4 ms·

I am failing to see a point in this post. Would it have killed him to write: Microsoft should lay off 50,000 employees because...[his point]. The closest he

I am failing to see a point in this post. Would it have killed him to write: Microsoft should lay off 50,000 employees because...[his point]. The closest he comes is this: Instead of 5000 positions, the company should drop 50,000. It should decide what businesses it is in and close or sell the rest. It should be a lot better than it is at running its true core – the muscle that’s been hiding beneath all that fat. But that omits a why.

tptacek 18y ago
I'm not sure you read the whole article; it's mostly about how Microsoft is overstaffed, and that if you conservatively assume a 10 year average tenure for FTEs at Microsoft, they're losing a multiple of their layoff size every year just in turnover.
- DenisM 18y ago
  Probably not in this economy though.
- JoelSutherland 18y ago
  I did read the whole article. The point you just made was the same as his, laying off 5,000 is meaningless. I agree, but that is not the same as a reason why Microsoft should lay off 50,000 which was my complaint.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    He's saying they should lay off 50,000 people because that would still leave them with one of the largest staffs of any company in the industry, but would shed the large amount of dead wood he repeatedly alleges remains inside of Microsoft.
- mlinsey 18y ago
  That answers the question of "How can Microsoft get by with so many more layoffs" but not the question of why it would be a good idea. Specifically, the author identifies Microsoft's real long-term problem as the growing irrelevance of the PC and MS' inability to control the various markets that are supplanting it. How getting rid of half of the employees in the company would fix that problem; I'm not sure.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    One inference I made easily from the article: if most of what Microsoft is doing is increasingly irrelevant, then they may be heavily staffing projects that are not strategically valuable.

tptacek 18y ago

I'm not sure you read the whole article; it's mostly about how Microsoft is overstaffed, and that if you conservatively assume a 10 year average tenure for FTEs at Microsoft, they're losing a multiple of their layoff size every year just in turnover.

DenisM 18y ago
Probably not in this economy though.
JoelSutherland 18y ago
I did read the whole article. The point you just made was the same as his, laying off 5,000 is meaningless. I agree, but that is not the same as a reason why Microsoft should lay off 50,000 which was my complaint.
- tptacek 18y ago
  He's saying they should lay off 50,000 people because that would still leave them with one of the largest staffs of any company in the industry, but would shed the large amount of dead wood he repeatedly alleges remains inside of Microsoft.
mlinsey 18y ago
That answers the question of "How can Microsoft get by with so many more layoffs" but not the question of why it would be a good idea. Specifically, the author identifies Microsoft's real long-term problem as the growing irrelevance of the PC and MS' inability to control the various markets that are supplanting it. How getting rid of half of the employees in the company would fix that problem; I'm not sure.
- tptacek 18y ago
  One inference I made easily from the article: if most of what Microsoft is doing is increasingly irrelevant, then they may be heavily staffing projects that are not strategically valuable.