101–110 of 284 posts
Back during the great depression, Milton Hershey went to great lengths to not have to fire his employees. Those days are looooooong gone.
HP did this back in the 80s also, we were working 9 of 10 days to avoid layoffs
Is Microsoft laying off executives too? Or will this only affect the rank and file? IME, if the company does not let go of executives, they are just tagging along with their peer companies on the layoff train. If they do make cuts at the VP/SVP level then the company really does have margin/profitability issues.
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...
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It’s been said time and time again. During growth, you make big plans and you invest in growth. You hire people to build new things. Oh snap. Growth is gone. You cancel your lofty plans and you stick with things that are working. Anyone who was hired for grand plan things is a burden and let go. Sure. Some under performers too, but I don’t think this current wave in the cycle is the end of software eating the world.
When money is cheap it makes sense to invest in low ROI ideas. When monety stops being cheap it makes sense to stop.
MSFT manager of 25+ person team here with no actual heads up on this. The writing has been on the wall for months though from internal comms so this should come as a surprise to no one. No one on my team has any information about this beyond the Satya email, so this is either a "no news is good news" situation (assuming you don't actually want to be laid off), or a poorly executed process. I'm hoping for the former f…
I guess there are complexities with huge multinational companies, but that seems kind of designed to make people like your team worry.
MSFT manager of 25+ person team here with no actual heads up on this. The writing has been on the wall for months though from internal comms so this should come as a surprise to no one. No one on my team has any information about this beyond the Satya email, so this is either a "no news is good news" situation (assuming you don't actually want to be laid off), or a poorly executed process. I'm hoping for the former f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It echoes of Steve Ballmer. I hate it when head honchoes try and get cozy with you by signing off with their First Name only --way to take the name away from anyone else in the company with the same name. 99% of the people in a large company like that never met you and don't know you on a first-name basis.
It's an attempted mind fuck to disguise the true power dynamic. If they say "we're making cuts, you're done. Leave your laptop on your desk and clear off", it's clear what the power dynamic is. Instead they present themselves as your friend. Even if you don't believe it, social norms dictate that in general you act like you do. Like Zizek says, "fuck you, you're a boss, act like it!". Then you're unsure of what's hap…
There was a sentiment in an earlier discussion [0] that this is "a war on tech wages" but for years the argument was that tech will make many other jobs obsolete (which would justify wage growth for tech employees). Remember, e.g., the Jack Ma era and his proclamations that we should all get into arts because tech will take care of the rest? Is the current round of layoffs an admission that the "software will eat the…
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They could all take massive pay cuts to preserve jobs. They have agency and they have chosen to enrich their stock price at the expense of people’s lives and well being.
Contrary to popular belief, at a company the size of MSFT - the execs could drop all their wages to $0 - and it would not be able to save 5% of the workforce from getting fired. The execs get paid a lot - but there's not that many of them, and there's 200k people at MSFT making an average salary (with benefits) >$200k. That's >$40B per year. The execs don't take home >$2B per year. Satya made <$60M last year. There's…
This 10k layoff, at an average salary of 190,302, is about $2b a year. So yeah not quite - but for them to suffer no consequences is still pretty gross.
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Microsoft net income 2022: ~$70B. Why force pay cuts or fire workers when you have roughly $300k of net income per employee to work with?
Why make a profit when you can pay your employees >100% of your revenue and just go into debt instead? It's not how business works. You hire people if you need people, and you pay them the least you can get away with, so you maximize profits - because long ago, you raised money with the promise to the people you raised the money from that you would do this, and you have a Fiduciary obligation to do so...