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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

#321

Post by philsnow »

vgharl wrote: post #229
madengr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger in terms of inflated stock prices, but not by head count. Lenovo has taken the Thinkpad line down the toilet, not that IBM wouldn't have.

> Lenovo has taken the Thinkpad line down the toilet I think you're overstating things tremendously here. ThinkPad is alive, and from the reviews I've seen, doing well. http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/28/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon... . Many buyouts end with entire products being canned. I still have an IBM ThinkPad. They were good quality back then, but I really think the standard-bearer today is MacBook.

I don't think madengr is saying that the thinkpad line is not successful. Rather, I bet he means that the modern thinkpads do not fit in with the "thinkpad spirit".

New thinkpads are just like every other manufacturer's laptops, even the X line.

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

#322

Post by jjindev »

LunaSea wrote: post #254
jjindev wrote: post #240

You know, companies with the size and wealth of MS sometimes employ people just to have them NOT innovating elsewhere. Consider 18K smart people freed of that as the bright side.

"bright"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M

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

#323

Post by mahyarm »

taurath wrote: post #305
incision wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. 'Cisco figured out that mergers between similar sized companies rarely work, as there are frequently struggles about which team will control the combined entity.' I recall asking people there about why they didn't acquire certain companies that I thought would make a lot of sense from a technical / product perspective. The typical answer was right in line with that quote - that Cisco stays away bigger co…

So, we should let the comcast/time warner cable deal go through because there's a good chance they'll implode?

I would say they're already imploded and will become an even worse oligopoly. One of the companies will come on top in that struggle.

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

#324

Post by [deleted] »

maccard wrote: post #86
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

So, how do you tell a workforce of X people that 18000 jobs are going to be cut?

[deleted]

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

#325

Post by meowface »

maccard wrote: post #86
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

So, how do you tell a workforce of X people that 18000 jobs are going to be cut?

Sugarcoating layoffs is one thing, and is something just about anyone would do. But sugarcoating it to such a ridiculous extent, while not really saying anything at all, is ridiculous.

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

#326

Post by rondon2 »

72deluxe wrote: post #198
rondon2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can become illogical when faced with emotional scenarios. "If I loose my job my family/friends will think that I'm a failure". I was at IBM during a similar situations and it was people that were in the top 40%-20% that were the most worried.

Weren't they more worried about not being able to support their family instead of their "image" in the eyes of their family?

Assuming their spouses' incomes wouldn't support their family, I would think so

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

#327

Post by thinkling »

IBM wrote: post #304
discordance wrote: post #123

Some context Microsoft head count: 127k Apple head count: 80k Google head count: 50k Facebook head count: 7k

Apple has 50,250 employees in the US but 26k of them are in retail. Apple is very small for its market cap. https://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/

OTOH, Apple has how many indirect employees in China? 100,000+?

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

#328

Post by Swannie »

rmk wrote: post #308
incision wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. 'Cisco figured out that mergers between similar sized companies rarely work, as there are frequently struggles about which team will control the combined entity.' I recall asking people there about why they didn't acquire certain companies that I thought would make a lot of sense from a technical / product perspective. The typical answer was right in line with that quote - that Cisco stays away bigger co…

That's not really true. They bought SourceFire last year for a few billion.

SourceFire is a really small company by comparison to Cisco.

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

#329

Post by dsuth »

untog wrote: post #50
bshimmin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just typical big-company-CEO babble, which I think they must teach you when you do an MBA. (And yes, Satya Nadella has an MBA.)

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.

It's not MBAs per se that get negative attention. It's MBAs with no technical background in the companies they manage, who sound (and act) hopelessly inept(ly), all the while ignoring advice from the technical people inside the business.

One of the most obvious indicators of this is people who retreat behind the bulshit bingo, which is why it is so rightfully disparaged. Seriously, 'synthesized'?? That word doesn't mean what he thinks it does, unless he literally made up their strategic direction on the spot, in that email.

CEOs and other leaders need to consider their audience. Anyone who casts a company-wide memo to a technical audience in such terms comes off as hopelessly out-of-touch, and deserving of scorn.

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

#330

Post by EGreg »

hnnewguy wrote: post #284
EGreg wrote: post #83

This struck me: the layoffs are motivated by two outcomes, one of which is "work simplification". Automation eliminates jobs, I've said this for a while.

> Automation eliminates jobs Automation moves jobs around, it doesn't eliminate them.

For that to happen, at least as many jobs would be created every time something would be automated. Where is the proof?
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