6 ms·

Pretty impossible to respect a CEO that takes a 10% bump but cuts off raises for everyone else. Honestly, just disgusting.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
Does anyone still actually have much respect for executive levels of big corporations? All I ever see is more and more naked greed and talking down to employees as if we are idiots that cannot see through their BS. Like all of the return to office stuff. We all know it's not about "in-person collaboration", but that's the line they think we're most likely to swallow.
- tombert 3y ago
  I've always thought they were greedy, but one thing that these recent layoffs have really illuminated for me was how utterly stupid these executives are. I guess I had just assumed that Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai were smart guys...why else would they be in charge of these huge corporations? But then the layoffs happened, and they both gave a big song and dance about how they're "taking responsibility" (whatever the hell that actually means), and that these were "tough decisions" to fire tens of thousands of people. It shouldn't require a 10,000 IQ to think that maybe hiring thousands of more people than you actually need is a bad idea, and if they couldn't see shit like this coming, then what value are they actually bringing to company? Vague truisms and platitudes about how they regret having to uproot peoples' lives? ETA: Some of the responses might have proven me wrong. These executives might not actually be idiots, just sociopaths. My bad.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    > why else would they be in charge of these huge corporations? I think this is the real key. Why are these people in charge of these huge corporations? In a world with 8 billion people they cannot be uniquely qualified for those positions, so why them and why not someone else? Nowadays I always just assume they're someone's buddy.
    - tombert 3y ago
      Yep, I'm basically in the same boat. Satya Nadella has made it abundantly clear that he's a moron, or at the very least a gambling addict. Does it really make sense for him to be in charge of a company that is worth almost as much as the nominal GDP of Africa [1] [2]? [1] https://companiesmarketcap.com/microsoft/marketcap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/microsoft/marketcap/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa
      - gymbeaux 3y ago
        Gambling addict?
        tombert 3y ago
        Microsoft overhired like crazy in 2021 and 2022, many of which they had to fire later. This is a bad allocation of funds, but presumably this was done because of the off chance that the market would keep growing and the work for these people would follow. When you do high-risk things with the express purpose of short-term gains, that's basically just gambling.
        gymbeaux 3y ago
        Ah. I’d add he’s “gambling with other people’s money”, which is the most colloquially-accepted form of gambling.
  - zwaps 3y ago
    What makes you say it was a bad idea? Why do you think it didn't work out exactly as planned?
    - tombert 3y ago
      I mean, it feels almost self-evident that you shouldn't hire more people than you need; if you don't need them then that's not an efficient use of resources. Now, it's possible they hired all these people in anticipation of future needs, which is fair, but it doesn't take a hyper-genius to know that markets fluctuate, particularly after a global pandemic. So at this point, either Satya Nadella is so stupid that he didn't know that markets tend to fluctuate, or he's gambling with human lives.
      - anon291 3y ago
        > I mean, it feels almost self-evident that you shouldn't hire more people than you need; if you don't need them then that's not an efficient use of resources. The entire point of a low interest rate economy is that, if you have a bunch of cash, you need to put it into something other than a savings account in order to make anything of it. From that perspective, simply paying engineers to sit and twiddle their thumbs all day has the business advantage of preventing your competitors from moving any faster or to prevent your employees from forming future competitors. It's a complete win win for the companies.
        tombert 3y ago
        I suppose that’s fair. Maybe Satya isn’t a moron, and is just a sociopath who gambles with humans.
      - gerash 3y ago
        hind sight is 20/20. I'm not saying tech CEOs are psychopaths or anything. IMHO they are just incompetent and not worth the salary they receive which is often 500X the average employee. In fact they remind me of financial advisors who charge you regardless of whether they make you or lose you money and are all consistently worse than passive investment in the long run. That's how I feel about these overpaid CEOs. They are worth orders of magnitude less than they are paid
  - 8note 3y ago
    The money was better than free. Why wouldn't you hire a bunch of people?
  - anon291 3y ago
    > It shouldn't require a 10,000 IQ to think that maybe hiring thousands of more people than you actually need is a bad idea, and if they couldn't see shit like this coming, then what value are they actually bringing to company? Vague truisms and platitudes about how they regret having to uproot peoples' lives? In what world was it a bad idea for them to hire thousands of people and then fire them? Laying someone off saves tons of costs, and in the meantime, you prevent your competition from utilising those resources. Literally a win-win for them. I say this as someone laid off. I don't understand how this whole trope of 'lay offs are bad for the company that did the laying off' has taken over. It makes 100% of sense to hire and fire if your competitors are doing it, and you have the money. Microsoft is not suddenly going out of business here. That's why, as an employee, it's smart to work towards financial independence and just not quite give a whole lot of you know whats. Like when my former boss told me layoffs were expected, that was just a signal that I was going to have way more time to go skiing, which we did. The main reason so many employees feel like suckers is because they are not as ruthless as their ceos. I changed jobs during the pandemic with the express purpose of maximizing compensation. I made way too much for those years, and when I got laid off, I got free unemployment, free medical, and a free sabbatical. The only ones who were suckers were those who gave their companies loyalty and got laid off anyway. Stop doing that.
    - tombert 3y ago
      > In what world was it a bad idea for them to hire thousands of people and then fire them? I guess I made the mistake of believing them when they said that they “regret this decision”, and assuming a human level of empathy.
- gerash 3y ago
  The promo system I have seen in a FAANG company consistently selected for those who were 1.5X the average employee in terms of competency and 10X the average in terms of greed and shameless-ness. Put this next to the fact that high level executives are paid upwards of 100X the average employee.
deanCommie 3y ago
10 Million dollar bump 220,000 microsoft employees Assuming each was in line to get more than a 5$ raise (obviously), the bonus to the CEO MORE than offsets the cost saved to the employees. From a financial perspective, a bonus to the CEO makes perfect sense. Welcome to capitalism.
- tombert 3y ago
  Not really. If the CEO was in charge of the direction of the company, and that direction was so bad that they have to make major layoffs and cuts, then they shouldn't be rewarded for this. This isn't a fucking game. These are human lives. Microsoft laid off 10,000 humans [1] because their idiotic CEO decided it would be a really good idea to overhire like crazy in 2021 and 2022. This was the wrong decision and now they have to do massive layoffs and paycuts. Compulsively making high-risk decisions in the hope of short term rewards is such a common thing that we actually have a word for it: gambling. This gambling addict has uprooted 10,000 human beings' lives, and yet he still gets a $10,000,000 bonus. Get off your high horse. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/09/tech-industry-layoffs/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/09/tech-industry-layoffs/
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly with every point you make, except this: > This isn't a fucking game That is *exactly* what it is to these people, and I don't doubt that they make use of game theory to make some of these decisions. Until the rules of the game change, nothing will.
    - tombert 3y ago
      I mean, it's not a game, these idiots in charge are just treating it like one.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - musicale 3y ago
    If Microsoft limits changes to Windows and Office to security patches and bug fixes only for 2023, it could pay huge productivity dividends to the entire world.
djha-skin 3y ago
This is unfortunately Misjournalism. The article states that the CEO took a 10% raise last year. The article further states that that employees up and down the whole company were getting huge raises last year in an effort to increase the company's approval rating with its own employees. He got a huge raise last year because lots of people got a huge raise last year. Presumably then he won't get a raise this year along with the other employees as well.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  He’ll either get a raise or a performance bonus

bluefirebrand 3y ago

Does anyone still actually have much respect for executive levels of big corporations? All I ever see is more and more naked greed and talking down to employees as if we are idiots that cannot see through their BS. Like all of the return to office stuff. We all know it's not about "in-person collaboration", but that's the line they think we're most likely to swallow.

tombert 3y ago
I've always thought they were greedy, but one thing that these recent layoffs have really illuminated for me was how utterly stupid these executives are. I guess I had just assumed that Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai were smart guys...why else would they be in charge of these huge corporations? But then the layoffs happened, and they both gave a big song and dance about how they're "taking responsibility" (whatever the hell that actually means), and that these were "tough decisions" to fire tens of thousands of people. It shouldn't require a 10,000 IQ to think that maybe hiring thousands of more people than you actually need is a bad idea, and if they couldn't see shit like this coming, then what value are they actually bringing to company? Vague truisms and platitudes about how they regret having to uproot peoples' lives? ETA: Some of the responses might have proven me wrong. These executives might not actually be idiots, just sociopaths. My bad.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > why else would they be in charge of these huge corporations? I think this is the real key. Why are these people in charge of these huge corporations? In a world with 8 billion people they cannot be uniquely qualified for those positions, so why them and why not someone else? Nowadays I always just assume they're someone's buddy.
  - tombert 3y ago
    Yep, I'm basically in the same boat. Satya Nadella has made it abundantly clear that he's a moron, or at the very least a gambling addict. Does it really make sense for him to be in charge of a company that is worth almost as much as the nominal GDP of Africa [1] [2]? [1] https://companiesmarketcap.com/microsoft/marketcap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/microsoft/marketcap/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa
    - gymbeaux 3y ago
      Gambling addict?
      - tombert 3y ago
        Microsoft overhired like crazy in 2021 and 2022, many of which they had to fire later. This is a bad allocation of funds, but presumably this was done because of the off chance that the market would keep growing and the work for these people would follow. When you do high-risk things with the express purpose of short-term gains, that's basically just gambling.
        gymbeaux 3y ago
        Ah. I’d add he’s “gambling with other people’s money”, which is the most colloquially-accepted form of gambling.
- zwaps 3y ago
  What makes you say it was a bad idea? Why do you think it didn't work out exactly as planned?
  - tombert 3y ago
    I mean, it feels almost self-evident that you shouldn't hire more people than you need; if you don't need them then that's not an efficient use of resources. Now, it's possible they hired all these people in anticipation of future needs, which is fair, but it doesn't take a hyper-genius to know that markets fluctuate, particularly after a global pandemic. So at this point, either Satya Nadella is so stupid that he didn't know that markets tend to fluctuate, or he's gambling with human lives.
    - anon291 3y ago
      > I mean, it feels almost self-evident that you shouldn't hire more people than you need; if you don't need them then that's not an efficient use of resources. The entire point of a low interest rate economy is that, if you have a bunch of cash, you need to put it into something other than a savings account in order to make anything of it. From that perspective, simply paying engineers to sit and twiddle their thumbs all day has the business advantage of preventing your competitors from moving any faster or to prevent your employees from forming future competitors. It's a complete win win for the companies.
      - tombert 3y ago
        I suppose that’s fair. Maybe Satya isn’t a moron, and is just a sociopath who gambles with humans.
    - gerash 3y ago
      hind sight is 20/20. I'm not saying tech CEOs are psychopaths or anything. IMHO they are just incompetent and not worth the salary they receive which is often 500X the average employee. In fact they remind me of financial advisors who charge you regardless of whether they make you or lose you money and are all consistently worse than passive investment in the long run. That's how I feel about these overpaid CEOs. They are worth orders of magnitude less than they are paid
- 8note 3y ago
  The money was better than free. Why wouldn't you hire a bunch of people?
- anon291 3y ago
  > It shouldn't require a 10,000 IQ to think that maybe hiring thousands of more people than you actually need is a bad idea, and if they couldn't see shit like this coming, then what value are they actually bringing to company? Vague truisms and platitudes about how they regret having to uproot peoples' lives? In what world was it a bad idea for them to hire thousands of people and then fire them? Laying someone off saves tons of costs, and in the meantime, you prevent your competition from utilising those resources. Literally a win-win for them. I say this as someone laid off. I don't understand how this whole trope of 'lay offs are bad for the company that did the laying off' has taken over. It makes 100% of sense to hire and fire if your competitors are doing it, and you have the money. Microsoft is not suddenly going out of business here. That's why, as an employee, it's smart to work towards financial independence and just not quite give a whole lot of you know whats. Like when my former boss told me layoffs were expected, that was just a signal that I was going to have way more time to go skiing, which we did. The main reason so many employees feel like suckers is because they are not as ruthless as their ceos. I changed jobs during the pandemic with the express purpose of maximizing compensation. I made way too much for those years, and when I got laid off, I got free unemployment, free medical, and a free sabbatical. The only ones who were suckers were those who gave their companies loyalty and got laid off anyway. Stop doing that.
  - tombert 3y ago
    > In what world was it a bad idea for them to hire thousands of people and then fire them? I guess I made the mistake of believing them when they said that they “regret this decision”, and assuming a human level of empathy.
gerash 3y ago
The promo system I have seen in a FAANG company consistently selected for those who were 1.5X the average employee in terms of competency and 10X the average in terms of greed and shameless-ness. Put this next to the fact that high level executives are paid upwards of 100X the average employee.

deanCommie 3y ago

10 Million dollar bump 220,000 microsoft employees Assuming each was in line to get more than a 5$ raise (obviously), the bonus to the CEO MORE than offsets the cost saved to the employees. From a financial perspective, a bonus to the CEO makes perfect sense. Welcome to capitalism.

tombert 3y ago
Not really. If the CEO was in charge of the direction of the company, and that direction was so bad that they have to make major layoffs and cuts, then they shouldn't be rewarded for this. This isn't a fucking game. These are human lives. Microsoft laid off 10,000 humans [1] because their idiotic CEO decided it would be a really good idea to overhire like crazy in 2021 and 2022. This was the wrong decision and now they have to do massive layoffs and paycuts. Compulsively making high-risk decisions in the hope of short term rewards is such a common thing that we actually have a word for it: gambling. This gambling addict has uprooted 10,000 human beings' lives, and yet he still gets a $10,000,000 bonus. Get off your high horse. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/09/tech-industry-layoffs/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/09/tech-industry-layoffs/
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly with every point you make, except this: > This isn't a fucking game That is *exactly* what it is to these people, and I don't doubt that they make use of game theory to make some of these decisions. Until the rules of the game change, nothing will.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I mean, it's not a game, these idiots in charge are just treating it like one.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- musicale 3y ago
  If Microsoft limits changes to Windows and Office to security patches and bug fixes only for 2023, it could pay huge productivity dividends to the entire world.

djha-skin 3y ago

This is unfortunately Misjournalism. The article states that the CEO took a 10% raise last year. The article further states that that employees up and down the whole company were getting huge raises last year in an effort to increase the company's approval rating with its own employees. He got a huge raise last year because lots of people got a huge raise last year. Presumably then he won't get a raise this year along with the other employees as well.

gymbeaux 3y ago
He’ll either get a raise or a performance bonus