Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 215 posts

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#51

Post by RandallBrown »

amendegree wrote: post #32
tjpnz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Their pivot to a marketplace model where their games run everywhere is an admission that they lost the race to Sony. Don Mattrick has a lot to answer for. Microsoft was killing it during the seventh generation and he was able to burn everything down over a period of two days. Xbox never recovered after that.

The Kinect was super cool as a demo but totally failed to actually make compelling gameplay in the standard living room

I dunno, Dance Central was really fun.

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#52

Post by s1artibartfast »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #38
geodel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about stock price is in fact indication of layoffs being working not other way round. I don't think people are arguing against "job is just a paycheck" in last 5 years. In the same vein for company "employee is just a cost". Union may save job for few who have job but people who don't (and they are lot more and increasing) are not gonna get helped by any union.

> Union may save job for few who have job but people who don't (and they are lot more and increasing) are not gonna get helped by any union. Note that in some countries, unions extend to cover workers who are not even part of the union. Heard about this from some french friends: > Collective bargaining agreements (conventions collectives) may be negotiated between employers and labour unions covering a company or gro…

This is true on a workplace basis in the USA. Union contracts define terms for non-union workers.

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#53

Post by darth_avocado »

daxfohl wrote: post #22
runjake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Satya or somebody state in recent months that it was a tactic to get rid of low performers? I believe Meta is doing something similar. Edit: Allegedly not. https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-microsoft-c... "Nadella addressed the recent layoffs, clarifying that the decision was not based on individual job performance. “This is a structural change, not a reflection of how people were performing,” N…

Shifting focus is not narrowing focus. They should be able to shift employees accordingly too.

If you have a large sales team for products that are not selling, and you want to invest in building a brand new product, you are not going to be able to move the sales folks into R&D. If you end up building the new product, you may eventually need the sales team, but most businesses in the meantime would reduce the headcount in sales instead of retaining them. I’m not saying that not bad for employees, but shifting focus isn’t always about changing what employees work on.

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#54

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33
idkwhattocallme wrote: post #9

For the most part, I'm indifferent to layoffs. Companies over hire and then course correct. It's part of the game. But for MSFT, it rubs me the wrong way. In the past 5 years, their stock has soared (150% on stock and doubled in valuation). They are insanely profitable ($82B profit). They are diverse (no existential business risk). The fact that they are unceremoniously laying off 30K of the people that helped them g…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_unions I know, I know, "union bad." I guess people will say that until all that is left is a person to watch the Machine, and a dog to bite the person if they touch the Machine. Or all the jobs are offshored to the cheapest labor on the globe.

> until all that is left is a person to watch the Machine, and a dog to bite the person if they touch the Machine

Hey that's actually a great line. It might be even better than the original, where the person is there to feed the dog.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/01/30/future-factory/

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#55

Post by ffsm8 »

999900000999 wrote: post #11
mjr00 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI works as a smokescreen when doing product development layoffs, but you can't really use it for sales, which is still very human-to-human, or when canceling entire projects like they're doing in XBox Game Studios.

I knew this was coming when Microsoft brought Activision. As ex game industry I nearly started crying at the news. Mergers always lead to layoffs, games aren't doing great as they're not essential in an iffy economy. Microsoft is seeing the writing on the wall and cutting internal studios. It's much cheaper to just pay 3rd parties to release on Gamepass vs having to fund an entire games development. I don't think we…

> games aren't doing great as they're not essential in an iffy economy.

Historically, games have actually performed extremely well in economic downturns.

Likely because they're extremely cheap entertainment if you count $ per hour of entertainment, but that's just my view on it.

And gaming as a whole is doing great. The only part that's falling off a cliff is the woke garbage life service games AAA studios have been releasing for the last ~10 yrs or so.

Whenever the studios didn't make dumb political messaging the core of the game... And instead made a good gameplay loop first, they've generally succeeded pretty well. It takes skill to make a game centered around political messaging and have it be good, (e.g. spec ops the line, MGS, metaphor:refantazio ), and none of the woke garbage that flopped ever had anything even attempting to create a world in which this messaging made sense. So we're left with completely nonsensical catering to politics no average person cares about whatsoever.

I mean we've even got single dev games that got to the charts of steam (schedule I).

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#56

Post by heathrow83829 »

crmd wrote: post #35

I don’t remember when it became normalized for profitable companies to casually execute major layoffs. It used to be a “shameful” last resort that CEOs turned to as a last ditch effort to save a company facing bankruptcy. I suspect it’s related to the stock buyback safe harbor rule (Rule 10b-18.) Layoff announcements used to be a sign of a company in crisis, now the stock price often immediately rises, perhaps becaus…

well, as productivity per employee increases you need fewer of them. So lay offs can be seen as a sign of a healthy productivity increase.

FAANG total headcounts have been trending down for years now (2-3).

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#57

Post by dsr_ »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #49
idkwhattocallme wrote: post #9

For the most part, I'm indifferent to layoffs. Companies over hire and then course correct. It's part of the game. But for MSFT, it rubs me the wrong way. In the past 5 years, their stock has soared (150% on stock and doubled in valuation). They are insanely profitable ($82B profit). They are diverse (no existential business risk). The fact that they are unceremoniously laying off 30K of the people that helped them g…

the first responsibility of any company is profitability. they have no economic, moral or ethical obligation to keep employees (no matter how well they performed), if it doesn't help them be more profitable. this should not be news. I think "low performance" is typically just a scapegoat. the real reason is they simply don't need that many empolyees to maximize profitability.

Let me correct that for you:

corporations feel no moral or ethical obligation towards their employees.

Whether or not that should be the case -- and I think it should not be -- it is.

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#58

Post by wonderwonder »

idkwhattocallme wrote: post #9

For the most part, I'm indifferent to layoffs. Companies over hire and then course correct. It's part of the game. But for MSFT, it rubs me the wrong way. In the past 5 years, their stock has soared (150% on stock and doubled in valuation). They are insanely profitable ($82B profit). They are diverse (no existential business risk). The fact that they are unceremoniously laying off 30K of the people that helped them g…

The issue is they are laying off US workers and then importing Indian workers to replace them via 3rd party contractors. I saw a post on X today which essentially said "Ai will not replace your job, an Indian with Ai will replace your job" - this was posted by an Indian and he was completely right. Microsoft is actively laying off people with 150k salaries and replacing them with offshore workers earning a 10th of the salary.

At the same time our politicians appear to be looking everywhere for a solution to increasing US jobs except for right where the issue is. Everyone else sees it but our politicians are willfully blind.

Re: Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs

#60

Post by htrp »

crmd wrote: post #41

Earlier in my career I worked for a tech industry-famous CEO who is long retired. One of the most unconventional things he taught me was that “our highest obligation is to employees and their families. Second is to investors. Third is to the communities we operate in. Obviously don’t ever say this in a board meeting or investor conference”. And he meant it. When products got cancelled, people got reassigned. Terminat…

He retired before the business climate could move against him
Post reply on HN