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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#581

Post by UncleMeat »

remote_phone wrote: post #575
UncleMeat wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd need to know the full distribution of MRP% for that. All I'm saying is that merit lines were not such that it was possible for the mean raise to be 1%. It requires way less data to see this.

So you don’t have the data but you know that the mean raise for SI is not 1%. Basically “Trust me bro!”

I have enough data to know that the mean raise is above 1% but to not know the specific value of the mean raise. This is not especially complicated.

"Mean raise for SI" is also not what the original post said. It just said "raises for most employees was between 0% and 1%". We can't exclude the higher performers.

Zero people on my team had raises below 1% (one was close). Nearly my entire team, including me, received SI for 2022. The merit lines make it clear what %MRP you'd need to be at to get a 1% raise and it is well above the norm.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#582

Post by andsoitis »

beebmam wrote: post #455
andsoitis wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perception is reality.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

The saying is simply the idea that someone can have a mental impression of something, and it defines how they see that something, regardless of the truth.

It doesn’t seem that controversial to me and certainly isn’t literal.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#583

Post by shrimp_emoji »

atq2119 wrote: post #481
areoform wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Profit itself is unethical. This statement is unethical. It's a very strange thing to claim that profit is unethical. In tech companies, profit is an indication that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts — i.e. so much wealth has been created that there's an excess of it.

The question is more about who gets to capture the created wealth: - people who gave money to enable the activity leading to profit (aka capital) - people who organize the activity leading to profit (aka management) - people who actually do the work Obviously, each of these groups has some legitimate claim to the added value, but it's also pretty obvious that over the last 50 years or so, the balance in the economy a…

Well said. But:

> Just look at how the correlation between wages and productivity disappeared in the 1970s.

Isn't this explained by computerization?

The '70s? That's when Stallman was mucking around at MIT, right? Computers were happening!

Say 30 workers' productivity can now be reached by 1 worker at a computer. The company lays off 25, leaving only 5 workers. Those 5 workers are generating 150 workers' productivity for the company. But they're only getting 5 workers' salary (there has been no salary increase). Boom -- wages:productivity used to be 1:1, and now it's 1:30.

Consider how it also makes no sense FOR those 5 workers' salary TO increase significantly. Why should you pay them 30 times more than their pre-computerized peers? Their jobs may actually be easier than before, hours of indexing and searching replaced by filesystems and `grep`.

Is that unethical?

This also attacks the "we thought computers would mean we would get 2 hour workdays" meme. Equivalently to inflating their wages, why would you decrease their work hours?

These are things that, in the name of "ethics", can only be forced by unions or the government, depending on your level of adventurousness toward economic policy. (And your level of confidence in being able to arbitrate ethics. The communists were very hubristic about that one.)

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#584

Post by krainboltgreene »

whatshisface wrote: post #300
krainboltgreene wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders care more about profits and than people. Coops and nationalized companies do just fine at caring about people.

Nationalized companies care about the hierarchy that ends in the parliament or political system of the country they're in, which can be a mixed bag and doesn't really involve caring about their employees beyond the basic decency of their overseers.

That sounds exactly like anti-nationalization propaganda, I wonder why, and doesn't actually make sense if you understand what nationalization actually is.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#585

Post by krainboltgreene »

jldugger wrote: post #480
krainboltgreene wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Envy is not a productive way of thinking about economics. This is an incredibly uncharitable way to frame the parent comment. > If all the CEOs in the world were forced to make $0, it will not meaningfully change the amount of money in workers' pockets. That's just not true.

>> If all the CEOs in the world were forced to make $0, it will not meaningfully change the amount of money in workers' pockets. > That's just not true. But its not far from wrong -- cutting a ten million dollar a year expense and putting it to worker pay will not make workers rich in the colloquial sense.

Sure if you add words to the original statement you're right, it's "not far from wrong".

I wonder if people read what they type before they hit "reply"?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#586

Post by propogandist »

beebmam wrote: post #430
propogandist wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

80% of company revenues driven by ads

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#587

Post by WalterBright »

UncleMeat wrote: post #560
WalterBright wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has minted more millionaires among its employees than probably any other company. I'll let you in on a secret. Regardless of what the official policy is for a company, if you feel you're undervalued, and you're right, you can negotiate the pay you feel you're worth. And if you cannot reach an agreement, there are plenty of other tech companies. In the Seattle area, there's Amazon and Google, for example. Yo…

Still not explaining. Why are you treating him differently than the rest of the employees?

Is he? Only salaries were frozen. Not stock grants or other compensation.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#588

Post by atq2119 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #583
atq2119 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is more about who gets to capture the created wealth: - people who gave money to enable the activity leading to profit (aka capital) - people who organize the activity leading to profit (aka management) - people who actually do the work Obviously, each of these groups has some legitimate claim to the added value, but it's also pretty obvious that over the last 50 years or so, the balance in the economy a…

Well said. But: > Just look at how the correlation between wages and productivity disappeared in the 1970s. Isn't this explained by computerization? The '70s? That's when Stallman was mucking around at MIT, right? Computers were happening! Say 30 workers' productivity can now be reached by 1 worker at a computer. The company lays off 25, leaving only 5 workers. Those 5 workers are generating 150 workers' productivity…

Perhaps. But it was also still relatively early days for computers, and it was a time of union busting, macroeconomic upheaval, and a shift in dominant politics. There were certainly multiple causal factors at play.

You say that there are things that can only be forced by unions and governments. I agree!

We just need to keep in mind that at least some of the things detrimental to workers that happened 40 to 50 years ago were also forced by lobbyists and governments.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#589

Post by gymbeaux »

tombert wrote: post #347
gymbeaux wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling addict?

Microsoft overhired like crazy in 2021 and 2022, many of which they had to fire later. This is a bad allocation of funds, but presumably this was done because of the off chance that the market would keep growing and the work for these people would follow. When you do high-risk things with the express purpose of short-term gains, that's basically just gambling.

Ah. I’d add he’s “gambling with other people’s money”, which is the most colloquially-accepted form of gambling.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#590

Post by hajile »

bdavisx wrote: post #164
nforgerit wrote: post #43

Earlier 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 Personally I feel that the "rest of society" is getting way too little money vs. us getting way too much (opinion based on the fact that profits/productivity have outgrown salaries for too long).

There's a guy in a massive yacht who won't let anyone on board. You're in a one-man lifeboat. But you say you're simply too well off compared to the people swimming in the water.
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