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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#491

Post by rcarmo »

verst wrote: post #429
costcofries wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s just plain not true. And I say that as someone who got some stock and is aware of just how much my US peers got comparatively.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#492

Post by somenameforme »

throw123123123 wrote: post #457
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…

Wages are not downstream of profits - they are a price in a market for labor. If companies could pay 0 they would pay 0, and if employees could charge infinite they would charge infinite. It's better this way - otherwise employees at companies that make no money would have to take no salary.

Many small businesses seek to treat their employees well. It's not out of some ulterior 5D chess profit seeking scheme, nor is it out of naivete of the fact that they could earn more. But simply out of having some degree of social values and ethics. Wanting to make a profit or to become rich, isn't the same as being willing to screw everybody (or anybody) over in pursuit of such.

In America today only 57% [1] of people have a positive view of capitalism. And that percent is only that "high" thanks to much older individuals who are probably envisioning our capitalism as it was in the past, before MBAology became the default corporate worldview. Take only 18-29 year olds, and 40% have a positive view. What do you think's going to happen as the older generation dies off?

Capitalism is not sustainable without more of society pushing back against sociopathy. Normalizing it because 'this is how big companies act' isn't going to normalize it, but simply turn people against capitalism - and ultimately bring us closer to swapping over to ["this time it'll be different"]ism iteration #73 or whatever.

[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/09/19/modest-decli...

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#493

Post by brutusborn »

mertd wrote: post #412
brutusborn wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, I’ll bite. How is profit unethical? If I sell my neighbour something and make a profit, are we not both better off?

If you are puzzled by weird economic positions of people don't read the threads about SVB's collapse.

I’d prefer someone help me solve my current conundrum than add to the confusion.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#494

Post by petersellers »

andsoitis wrote: post #460
petersellers wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can increase the income taxes of wealthy people considerably (specifically income taxes, not business taxes). A 50%+ marginal rate will help motivate C-level execs to opt for re-investing profits into their business rather than into buybacks of their stock to boost their own personal income. At the same time you'd be helping to provide services that will benefit the lives of the bottom 90% of the country with hig…

> increase the income taxes of wealthy people considerably (specifically income taxes, not business taxes). A 50%+ marginal rate will help motivate C-level execs to opt for re-investing profits into their business rather than into buybacks of their stock to boost their own personal income Why would anyone try to make less money as taxes on them increase? Makes no sense.

Because they'd have more capital to reinvest in their business, as I stated. But even if they don't reinvest it the rest of us still benefit in the form of increased tax receipts.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#495

Post by Thorrez »

_huayra_ wrote: post #464
verst wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm still new at the company, but it seems like promotions are basically (at best) the accumulated COLA adjustments one ought to have been given, but they make it seem like some performance-based thing. Indeed, I have a RSU vesting schedule 4 years from hire. It is financially unwise to stay beyond that on-hire grant vesting period, it seems.

What are new people hired in at? Inflation adjusted, are they being hired in at the a lower rate than the older employees were hired in at?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#496

Post by petersellers »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #478
AverageDude wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Wondering how easily people make things so simplistic (as the other commenters are doing).

Definitely not this. Capital is distributed to shareholders when the company has few good options to deploy it internally. These distributions are then reinvested by shareholders to more efficient purposes. If a company can’t efficiently deploy its capital and can’t distribute it… it just buys other companies and becomes a conglomerate with ever increasing market power.

> These distributions are then reinvested by shareholders to more efficient purposes.

Why do you think this is true (specifically the "more efficient purposes" part)?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#497

Post by pjmlp »

heleninboodler wrote: post #479
bruce511 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel like tech is the implied context here. In tech, the number is a lot closer to 100% than 0%.

Maybe in US, I never got anything like that in any European company.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#498

Post by saagarjha »

remote_phone wrote: post #426
erhaetherth wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can offer my sample size of 1. It was 12.4%. L4. "Outstanding" rating.

70% were given SI rating. The increase for SI was between 0% and 1%.

I know people with that rating who saw a much larger (10-20%) raise. I know others who got a raise in line with what you’ve said too. I don’t know the exact distribution but it’s definitely not “you get 0.5% if you’re SI”.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#499

Post by latency-guy2 »

beebmam wrote: post #385
whitemary wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This decision is unethical to full-time employees seeing the tidy profit they made. Profit itself is unethical.

Based on what ideology? It's polite to at least state your premises

I can't say I did not fall for the bait, but I believe its a leftist troll attention seeking. Other comments left both immediately recently and over the past few days at least are all roughly the same on topics where the concern is at best minutely related

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#500

Post by cat_plus_plus »

lakecresva wrote: post #369
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…

What if I told you that the time and effort required to develop and deploy accurate tracking metrics for every employee's individual productivity and the negative externalities that would fall out of openly stratifying worker pay based on these minutiae (worker dissatisfaction, turnover, degraded performance, poor reputation among potential new hires) would outweigh the benefit your marginal increase in motivation an…

Say I have a fairly good idea how to make a #3 product in a category a #1 product in a category. But, my work life balance would suck for a couple of years and I would have to be more adversarial with others to get them to pull their weight and not waste time on bad ideas. Eventually, if it works, existing employees will benefit from growth and new ones will want to join a success story.

Or maybe I am mistaken and someone else is more capable of making the top product, in which case I might still get my own team out of growth. Let there be some meritocratic process and ability to assume responsibility for risks and reap the rewards. But if there is no potential reward, why should I suffer from overwork and inevitable interpersonal conflict when stuff needs to get done? Why should anyone? Eventually the whole product will be cancelled since it's not making headway and all of us will move to new gigs.

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