3 ms·
Extremely unlikely. $20 billion in cash + equivalents on hand, 40% operating margins -- they don't need to do layoffs right now, and they'll benefit much more i
by byrneseyeview 18y ago
Extremely unlikely. $20 billion in cash + equivalents on hand, 40% operating margins -- they don't need to do layoffs right now, and they'll benefit much more if they ramp up hiring instead.
- wheels 18y agoIt might be house-cleaning. I think some companies are doing layoffs right now that don't really need to because it's one of the few times where you can get rid of a lot of dead wood and come out looking prudent rather than in trouble.
- inovica 18y agoI agree with your thoughts on this. Its always easier to layoff people and point to the economy
- byrneseyeview 18y agoThat is a good point, but I'm not sure. I have talked to a lot of Microsoft people in the past, and asked them a lot about Microsoft, and I would be extremely surprised if they had that much dead wood. Especially because as they get bigger, their demand for 90th percentile types rather than 99.99th percentile types grows.
- wheels 18y agoNah, you get lots of dead wood at any big company. Nature of the beast. The hiring practices are more like an initiation rite than a real quality indicator. Plus, 15% would be a pretty small amount of deadwood at a company that size. It may just be specialists hired for departments that don't exist anymore or people that stopped caring 5 years ago, but have been around so long that they can't be fired.
- potatolicious 18y agoFrom what I've heard from friends at MS, it seems their dead wood is in management - there's a culture of ass-covering and doing the bare minimum on many teams, which goes a long way to explain why MS rarely does anything revolutionary. Great ideas that are risky don't make it very far in that company.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- netcan 18y agoExactly 10%-20% isn't that much. An company should be able to fire the worst at the bottom, hire new people to take their place distributed evenly across the spectrum & come out net ahead.
- pmorici 18y agoA sure sign of dead wood is when people deny any dead wood exists.
- stcredzero 18y agoThat's just as bad as "never eat on an empty stomach."
- byrneseyeview 18y agoI would be extremely surprised if they had that much dead wood. ... when people deny any dead wood exists.
- pmorici 18y agoThe implication of the comment is that the poster spoke with MSFT employees who said things like "everyone is really hard working", "The people I work with are so smart", "Everyone pulls their weight". That is to say denials are rarely blunt. None the less they are still denials. In a organization of any significant size these generalizations have near zero chance of being true.
- boris 18y agoThe question is whether Microsoft management can figure out who is dead wood. Based on their recent product fiascoes, I am not sure they can. It can also be that management itself is dead wood.
- known 18y agogood point.