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Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#201

Post by ryanisnan »

irrational wrote: post #174
pixl97 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commonly called the Dead Sea Effect. You evaporate out your water and you're just left with salt.

How does that analogy work? Traditionally salt is very valuable. It was even used as payment/money at times (worth your salt). You can preserve food with it. It gives food flavor (if you've ever accidentally omitted salt from baked goods, like bread and cookies, you know how terrible things taste without salt).

Have you ever been really, terribly thirsty, and just thought, "I could use some salt?"

No analogy is a perfect match, that's what makes it an analogy. The water here is the precious resource.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#202

Post by skinnymuch »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #192
skinnymuch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if a public company hasn’t done it? We know it’s possible. We need to make the world a better place not have the status quo.

You can't do it with a public company because you have a fiduciary obligation. You can't raise money from Shareholder A with the promise to never return the money. That's a donation. Not gonna be able to raise money like you can from VCs and IPOs.

Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers? I have always assumed this stuff is basically made up. It might be written somewhere, but no one is enforcing it. It appears to be greed and keeping the status quo.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#203

Post by Apocryphon »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #192
skinnymuch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if a public company hasn’t done it? We know it’s possible. We need to make the world a better place not have the status quo.

You can't do it with a public company because you have a fiduciary obligation. You can't raise money from Shareholder A with the promise to never return the money. That's a donation. Not gonna be able to raise money like you can from VCs and IPOs.

How many tech companies have never turned a profit? Uber didn’t until 2021. Investors sure didn’t care about fiduciary obligations built on profit when interest rates were low.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#204

Post by JackFr »

smugma wrote: post #180
JackFr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure here, but in my experience no backfill hires for voluntary leavers is a pretty good warning.

Other companies stopped backfilling a while ago but doesn't mean they plan on laying people off (and you can look at 2008-2010 for reference to see that some companies didn't backfill but didn't have layoffs). Not over-growing and then shrinking through attrition is one way to rightsize a company in tougher times.

Absolutely - but absent corporate communications saying "Everything is great" or "OMG we're doomed.", it's a very relevant data point.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#206

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

skinnymuch wrote: post #202
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't do it with a public company because you have a fiduciary obligation. You can't raise money from Shareholder A with the promise to never return the money. That's a donation. Not gonna be able to raise money like you can from VCs and IPOs.

Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers? I have always assumed this stuff is basically made up. It might be written somewhere, but no one is enforcing it. It appears to be greed and keeping the status quo.

> Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers?

Being nice to workers, and never returning money to shareholders because you're overpaying your workers are two entirely different things.

FAANG has treated their workers quite well for a 10+ years, and shareholders have not cared, because profits and growth have been enormous.

They could've treated their workers much better and paid them 2-3x as much money, though. But they didn't. Because they would've gotten sued by shareholders.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#207

Post by jstx1 »

skinnymuch wrote: post #148
jstx1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the current round of layoffs an admission that the "software will eat the world" scenario will not happen or an indication that it can be done with even fewer tech employees? Either statement is reading too much into it. It's a reaction to economic conditions and the state of the labor market.

Or it’s a reaction to others laying off and not rational at all.

That’s what I meant by state of the labor market.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#208

Post by sbarre »

Arcuru wrote: post #31
sbarre wrote: post #10

They're spreading it out over the full year. Interesting that they would announce it up front like this? What does this do to morale and retention?

It's not over the full year, it's before the end of March. It says "through the end of FY23 Q3". Microsoft's fiscal year ends at the end of June, so their "FY23 Q3" is the current quarter.

Ah got it, thank you for the clarification.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#209

Post by mynameisvlad »

kypro wrote: post #83
mynameisvlad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, Salesforce also did the same thing. Announced layoffs that would happen over the course of a year, with some effective immediately. It feels like it would demoralize workers; everyone was already on eggshells leading up to such an announcement and it would suck to continue working while stepping on eggshells for a full year, wondering if tomorrow is your day.

I've seen both. Imo announcing layoffs ahead of time is better because while demoralising it at least gives people time to prepare and a sense that the company cares enough about you to be honest with you and aid with a smooth transition to your next role. I worked for place which did several mass layoffs. The way they did it was by emailing everyone at end of day Thursday explain that everyone needed to be in the of…

Part of the severance is 60 days notice of any layoff, so nobody would be blindsided in that sense.

I also don’t see how it gives people time to say goodbye considering you still won’t know who is leaving until they’re laid off, which can happen anytime anyways.

Spreading it out does nothing but create more stress and pressure for both the people going and the people staying.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#210

Post by Apocryphon »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #206
skinnymuch wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers? I have always assumed this stuff is basically made up. It might be written somewhere, but no one is enforcing it. It appears to be greed and keeping the status quo.

> Have people gotten in trouble for breaking the fiduciary obligation by being nicer to workers? Has any one been in a serious chance for getting in trouble for being nicer to workers? Being nice to workers, and never returning money to shareholders because you're overpaying your workers are two entirely different things. FAANG has treated their workers quite well for a 10+ years, and shareholders have not cared, bec…

> They could've treated their workers much better and paid them 2-3x as much money, though. But they didn't. Because they would've gotten sued by shareholders.

Probably not. Google makes $1.6 million in revenue per employee, and $400k in profit per employee. Wages in tech for these money printing companies are more set by arbitrary norms than any real financial basis.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/217489/revenue-per-emplo...

https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Income-per-Employee.html

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