this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
887 points (98.7% liked)

Technology

59669 readers
2742 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

2024 has seen two mass layoffs at Microsoft, with 1900 staff laid off in January, before a further 650 Xbox employees were shown the door in September.

Regardless, Microsoft's shares are up and the company's market value is now higher than $3tn, as it works to capitalise on the rise of AI.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 182 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 month ago (11 children)

That’s roughly 30k for every employee laid off

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago

Sounds like an easy sell to the board, then. It it's that much of a net positive in economics.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If they were software engineers, they saved $200,000+ per person laid off

That's how he makes dem big bux, by telling other people to fuck off

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

So the CEO gets less than half their salary for the year?

Sounds like a great deal for the company. Until, you know, the whole thing collapses because they laid off the workers who kept the whole thing running

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 month ago (13 children)

When I entered the work force in 2005, it was with a company that had never had a layoff in its thirty-year history.

Then, in 2009, they had their first layoff, and I learned later our CEO had taken an 80% pay raise that year.

Taxes aren't theft. Literally firing people and taking their salaries is theft.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Also that CEO has an eminently punchable face.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Headline confused "despite" and "due to"

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He made $12000 off each fired employee.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago

Per year. And lets not talk about his stock options and other benefits... Fucking disgusting.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago (11 children)

When was the last time you got a 63% raise?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

70% workload raise

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] interurbain1er 54 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

In case you missed it, in our broken model of civilization a CEO's only responsibility is to increase value for shareholders. Not to clients, not to employees, not to the biosphere.

Market cap increased, job's done successfully.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

A) 1971, Economist Milton Friedman explicitly told the world the "only social responsibility" for businesses is to increase shareholder value. The Business Roundtable heartily endorsed this view, setting the stage for the next half century of villains to gleefully enrich themselves without compunction.

B) 2019, Business Roundtable reversed their 50 year position to include that businesses should be beholden to all Stakeholders, not just shareholders.

But of course the damage has been done, and continues onward. To compound this, the FED's open-purse monetary policy for 14 YEARS ushered in the worst inflation in 40 years, while wages have stagnated for 4 decades, kicking off around the time Baby Boomers were birthing the first Millennial children.

These are just some of the reasons Millennials lay the bulk of culpability at the feet of Baby Boomers, who of course respond with something like: "Well, I don't remember that."

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month ago

Because of layoffs, not despite them.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The board doesn’t care about the number of people employed. They care about the current profitability and future profitability.

Of course that’s their job; to look after shareholder interests. And the money would move to a better investment if they didn’t.

It’s the whole system you need to change, if you seek change, not moan about an individual CEO.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That's why Mitbestimmungsgesetz can be goddamn fucking awesome.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Typical and most people in the US view CEO's as heroes. US income distribution is on the same level as fucking Russia.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (3 children)

As someone from fucking Russia, people with biggest income in your country are usually first businessmen, second - something else, while in Russia those would be cockroaches from MFA, PA and other thieves, plus a few oligarchs who at some point were among those cockroaches.

So it may not be as bad yet, but frankly yes, you are giving out vibes of going in the same direction.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Trickle down economics - when the 1% tinkle on the remainder.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Trickle down was a rebrand.

It used to be called "Horse and Sparrow economics."

Idea being: The horses eat buckets of whole grains. And the sparrows pick their meal from the horseshit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Never heard that. Regardless, i love it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

I think the author got confused, it's not despite off it's because of.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

Regulate monopolies. Eat the rich.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

CEO = SIC: Shareholder in Chief

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

They should be paying 90% tax over 1 million.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

Well, yeah. How do you think they could afford Nadella's pay raise?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

His salary increase must be inversely proportional to the quality increase in Windows 11.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

I would like to propose some changes to that title:

Microsoft CEO's pay rises 63% to $79m, ~~despite~~ [because of] devastating year for layoffs: 2550 ~~jobs lost~~ [employees were fired by their greedy CEO] in 2024 [because he wanted more money]

[–] independantiste 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The entire point of AI as it stands right now is to allow more of those layoffs. Anyone telling otherwise is a liar.

Also I hate how currently, AI is used to remove the fun parts of creating things at a computer. Take coding for example, I think I can speak for many people when I say that the fun part of their job, is not the planning or the meetings, it's the actual coding and stumbling upon a hard problem to solve. Now with AI you the human will only keep the boring parts of the job!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Don't overestimate LLMs, it can't code and never will be. It can create templates convincingly enough and do boilerplate parts that are nonsense only sometimes, but those aren't the fun parts of the coding process anyway. In my experience, LLM isn't helping at all and I spend more time fixing it's nonsense than I would do if I don't use it at all, so I don't

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Pretty standard issue corporate psychopath.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

fuck him not just for making those people's lives miserable, but for stamping down the fucking wages of everyone else in tech by flooding the fucking market

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Thank god, all these employees lost their jobs so Satya Nadella can pad out their already insanely high salary.

We don't want Satya to starve like the rest us of plebs!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

I just want one outlet to break the shit cycle and report it for what it is : CEO got big pay rises thanks to savings made by eliminating jobs.

That is simply the neutral truth.

It’s not some freakish occurance, not some overtime golden goal shit, this is how it works. It’s the norm.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

An old friend was one of the people who got laid off in January. Fuck MSFT.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

his payrise is equivalent to something like 3000 US workers minimum wage annual salaries

if my math is correct (which it probably isn't)

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Thinking of all the cool products this CEO has killed off. I would love to see this company split up so that maybe they could innovate again.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He's doing what the Board wants, stock price is up. If there was a worker advocate on the board, maybe things would be different.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›