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Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous

Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.

pydry 3y ago
I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.
- csa 3y ago
  It doesn’t take illegal back channel coordination to play follow the leader. All it takes is one major company to pull the trigger, then the rest will follow. The hiring market during covid was wonky in a way that favored applicants, and a lot of folks who got hired were under-qualified, overpaid, or both. This is just a natural reversion to a more balanced state across the industry.
  - darepublic 3y ago
    Same thing with the housing market. Emergent behavior based on everyone doing what is best for themselves
  - mirekrusin 3y ago
    It created playground for people secretly working multiple jobs for sure. Before it was unheard of. Now had to let go some for doing it, cancelled numerous applications and interviews once investigation revealed their scam (applying through fake names, creating multiple deceiving profiles with fake activity etc). It's frankly starts to be quite difficult to hire honest full-time remote programmers now.
  - jhp123 3y ago
    If all large tech employers play follow the leader then it's not natural reversion, it's a textbook example of tacit oligopoly coordination.
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      Or the pattern is due to a common cause between the high tech firms, and we know what that common cause is: they overhired 2020-2022.
      - jhp123 3y ago
        Come on. If Google broke ranks and started aggressively poaching people for GCP and going after market share, Amazon would realize in about 5 seconds that it hadn't "overhired" for absurdly-profitable AWS after all. These firms have colluded to drive down wages before (the "Techtopus" case), a fact that we know because they were stupid enough to put it in writing. This time there's no proof and may be no explicit agreement, but a tiger doesn't change their stripes.
        abhorrence 3y ago
        The way most of these companies are colluding now is by using third party firms that "aggregate industry salary information". So basically company X provides their data, pays some dollars, and get access to what other companies in their "peer set" are paying for different types of levels/experience. Reminds me a lot of the schemes companies will sometimes use to do bribes in other countries -- paying a third party consultancy who they had "no possible way of knowing that they were actually just bribing people".
      - oblio 3y ago
        Look at their revenues in 2019 and in 2023. Except for Failed Metaverse Inc, everyone else has grown revenue proportionally and profits decent enough.
        shagie 3y ago
        In 2019, Microsoft had about 150k people. Most recently, they have 221k. And while last year was potentially quite good, that isn't the projection. https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png Employees went up significantly: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+count%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+c... Revenue leveled off: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29 Profits are on a downward slope now: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+profits%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+profits%29 Yes, they're 50% greater than they were in 2019. The staffing is at about 1.5x what it was in 2019 too. So, crystal ball time - what will revenue be a year from now? Will the profit per employee be lower than it was in 2019? https://imgur.com/6QykALS https://imgur.com/6QykALS And if the answer is no, should Microsoft lay people off or hold off on salary increases?
  - pydry 3y ago
    Coordination is required to make sure that one company decide to "defect" and start offering pay rises to all the best people at Microsoft. At least, thats what the illegal agreement was about last time this happened (between Apple and Google).
  - fzeroracer 3y ago
    How exactly is it a 'natural reversion' when even high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?
    - csa 3y ago
      > high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation? If any “high-performing employee” feels like they are taking a “massive pay cut” merely due to inflation, then something is wrong. Either they were grossly underpaid to begin with (change jobs, it can be done if you’re that good and that low paid), they aren’t actually that good (so total comp package, including RSUs and refreshers, is relatively weak), or they have a warped perception of the value of money. If a dev is pulling in 300k+ (standard, especially the +, at places like MS), and the cost of eggs, rent, or restaurant food is something they actually notice and impacts their day-to-day life, then I wish them the best of luck — they will need it.
      - fzeroracer 3y ago
        A paycut is a paycut no matter how you try to spin it. If someone's earning 150k a year with 5% inflation and doesn't get a raise the next year matching inflation, they are quite literally taking a 5% pay cut in comparison to changing jobs which likely offers salaries starting at the post-inflation level. In this case it's worse because not only are their salaries not going up, but the things nominally used to get around raising salaries (bonuses, stock) is also not going up. You trying to spin it by saying 'well they're earning 300k+ a year anyways' is not helping your point when there are plenty of junior and mid-level engineers earning far below that which are going to be most impacted.
        csa 3y ago
        My thesis is that many of them, especially at places that grew a lot during covid like MS, were/are overpaid relative to their skill set / ability to add value. Cutting positions was one way to correct this. Freezing salaries is another. If any devs hired during covid think that their salary was totally justified and shouldn’t be cut directly or indirectly, then they are more likely than not delusional. It was a frothy hiring market, and the upward pressure on salaries across the board was not healthy for the overall tech ecology, imho (the smaller companies couldn’t afford competent devs). Note that I am actually an advocate of tech corps sharing more of the spoils with their employees, but not in the way that it happened during the pandemic. Reward competence selectively rather than randomly rewarding just being a warm butt in a seat during a hiring boom. I have no doubt that during this “pay freeze” at MS, the star performers will still be rewarded somehow.
  - scruple 3y ago
    Right. Wealth and power are concentrated and do not need to be coordinated. Their individual actions and self-interests organically merge to maintain the state of affairs that keeps them wealthy and in power.
    - pydry 3y ago
      They kind of do. If Facebook and Google suppress their wages and some other company poaches their best people the buying cartel could easily fall apart. OPEC suffered from exactly this problem quite early on. It only takes a few defectors of sufficient size.
      - gtirloni 3y ago
        Shareholders of those companies would demand they do the same.
      - dclowd9901 3y ago
        Ah yes, OPEC, that organization that is poor and enjoys no power whatsoever.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  Apple and Google settled an antitrust lawsuit a few years ago for colluding to suppress wages (by agreeing not to recruit employees from each other)[0]. The settlement was a tiny fraction of the amount of money they saved by entering the illegal agreement in the first place. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...
- somsak2 3y ago
  "You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  If history is any guide, probably more than zero, and surprisingly blatant and poorly-concealed. And I don't think anyone's even tried to suss out illegal market-manipulation schemes that are surely hatched at various seems-like-something-out-of-a-comic-book-but-is-actually-a-real-thing rich people secret societies and "retreats" and shit. It's wholly unbelievable that there's not a ton of that going on there, better-hidden than the ones that amount to one CEO emailing another with "let's illegally collude, LOL" (which, incredible as it seems, also happens, but at least sometimes gets caught).
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Just like us engineering workers have groups and forums where we share ideas so do ceo workers. They want to keep their bosses, the shareholders, happy and so they share ideas. Right now layoffs are so hot, and as ceos dont innovate much that’s the trend they follow. No need for illegal backchannels. Just a cool trend. I just hope that those layer off workers that are lucky and smart enough are working on replacements for the googles and microsoft out there because to be fair they are well past their expiry date.
  - eschaton 3y ago
    When you’re an executive of a publicly traded company, coordinating with other executives at publicly traded companies like this can be illegal. Executive management aren’t workers.
    - alex_lav 3y ago
      > When you’re an executive of a publicly traded company, coordinating with other executives at publicly traded companies like this can be illegal. It being illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Or even it doesn't happen a ton.
busterarm 3y ago
My company did it in 2020 (and only in 2020).
mc32 3y ago
Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  It might be better if you didn't over hire. I can't speak for MSFT. But a lot of tech companies definitely hired to banana town. Cutting would be better than freezing salaries.
  - mc32 3y ago
    Hiring gives someone experience they sought and presumably would not have had (else they might have kept put). So overhiring in some light does look bad, on the other hand it gives some people the necessary experience for their next step in their carrers.
    - echelon 3y ago
      > So overhiring in some light does look bad, on the other hand it gives some people the necessary experience for their next step in their carrers. Not if they were let go before their first year, which has been the case at a lot of tech companies recently. New hires, juniors especially, need a lot of time to onboard. Lessons in the first weeks and months of a new job will be more about company-specific tooling and minutiae, not engineering in the broader scope. Portable lessons come later, usually after you've found your legs.
  - afavour 3y ago
    > Cutting would be better than freezing salaries. Surely that depends on whether you're one of those getting cut or not.
  - geodel 3y ago
    Yes a lot of companies hired a lot more. A lot of money also got distributed in this process which otherwise wouldn't have. Laid off employees got some work experience out of it. Better than nothing. I don't get this stuck up argument again and again Why did they hire before? As if there is some really great answer that can reveal itself by repeatedly asking this question. > Cutting would be better than freezing salaries. Many would like same or lower salary than being laid off. Those who looking for higher salaries can move on just like they always have.
draw_down 3y ago
[dead]
remote_phone 3y ago
Google raises for most employees was between 0% and 1%
- bagacrap 3y ago
  This is inaccurate. However if your sample is only people who are on Blind complaining, I can see how your data might be skewed in that direction.
  - somsak2 3y ago
    What's your sample?
    - erhaetherth 3y ago
      I can offer my sample size of 1. It was 12.4%. L4. "Outstanding" rating.
      - remote_phone 3y ago
        70% were given SI rating. The increase for SI was between 0% and 1%.
        saagarjha 3y ago
        I know people with that rating who saw a much larger (10-20%) raise. I know others who got a raise in line with what you’ve said too. I don’t know the exact distribution but it’s definitely not “you get 0.5% if you’re SI”.
  - remote_phone 3y ago
    It is accurate.
    - UncleMeat 3y ago
      I’ve seen the merit lines. Not that many people are at MRP%s that would generate 0% raises for the bulk of SI performers.
letsdothisagain 3y ago
I mean, this is just MS copying everyone else. There is no "real" recession. It's basically a loosely coordinated capital strike to counteract post-pandemic wage growth. Jay will keep raising rates until those wages stop climbing, and companies are taking the hint. If anything MS is smarter for waiting for all of their competitors to cut first. As others pointed out, they have tons of cash and really don't have to cut at all, so they get a leg up on their competitors by waiting.
- oblio 3y ago
  The funky thing is... it's not a recession for them. All of their incomes are growing and their profits are reasonably steady, except for "I take full responsibility for the Metaverse" Meta. They don't really need to do this, they want to.

Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.

pydry 3y ago

I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

csa 3y ago
It doesn’t take illegal back channel coordination to play follow the leader. All it takes is one major company to pull the trigger, then the rest will follow. The hiring market during covid was wonky in a way that favored applicants, and a lot of folks who got hired were under-qualified, overpaid, or both. This is just a natural reversion to a more balanced state across the industry.
- darepublic 3y ago
  Same thing with the housing market. Emergent behavior based on everyone doing what is best for themselves
- mirekrusin 3y ago
  It created playground for people secretly working multiple jobs for sure. Before it was unheard of. Now had to let go some for doing it, cancelled numerous applications and interviews once investigation revealed their scam (applying through fake names, creating multiple deceiving profiles with fake activity etc). It's frankly starts to be quite difficult to hire honest full-time remote programmers now.
- jhp123 3y ago
  If all large tech employers play follow the leader then it's not natural reversion, it's a textbook example of tacit oligopoly coordination.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Or the pattern is due to a common cause between the high tech firms, and we know what that common cause is: they overhired 2020-2022.
    - jhp123 3y ago
      Come on. If Google broke ranks and started aggressively poaching people for GCP and going after market share, Amazon would realize in about 5 seconds that it hadn't "overhired" for absurdly-profitable AWS after all. These firms have colluded to drive down wages before (the "Techtopus" case), a fact that we know because they were stupid enough to put it in writing. This time there's no proof and may be no explicit agreement, but a tiger doesn't change their stripes.
      - abhorrence 3y ago
        The way most of these companies are colluding now is by using third party firms that "aggregate industry salary information". So basically company X provides their data, pays some dollars, and get access to what other companies in their "peer set" are paying for different types of levels/experience. Reminds me a lot of the schemes companies will sometimes use to do bribes in other countries -- paying a third party consultancy who they had "no possible way of knowing that they were actually just bribing people".
    - oblio 3y ago
      Look at their revenues in 2019 and in 2023. Except for Failed Metaverse Inc, everyone else has grown revenue proportionally and profits decent enough.
      - shagie 3y ago
        In 2019, Microsoft had about 150k people. Most recently, they have 221k. And while last year was potentially quite good, that isn't the projection. https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png Employees went up significantly: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+count%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+c... Revenue leveled off: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29 Profits are on a downward slope now: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+profits%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+profits%29 Yes, they're 50% greater than they were in 2019. The staffing is at about 1.5x what it was in 2019 too. So, crystal ball time - what will revenue be a year from now? Will the profit per employee be lower than it was in 2019? https://imgur.com/6QykALS https://imgur.com/6QykALS And if the answer is no, should Microsoft lay people off or hold off on salary increases?
- pydry 3y ago
  Coordination is required to make sure that one company decide to "defect" and start offering pay rises to all the best people at Microsoft. At least, thats what the illegal agreement was about last time this happened (between Apple and Google).
- fzeroracer 3y ago
  How exactly is it a 'natural reversion' when even high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?
  - csa 3y ago
    > high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation? If any “high-performing employee” feels like they are taking a “massive pay cut” merely due to inflation, then something is wrong. Either they were grossly underpaid to begin with (change jobs, it can be done if you’re that good and that low paid), they aren’t actually that good (so total comp package, including RSUs and refreshers, is relatively weak), or they have a warped perception of the value of money. If a dev is pulling in 300k+ (standard, especially the +, at places like MS), and the cost of eggs, rent, or restaurant food is something they actually notice and impacts their day-to-day life, then I wish them the best of luck — they will need it.
    - fzeroracer 3y ago
      A paycut is a paycut no matter how you try to spin it. If someone's earning 150k a year with 5% inflation and doesn't get a raise the next year matching inflation, they are quite literally taking a 5% pay cut in comparison to changing jobs which likely offers salaries starting at the post-inflation level. In this case it's worse because not only are their salaries not going up, but the things nominally used to get around raising salaries (bonuses, stock) is also not going up. You trying to spin it by saying 'well they're earning 300k+ a year anyways' is not helping your point when there are plenty of junior and mid-level engineers earning far below that which are going to be most impacted.
      - csa 3y ago
        My thesis is that many of them, especially at places that grew a lot during covid like MS, were/are overpaid relative to their skill set / ability to add value. Cutting positions was one way to correct this. Freezing salaries is another. If any devs hired during covid think that their salary was totally justified and shouldn’t be cut directly or indirectly, then they are more likely than not delusional. It was a frothy hiring market, and the upward pressure on salaries across the board was not healthy for the overall tech ecology, imho (the smaller companies couldn’t afford competent devs). Note that I am actually an advocate of tech corps sharing more of the spoils with their employees, but not in the way that it happened during the pandemic. Reward competence selectively rather than randomly rewarding just being a warm butt in a seat during a hiring boom. I have no doubt that during this “pay freeze” at MS, the star performers will still be rewarded somehow.
- scruple 3y ago
  Right. Wealth and power are concentrated and do not need to be coordinated. Their individual actions and self-interests organically merge to maintain the state of affairs that keeps them wealthy and in power.
  - pydry 3y ago
    They kind of do. If Facebook and Google suppress their wages and some other company poaches their best people the buying cartel could easily fall apart. OPEC suffered from exactly this problem quite early on. It only takes a few defectors of sufficient size.
    - gtirloni 3y ago
      Shareholders of those companies would demand they do the same.
    - dclowd9901 3y ago
      Ah yes, OPEC, that organization that is poor and enjoys no power whatsoever.
chimeracoder 3y ago
Apple and Google settled an antitrust lawsuit a few years ago for colluding to suppress wages (by agreeing not to recruit employees from each other)[0]. The settlement was a tiny fraction of the amount of money they saved by entering the illegal agreement in the first place. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...
somsak2 3y ago
"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
yamtaddle 3y ago
If history is any guide, probably more than zero, and surprisingly blatant and poorly-concealed. And I don't think anyone's even tried to suss out illegal market-manipulation schemes that are surely hatched at various seems-like-something-out-of-a-comic-book-but-is-actually-a-real-thing rich people secret societies and "retreats" and shit. It's wholly unbelievable that there's not a ton of that going on there, better-hidden than the ones that amount to one CEO emailing another with "let's illegally collude, LOL" (which, incredible as it seems, also happens, but at least sometimes gets caught).
gumballindie 3y ago
Just like us engineering workers have groups and forums where we share ideas so do ceo workers. They want to keep their bosses, the shareholders, happy and so they share ideas. Right now layoffs are so hot, and as ceos dont innovate much that’s the trend they follow. No need for illegal backchannels. Just a cool trend. I just hope that those layer off workers that are lucky and smart enough are working on replacements for the googles and microsoft out there because to be fair they are well past their expiry date.
- eschaton 3y ago
  When you’re an executive of a publicly traded company, coordinating with other executives at publicly traded companies like this can be illegal. Executive management aren’t workers.
  - alex_lav 3y ago
    > When you’re an executive of a publicly traded company, coordinating with other executives at publicly traded companies like this can be illegal. It being illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Or even it doesn't happen a ton.

busterarm 3y ago

My company did it in 2020 (and only in 2020).

mc32 3y ago

Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
It might be better if you didn't over hire. I can't speak for MSFT. But a lot of tech companies definitely hired to banana town. Cutting would be better than freezing salaries.
- mc32 3y ago
  Hiring gives someone experience they sought and presumably would not have had (else they might have kept put). So overhiring in some light does look bad, on the other hand it gives some people the necessary experience for their next step in their carrers.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > So overhiring in some light does look bad, on the other hand it gives some people the necessary experience for their next step in their carrers. Not if they were let go before their first year, which has been the case at a lot of tech companies recently. New hires, juniors especially, need a lot of time to onboard. Lessons in the first weeks and months of a new job will be more about company-specific tooling and minutiae, not engineering in the broader scope. Portable lessons come later, usually after you've found your legs.
- afavour 3y ago
  > Cutting would be better than freezing salaries. Surely that depends on whether you're one of those getting cut or not.
- geodel 3y ago
  Yes a lot of companies hired a lot more. A lot of money also got distributed in this process which otherwise wouldn't have. Laid off employees got some work experience out of it. Better than nothing. I don't get this stuck up argument again and again Why did they hire before? As if there is some really great answer that can reveal itself by repeatedly asking this question. > Cutting would be better than freezing salaries. Many would like same or lower salary than being laid off. Those who looking for higher salaries can move on just like they always have.

draw_down 3y ago

[dead]

remote_phone 3y ago

Google raises for most employees was between 0% and 1%

bagacrap 3y ago
This is inaccurate. However if your sample is only people who are on Blind complaining, I can see how your data might be skewed in that direction.
- somsak2 3y ago
  What's your sample?
  - erhaetherth 3y ago
    I can offer my sample size of 1. It was 12.4%. L4. "Outstanding" rating.
    - remote_phone 3y ago
      70% were given SI rating. The increase for SI was between 0% and 1%.
      - saagarjha 3y ago
        I know people with that rating who saw a much larger (10-20%) raise. I know others who got a raise in line with what you’ve said too. I don’t know the exact distribution but it’s definitely not “you get 0.5% if you’re SI”.
- remote_phone 3y ago
  It is accurate.
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    I’ve seen the merit lines. Not that many people are at MRP%s that would generate 0% raises for the bulk of SI performers.

letsdothisagain 3y ago

I mean, this is just MS copying everyone else. There is no "real" recession. It's basically a loosely coordinated capital strike to counteract post-pandemic wage growth. Jay will keep raising rates until those wages stop climbing, and companies are taking the hint. If anything MS is smarter for waiting for all of their competitors to cut first. As others pointed out, they have tons of cash and really don't have to cut at all, so they get a leg up on their competitors by waiting.

oblio 3y ago
The funky thing is... it's not a recession for them. All of their incomes are growing and their profits are reasonably steady, except for "I take full responsibility for the Metaverse" Meta. They don't really need to do this, they want to.