for absurdly-profitable AWS after all.

These firms have colluded to drive down wages before (the "Techtopus" case), a fact that we know because they were stupid enough to put it in writing. This time there's no proof and may be no explicit agreement, but a tiger doesn't change their stripes.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#183

Post by jollyllama »

olliej wrote: post #178
jollyllama wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deflation has begun, if you look at M2 money supply. But food is not going to decrease in price, and housing will lag. So it'll still feel like inflation, but consumer goods are already going down.

(1) It doesn't matter if the economy will be subject to deflation in future, right now it is not, and while later in this thread you talk about 2nd derivatives being negative that just means the rate growth of inflation is dropping, not inflation itself, so excusing below inflation compensation changes is BS. (2) If/when deflation does occur, we know from prior instances the reduction in worker compensation is much h…

>If companies were actually legitimately concerned about the potential for a deflationary event they would be hoarding cash.

Or freezing salaries. Just like in the article. I don't really have an answer for you with regards to any stock buybacks or large dividends.

I'm not talking about anything as reasonable or mentioning the 2nd derivative myself. M2 money supply is a specific thing that is responsible for money creation, it's going down now for the first time ever. We are in uncharted territory.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#184

Post by sokoloff »

oh_sigh wrote: post #174
sokoloff wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no other person out there who would do the job for $100M? I'd be willing to do a terrible job at it for only $10M/yr. That's not what the shareholders want; they want Sundar to keep doing what is, from the shareholders' point of view, a quite respectable job, seeing the shares grow from $34 when he become CEO to $112 now for a CAGR of around 17%.

Sure, I don't mean anyone willing to take the job, I mean anyone the board might reasonably select who has a good chance of success. Surely those people are out there. In that same time frame that Sundar was CEO and GOOG stock is up 240%, META is up 160%, NFLX is up 220%, AMZN is up 325%, AAPL is up 500%, and MSFT is up 600%. Surely these giant tech companies didn't all get lucky and get the only 5 people who could g…

Shareholders want to avoid CEOs who will give them the returns of IBM, Cisco, VMWare, HP, or Groupon. It's not about the idea that only these specific 5 people could have generated those returns. But when they are generating those returns, there's ample support from the board and shareholders to pay them handsomely to generate returns like the list of companies you gave and not the list that I gave here.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#185

Post by runamok »

ronsor wrote: post #137
diversionfactor wrote: post #106

And yet, at exactly this time last year: "Microsoft to Nearly Double Salary Budgets, Expand Stock Compensation" https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensatio... So they are freezing after the doubling? This behavior seems skittish and an overreaction, especially given their continued profitability and high margins. Corporate executive behavior reminds me of interacting with ChatGPT: Exec: "What should…

Large corporations are arguably a form of "AI," so that's not too surprising.

Artificial at least. :-)

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#186

Post by fzeroracer »

csa wrote: post #180
fzeroracer wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A paycut is a paycut no matter how you try to spin it. If someone's earning 150k a year with 5% inflation and doesn't get a raise the next year matching inflation, they are quite literally taking a 5% pay cut in comparison to changing jobs which likely offers salaries starting at the post-inflation level. In this case it's worse because not only are their salaries not going up, but the things nominally used to get ar…

My thesis is that many of them, especially at places that grew a lot during covid like MS, were/are overpaid relative to their skill set / ability to add value. Cutting positions was one way to correct this. Freezing salaries is another. If any devs hired during covid think that their salary was totally justified and shouldn’t be cut directly or indirectly, then they are more likely than not delusional. It was a frot…

Okay, but there's a core flaw in your argument: Microsoft has already cut jobs, and now they're freezing salaries for everyone. You're effectively trying to say that everyone at Microsoft deserves a pay cut and that their salary is unjustified, which seems a fair bit more delusional.

It seems to me you're working backwards from the position of 'Microsoft is justified in what they're doing' and then continuing to adjust your position in order to make that statement true. Given that Microsoft is still extremely valued according to their stock prices and that their earnings are higher than ever, citing market conditions as a reason to cut salaries when your market condition is positive reeks of bullshit.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#187

Post by tivert »

rtkwe wrote: post #177
bagels wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about leverage, with all the faang layoffs, they now don't have to pay as much for employees.

More than that there's a whole strain of performative cost cutting due to the recession that's always seemed just over the horizon for the last year. Part of the goal is just to signal to investors you're ready for this continuously hypothetical event by pre tightening your belt as a company so they don't "price in" the recession into your stock. It's another negative outcome of basing so much of our evaluation of co…

> More than that there's a whole strain of performative cost cutting due to the recession that's always seemed just over the horizon for the last year.

You can say that again. I've spent last 3 months dealing with the effects of some pretty severe cost-cutting on my team. Now I recently learned my employers is going to spend billions on stock buy-backs.

That's just great news after the most recent push to increase our in-office time to increase "collaboration" ... when all of our teams are globally distributed so everything has to be Zoom meetings regardless of which chair your butt happens to be sitting in.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#188

Post by heywhatupboys »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #124
heywhatupboys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Oh boy, the ownership society from Bush Jr. I own 100 stock and are paid 150,000 - coder I own 1,000,000 stock and are paid 1$ and 150,000 stock - CEO - CEO: "I am freezing wages" - Stock goes up 10% Year to Year (say 100->110$) - inflation was 10% coder: salary is effectively 135k, ($15k loss), stock went up 1k CEO: salary is down to 90 cents (10 cent loss), stock went up $10,000,000) HN commenter who apparently thi…

the employee could just buy stock for his/her wage

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#189

Post by the_overseer »

ejb999 wrote: post #50
nineplay wrote: post #24

Perhaps its a false dichotomy, but I'll take a pay freeze/cut over a layoff any day.

Would you take a pay cut to save someone else's from being laid off in your company? It's a serious question, just curious, there is no right answer - I wouldn't, nor would I accept even a $1 cut in my pay - the day that happens is the day I give my notice. Not an option for everyone I know.

So you wouldn't take a $1 pay cut per year so that a person might have enough to take care of his family? Is this who you really are? $1 that could save someone from starving and you wouldn't give it? It says a lot about you to make such a statement, I am not sure you realise this.
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