Terminator future confirmed.

MS added 40k jobs in 2022 alone, so this is really a pretty small correction. It's crazy how fast hiring has ramped up in tech during the pandemic.

Didn't they used to cull the bottom 10 percent every year under the stack rank system?

Not sure about Microsoft, but laying off the lowest performing 2-5% each year is a pretty standard practice in tech. It allows managers and HR to avoid the lengthy one at a time performance management and firing process which can easily take over a year while also giving folks 2-to-4 months severence so they have time to find a new job. With ~3% unemployment in tech and Microsoft on their resume, these folks will land on their feet.

It’s almost like the problem in tech is exactly this.

How so?

There's too many possibilities in what he said to assume what you mean. I'll say though, tech interviews and recruiting in general is broken. I say this as a senior engineer, that generally we are not selecting properly for appropriate skills.

Microsoft gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $138.619B, a 14.21% increase year-over-year.

ChatGPT will fill in for those employees. It did such a great job for CNET.

Correct. There’s not enough emphasis on business architecture. Layoffs are preventable.

Luckily they have "independent advisors" to help us out with all the bugs.

If anyone believes layoffs necessarily target "low performers," I have a bridge to sell.

If you've managed more than 20 people in your life, I'm gonna go ahead and guess at least one (5%) of them wasn't a good performer. That doesn't mean they're a bad person or that they don't deserve a job, it just means they're not doing well at the job they were hired for. Someone who is truly unable to do their job makes everyone's lives harder and they'd probably be better off doing something else in the long run.

I can also tell you from experience that loads of managers lack the grit required to fire even the most toxic employee. If you've ever worked with someone who you wished would just get fired, then maybe you'd have been better off if your company practiced occasional layoffs. If you've never worked with someone like that... are you hiring?

Edit: I think I misinterpreted your comment. Of course, layoffs don't only target low performers and typically have a lot more to do with corporate restructuring. Low performers just get bundled in to kill two birds with one stone.

Nadella using both hands to exaggerate the size of his dick

Of course layoffs naturally include low performers, but they also include employees across the board. The highest weighted metric is usually compensation relative to what's perceived as the "market" rate, which is also a sliding scale and open to interpretation.

This idea that these types of layoffs are simply "trimming the fat" just doesn't jibe with my first-hand experience, nor the second-hand experience learned through other employees. I've seen some of the best performers get axed while the sycophants and low performers get to stick around.

They used to, but they stopped doing this sometime around 2010ish

That was Amazon IIRC

They invest U$10B on Openai. That's the way how AI can take your job.

Stack ranking had disastrous long term effects because different divisions had different metrics. Before MS got rid of it there was an incentive for backstabbing politics and employees making sure they were in divisions with under-performers to shield themselves.

It's kryptonite to team based development.

People talk about how awesome Nadella has been for Microsoft, but having to layoff 10K people is a pretty epic failure in my view.

Microsoft still trying to buy in $10 billion worth on ChatGPT.

Fire your employees, and buy an AI to do their jobs... classy.

Which employees are these, the 1-st level chat support staff? ('tech' cf. 'tech sector')

Microsoft increased their workforce by 25% last year. Removing 5% this year would put them in line with their growth rate.

Keep in mind 5% attrition aint even remotely close to the national average for tech.

my LAST company had something like a 12% turnover rate... which is roughly average.

Considering the yearly average for tech is 11-13%... then yeah its probably targeting low performers given its performance review time for employees at companies whose fiscal match the calendar year.

5% is not even the expected national turnover rate for tech...

10k is a lot... unless you forget that literally means they have 200,000 employees and THATS why it seems like a lot.

5% at a more average size company is only 200-300 people. Every company I have worked for typically has 20-30 staff rollover a month.. sometimes more between firings, retirings, and leaving to a new job.

I still think it's really shitty management that you have to have "seasonal" firings like this. Those things should be done on a case-by-case basis with a proper review process.

This isn't typical, though. These are people who were hired under his "leadership" and are now being let go due to no fault of their own. In the grand scheme of things, sure, 10K may not be a lot, but I doubt that will give the families impacted by these layoffs much consolation. It's crazy that we've normalized mass layoffs and don't hold executives accountable for destroying people's lives.

because it’s toxic and counterproductive

A $1.2B restructuring charge means they get to take $1.2B that would have hit Adjusted EPS, the main # driving executive bonuses & stock rewards, and Wall Street headline #, and put it in non-recurring items thereby making their headline # and bonuses pop amidst slower revenue than planned.

Many don’t realize this. This was par for the course when I first as in mgmt at a mega cap (S&PGlobal). We saw there was risk of not hitting the 2x multiplier on eps for beating it, and we’d bludgeon teams to get the # where it needed to be.

This is why I really urge people to start their own thing if they can. It lets you take more control over your life and livelihood.

>These are people who were hired under his "leadership" and are now being let go due to no fault of their own.

Welcome to being an adult in a white collar job.

Maybe the bottom 2% but 10% is madness.