151–160 of 251 posts
Raise your hand if you saw that coming when Android and Apple beat Microsoft to the punch in the global mobile market, and then kicked them a few times while they were down, and then laughed about it.
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Honest question as a developer looking eventually to move to the Valley in a year or so: is it really that hard to find good people? Is software development really that hard? I taught myself 99% of what I know and found it to be pretty easy, and currently do iOS dev work. Just wondering.
There's enormous demand for good people globally. The price at which demand meets supply is pretty nice for employees these days.
I guess this means between 7000-9000 layoffs based on the crude calculation 600M/(60,000 ~ 75,000)~ approximately
If the goal is 600MM / year in savings, your denominator is off by quite a bit. Fully loaded cost of an employee is significantly higher than 60-75K. Try 3-4x that amount.
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Competent people need to know the political basics, it's like defensive driving. http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-... http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...
I'm sorry but the first one was 20 minutes of "the world is not fair. Some people think its fair but it's not" repeated for 20 minutes. The second one was "You need to observe people's actions and understand why they do things" repeated for 20 minutes. Those are both very helpful points but I think people would be better served with some advice or techniques. For example: Discuss your plans with each person one by on…
One needs to understand offense in order to play defense. Here are some books with timeless techniques for those with ethical intentions:
1) Herb Cohen, You can Negotiate Anything (general)
2) Chris Malburg, How to Fire Your Boss (labor)
3) Robert P. Smith, Riches Among the Ruins (sales)
Re: big meetings. Herb Cohen points out that most meetings are the end of the negotiation, not the beginning :)
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if you're having trouble hiring people at the market rates, you need to revisit your assumptions (at minimum, the one about paying market rates)
If they have people regularly turning down offers, then yes, it's likely explained by compensation. If they can't get talented people to apply in the first place, then there are countless other reasons that could be at play.
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Well, what if you are in another country working for a company (say Microsoft) on a visa, even though you are American. > The H1B is fundamentally broken and I'm amazed that so many people put up with it. Credit to the US for being such a desirable destination, I guess. There are plenty of countries with more broken visa policies (I've lived here for almost 8 years and still don't qualify for permanent residency).
Where is "here"? :)
Any company that has been around for as long as Microsoft, has a huge amount of dead weight in its mid-level management. I mean people whose main skill is mastery of the internal political process. Lest people think I'm singling out Microsoft specifically, this same problem is present at Google as well, but is less of a problem because Google has not been around long enough to pick up the same amount of dead weight p…
In the last layoffs, many of the people who were let go were back working for Microsoft again in a year or so (often as full-time employees, more often as contractors). I believe that Microsoft has more contractors than it does employees. That is just crazy. Also, it's nearly impossible to fire even the most grossly incompetent people. One person I worked with was a utter flatline and doing negative work (very bad Q/…
No, that's smart business if you can do it. You basically remove the burden of tax-minimization and continuity of employment for these people from the corporation. Overall cost might be slightly higher in cashflow terms, but it removes a lot of risk and liabilities.
From a worker-rights perspective it's terrible behaviour (back to the XIX century, choo-choo!), but it can be a very good strategy for a company.
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Would you recommend a reference on Semco's approach?
The books by Ricardo Semler? "Maveric" and the "The Seven Day Weekend". Both worth reading, imho. Even if you won't be able to apply the same principles they can serve as a good eye-opener for the many things we take for granted.
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Why can't it be good news? And good news to whom? To me, who cares about this company, this is good news because I think that MS needs to get much more nimble. I'm saying this as someone who can receive very bad news tomorrow.
To quote, perhaps inaccurately, Louis CK: "Divorce is always good news. It would be terrible if there was a couple who as happy and in love, and they had this perfect life, and then they got divorced? Oh that would be horrible! But that has happened exactly zero times."
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Honest question as a developer looking eventually to move to the Valley in a year or so: is it really that hard to find good people? Is software development really that hard? I taught myself 99% of what I know and found it to be pretty easy, and currently do iOS dev work. Just wondering.
There's enormous demand for good people globally. The price at which demand meets supply is pretty nice for employees these days.