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Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

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Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#71

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

chton wrote: post #4
sz4kerto wrote: post #2

MSFT pre-market at $45 at the moment -- higher than anytime in the last decade. There are big expectations towards Nadella -- we need to see groundbreaking strategy changes to justify this. Exciting times.

I'm not sure how this fits into a big strategy change. It mostly seems like really eliminating redundancy, that's why most of the firings are in the Nokia department. They've recently acquired that, so there are bound to be lots of people there that do jobs that were already filled at Microsoft. That would be more than enough to justify it, at least to stockholders.

This is Mammoth Management - you stomp around looking big and hairy and making trumpeting noises, and then you become extinct.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#73

Post by shaydoc »

whorleater wrote: post #58
shaydoc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does laying off 18,000 people make you more "agile" ? Products that sell make you more "agile"... Its more a case of, we bought Nokia for their market, but we don't need their staff!

Well the Nokia acquisition would've definitely lead to some cross over and duplication in roles, so this seems like a logical move.

I am glad your conscience is clear on this. 18,000 people is a almost 15% of their overall workforce.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#74

Post by Tloewald »

bshimmin wrote: post #26
meowface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugarcoating mass layoffs with "evolve", "culture", "synthesized", "strategic direction"...

And no fewer than three "synergies" in there. Impressive.

"Synergy" is code for we have multiple people/teams doing identical things.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#75

Post by pxlpshr »

frou_dh wrote: post #5

Subject: Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture Body: Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction ... Christ.

Instead of writing "Christ", you should consider posting an email as if you were the one newly responsible for a $364B company and a reduction in 18,000 jobs.

I'd be curious to see other people's management style from their armchair.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#76

Post by kasey_junk »

blumkvist wrote: post #57
mavdi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. None of the words in his company wide email meant 18000 job cuts to me. Just a neutral line of babble in that email. Terrible leadership to start with

It's a GREAT email. Firing 18000 people is a much more complicated process than you can imagine and requires very delicate maneuvering in your communication. He has to craft his message with 18,000 different people and their possible interpretation of every word he writes.

Actually it has to talk to all ~100K of the employees. The 18K are obviously the most hard hit, but being at a place that is laying off, even if you still have a job, is stressful, hard, and not much fun. Keeping morale up during this process will be as hard/important as the actual layoffs (at least from a management point of view, not from an impact on lives basis).

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#78

Post by shubb »

sz4kerto wrote: post #12
frou_dh wrote: post #5

Subject: Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture Body: Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction ... Christ.

When you fire that many people, then this is the tone you use, unfortunately. It's not specific (so people won't be able to argue that they're really needed, etc.), it does not have any negative statements (no blame on people who're let go), it not personal (Nadella cannot and should not express any strong positive or negative personal feelings about the event). It can be a disgusting read, but everybody does that in…

Maybe they can't write it in a personal way because as long as they treat it as a technical process, they don't feel responsible.

Even CEOs need to feel like a cog in a machine sometimes...

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#79

Post by vasilipupkin »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #60
untog wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can HN lay off the MBA hate? It's getting really old. It's abundantly clear that no-one even knows what an MBA is.

You should write a post on this, I'd be interested to hear the MBA's perspective. Like the OP, I'm jaded towards MBAs due to my personal experience, but I recognize that's limited experience. I'm genuinely interested in the benefits a company gets from hiring an MBA, especially an early to mid-stage start-up company.

Choosing among various projects to pursue at a large company requires understanding of market trends, financial projections and assumptions behind them, as well as various human resource management issues. Clearly, a very smart person could pick that up on their own - but you can also study from a body of knowledge of how to do this effectively. In some ways, picking up CS is much easier on your own than knowledge you get from getting an MBA
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