Microsoft to Cut 9k Workers in Second Wave of Major Layoffs • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by bitwize » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

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

The dream of the Kinect lives on in the Nex Playground... the Mattel HyperScan of the 2020s.

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

#72

Post by trod1234 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

heathrow83829 wrote: post #61

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…

a company doesn't keep you because you performed well. they keep an employee because they need them to be more profitable, nothing more, nothing less.

In fairness they aren't a real company anymore, they are more like state apparatus/granted monopoly.

The profitability they embraced was derived from surveillance capitalism which comes from a money-printer seeing as the government is the one paying for it.

It was short-term up-front profit, followed by what inevitably comes after where they pay it back and more. They are laying people off because they wanted that short term profit more than they wanted to do business. There is a potential that they may chase this having the same dynamics as deflation, given that free money is largely no longer available suddenly (which pops the bubble).

The people making those decisions knew the laws and countries would catch up to them eventually but they still did it.

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

#73

Post by trollied » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

pseudosavant wrote: post #36

Microsoft's most recent quarterly numbers, for those interested: - Revenue was $69.6 billion and increased 12% - Operating income was $31.7 billion and increased 17% (up 16% in constant currency) - Net income was $24.1 billion and increased 10% How can you justify needing layoffs when you made $24B in net income on $70B in revenue?? I guess $24B and a 10% YoY increase is almost failing?

The answer is shareholders.

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

#74

Post by stego-tech » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

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…

> Thinking about the middle class in the previous generation, it was unions that effectively ensured a labor job meant a secure future. I wonder if that's the solution (again).

It is, and they are. It’s why Reagan fired ATC strikers and blackballed them. It’s why private enterprise stockpiled machine guns and chemical weapons against strikers back in the Gilded Age. It’s why companies will spend billions to block Unions rather than just give workers the few million or so more they need over a decade to just maintain a standard of living. It’s why they’ll close down stores, warehouses, offshore jobs and outsource to contractors to penalize Unions.

Unions are a direct response to the inequality of Capital allocation and distribution.

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

#75

Post by heathrow83829 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

CommenterPerson wrote: post #66

heathrow83829 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is Milton Freidman hype and brainwashing. A company profiting in a society has a responsibility towards that society. In Germany, they accomplish this by having one union representative on the board. Profit at any cost leads to a society where workers are paid just enough to prevent starvation so that there are workers.

I agree that companies who are monopolies (especially government granted monopolies) have a responsibility towards society. But this does not apply to companies that need to compete to exist. For example, if a restaraunt or airlines (highly competitive industry), did anything to reduce their competitiveness they would instantly loose marketshare. that doesn't work.

which one is Microsoft?

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

#76

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #45

amendegree wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to hate on immigrants… but shouldn’t H1B’s be the first on the chopping block of layoffs? Hard to imagine all those H1Bs are so unique that others already employed can’t replace them.

So you are hating on immigrants…

It's not quite that reductive.

If the point of the program is A, and you think it's being used as B, it's fair to ask if the point of the program is really A or if it's actually B.

Just pointing that out or asking the question does not mean you "hate immigrants".

You might! But I don't think it's guaranteed.

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

#78

Post by eastbound » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

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…

Did the company crash? In other words, was it a sustainable way of working, or was it a way that did not only end up removing the jobs of those who would have been fired, but also those who wouldn’t have been, destroying more jobs than it saved by reassigning people?

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

#79

Post by wingspar » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #74

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…

> Thinking about the middle class in the previous generation, it was unions that effectively ensured a labor job meant a secure future. I wonder if that's the solution (again). It is, and they are. It’s why Reagan fired ATC strikers and blackballed them. It’s why private enterprise stockpiled machine guns and chemical weapons against strikers back in the Gilded Age. It’s why companies will spend billions to block Uni…

Wasn’t the PATCO ATC strike illegal?

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

#80

Post by trod1234 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #58

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 th…

That is one of the issues, yes.

The main issue though is one of demographics.

Like Japan, we have insufficient young people to do the jobs and produce what's needed to support the old.

Worse, the old have utilized money printing and their privileged position to enrich themselves, and in the process it is tearing the country apart, and through economic manipulation force conscripting the young at suppressed wages to pay their debts off (i.e. social security).

Thomas Paine would have a lot of similar things to say if he were alive today, specifically about dead men ruling.

The economics given such lopsided movement cause chaotic disruption and deflate and are unsustainable.

You are wrong insofar as they'll be earning a 10th of the salary. That may happen upfront, but in terms of purchasing power it will reach parity much more quickly given the macro monetary dynamics going on.

When reading history, I could never imagine how bad it would need to get to make a multi-generational citizen abandon their home country and immigrate elsewhere.

I have my answer today. They do so when there is no reasonable path to a survivable future.

There are times where a reasonable person can see and know everything will burn, because there is nothing that can stop it, and the only thing you can do is remove yourself and your family from the path of that burn.