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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#421

Post by bruce511 »

foogazi wrote: post #286
bruce511 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, holding (significant to you) stock in your employer is a bad strategy. Because if the company goes under you lose your job, and your savings at the same time. In other words it consolidates risk rather than diversifies it. But honestly the idea that you don't need a raise but rather invest and wait for a dividend return is bonkers. Those are to completely unrelated things. By all means invest. The…

> Because if the company goes under Microsoft is not going under

(I did say "generally speaking...")

There are some companies that are "unlikely to fail" in the sense that their stock price falls to zero. I would agree that Microsoft likely falls into that category.

But really large companies have "failed" in very short time. Usually as the result of some sort of illegal activity. WorldCom being the obvious example here. (A place where employees were "strongly encouraged" to buy their own stock.)

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and others have also been "too big to fail" - yet failed.

The fact that these events are relatively uncommon (for the very large) doesn't negate their impact. Equally less-large companies fail all the time, and so if you work for something a bit smaller it's a prudent strategy to invest you time in one place, and your assets elsewhere.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#422

Post by petersellers »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #353
AverageDude wrote: post #330

I wish there was a political party who had guts to take on these kind of people. I wish!

Won't someone think of the poor software engineers??

Right, because Microsoft 100% consists of highly paid software engineering roles located in the US.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#423

Post by shagie »

oblio wrote: post #205
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look at their revenues in 2019 and in 2023. Except for Failed Metaverse Inc, everyone else has grown revenue proportionally and profits decent enough.

In 2019, Microsoft had about 150k people. Most recently, they have 221k.

And while last year was potentially quite good, that isn't the projection.

https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png

Employees went up significantly: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+c...

Revenue leveled off: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29

Profits are on a downward slope now: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+profits%29

Yes, they're 50% greater than they were in 2019. The staffing is at about 1.5x what it was in 2019 too.

So, crystal ball time - what will revenue be a year from now? Will the profit per employee be lower than it was in 2019?

https://imgur.com/6QykALS

And if the answer is no, should Microsoft lay people off or hold off on salary increases?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#424

Post by bruce511 »

costcofries wrote: post #392
korginator wrote: post #365

With the rate of inflation and interest rates going up, salaried workers need a cost of living adjustment at the very least, even if we forget about a bonus or a big pay hike. This decision is unethical to full-time employees seeing the tidy profit they made. It's a clear signal to the employees not to expect any practical reward for hard work, what a great way to motivate people. This is yet another large and powerf…

This hurts junior employees the most. Tenured employees have equity as a large part of their comp, they are invested in the stock price, not the few % annual bump.

This is a very "techy" viewpoint. There are only a very small number of companies globally, (a percentage that can be rounded to 0), that give equity as part of the employee compensation.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#425

Post by scarface74 »

throw9away6 wrote: post #332
lumost wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy is unstable, meaning we may only make 5% more profit next year. Layoffs and pay freezes will continue. There are two ways this pans out. Either big tech is bloated, and wages will fall over time - or current big-techs will flounder as smaller firms out compete them. This happened to HP/IBM and others, why would Google or Microsoft be immune?

Wages can simply stay flat and that’s a 5% decrease due to inflation

People keep quoting this as religion.

Making up numbers: If I only spend 50% of my take home and part of that 50% is going toward my fixed rate mortgage, is my spending power down by 5%?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#427

Post by maxbond »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #360
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #305

Even the biggest corporate CEOs get confused by socialist talk and end up recreating some of socialist inefficiencies in their own companies. Why would I invest exceptional effort or take risk working on far fetched projects if exceptional success in terms of market share or profits will not be rewarded? If I am good, I can work 6 hours a day and still be the most productive employee on the team. How does one-fit-all…

In China, during Mao Zedong's era, factory workers would laugh at and scorn other workers who worked harder than others. This is the direction that Microsoft is headed with their policies.

I don't think that's a tactic unique to or originating from communist China. I've heard stories about coopers in England beating up bright sparks who worked faster than the pace the workers had settled on. I think that's just how physical laborers sometimes ensure that people are working at a sustainable pace, such that people at every stage of their career can work alongside each other without destroying their bodies. (I personally neither condemn not condone this, it seems like bullying to me so I'm inclined to condemn but I've never worked in an environment like that so I withhold judgement.)

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#428

Post by com2kid »

xenity7 wrote: post #402
tombert wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If the CEO was in charge of the direction of the company, and that direction was so bad that they have to make major layoffs and cuts, then they shouldn't be rewarded for this. This isn't a fucking game. These are human lives. Microsoft laid off 10,000 humans [1] because their idiotic CEO decided it would be a really good idea to overhire like crazy in 2021 and 2022. This was the wrong decision and now th…

It’s kind of odd to think it’s NEVER correct for a company to do layoffs. The CEOs job is to run the company - if the company is more efficient why shouldn’t the CEO be rewarded? Their job is to run the company not never fire anyone.

A company like MS should have systems in place to make employees more productive than they would be at other organizations. (After spending nearly a decade there, that is somewhat true, but it could of course be a lot better[1].)

If a large corporation that has the power to do damn nearly anything can't figure out what to do with ten thousand highly talented software engineers, then some people in leadership need to discover some new sources of bright ideas.

[1] There are things MS is really good at operationally, getting contracts signed, getting marketing efforts in place, localizing software for true world wide releases, security reviews, etc. Sadly they got rid of their engineering excellence org years ago. I once spent over a year looking around for someone who knew SQL who was available to spend half a day helping me optimize a database. Then there is the time my group couldn't find anyone who knew how to write software for Windows...

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#429

Post by verst »

costcofries wrote: post #392
korginator wrote: post #365

With the rate of inflation and interest rates going up, salaried workers need a cost of living adjustment at the very least, even if we forget about a bonus or a big pay hike. This decision is unethical to full-time employees seeing the tidy profit they made. It's a clear signal to the employees not to expect any practical reward for hard work, what a great way to motivate people. This is yet another large and powerf…

This hurts junior employees the most. Tenured employees have equity as a large part of their comp, they are invested in the stock price, not the few % annual bump.

Not really true for Microsoft. At Microsoft we generally do not get significant new stock grants or refresh grants, even on promotion no new stock is granted often. This may be different for principal engineers or certainly partner level folks - but senior engineers with more than 4 years of tenure will have essentially no significant stock to vest.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#430

Post by beebmam »

propogandist wrote: post #408
hiddencost wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy engineers do better work. Half the reason Google is really falling on its face right now is that management has made it clear to eng that we're not respected the way we were 10 years ago. So we no longer go above and beyond for our employer because they no longer go above and beyond for us. Doing less work is a classic and reasonable negotiating tactic for employees. Employees are counter parties to any negotia…

Outside of the ads group the majority of Google’s rest and vest workforce delivers little shareholder value

What evidence do you have for your claim?
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