r/technology
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u/esporx
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Jan 21 '23
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Microsoft under fire for hosting private Sting concert for its execs in Davos the night before announcing mass layoffs Business
https://fortune.com/2023/01/20/microsoft-under-fire-hosting-private-sting-concert-execs-davos-night-before-announcing-mass-layoffs/5.2k
u/FuzzyPedal Jan 21 '23
"I take full responsibility for the decisions that led to our current situation...
Damn that concert was dope. Did you try the wagyu sliders?... What, we're still recording?
My thoughts are with you all in these difficult times."
- random exec getting full bonus
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u/maowai Jan 21 '23
Takes full responsibility, but no personal consequences or impact to him. In fact, the value of his stock jumped by millions because the stock market generally likes layoffs and the stock went up a few percent.
I’d like to see this fucker take a penalty for his bad decisions and the lives that he derailed.
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u/Dreviore Jan 21 '23
It's really funny that the stock market seems to celebrate layoffs, but the reality is if a public company is announcing layoffs they're preparing to either: Cushion themselves from an unprofitable quarter, or to continue increasing revenue by cutting costs.
Microsoft did recently acquire a bunch of brands and their teams, so it really shouldn't surprise people that while the economy is seeing a downward trend, they're cutting costs.
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u/theth1rdchild Jan 21 '23
It's because the stock market is quite literally a barometer for how rich people feel and rich people feel good about shitting on other people.
If you told them you figured out a way to cut the exact same amount of monthly expenditure through switching paper towel providers (unreasonable, but you get the idea) the stock price would barely budge.
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u/ghostboo77 Jan 21 '23
I mean for a company like Microsoft that is already incredibly profitable ($17 billion in profit per quarter), I think there is recognition that they don’t actually need to do layoffs and that it’s just a periodic trimming of the fat.
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u/darthfrankthetank Jan 21 '23
That shit pisses me off. They justify their ridiculous pay because they have to take all this "responsibility" and "pressure" of being in a leadership position.
But whenever shit goes wrong, or the law comes knocking, or there's bad PR aimed at them, they don't take responsibility for shit and are never held accountable.
There is no pressure or responsibility if there's no accountability when you fuck up.
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u/nygaff Jan 21 '23
Yo those Waygu sliders are a write off... give that guy a break man...
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u/kurotech Jan 21 '23
"Please understand we don't want to let you go we just don't have a choice"
The same exec in his private helicopter on his way to his yacht while sipping $1000 champagne
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u/RVA_RVA Jan 21 '23
Before the layoffs he was drinking $950 champagne, oh the horror!
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u/Time2kill Jan 21 '23
I don't think they drink "trash" $1000 bottles, or maybe they do and thus why the layoffs
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u/grrrrreat Jan 21 '23
Its interesting thinking how many of those ex employees probably have retirement plans that rely on Microsoft following shareholder expectations.
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u/beegro Jan 21 '23
You might be surprised to know it's how few. They'll have standard 401k and have stock in the company as part of their compensation but very few of those employees hold that stock long term as part of a larger retirement portfolio. Most sell to diversify or sell for cash that they use to live in expensive cities. Those that were fired were not the execs with huge share counts.
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u/BatmanBrandon Jan 21 '23
My company tried this a few years ago, I didn’t end well. We’re owned by Berkshire Hathaway, during our annual performance deposit they switched from just putting the money into our vanguard account to giving us Class B stock shares equivalent to what we “earned”. The company didn’t offer a 401k match, this deposit was the company’s contribution and usually around 10-15% if your annual salary, so a lot of people relied upon that deposit obviously.
I can’t remember the exact year, it was 2016 or 2017, we’d had a particularly strong year in my company, so we all looked forward to nice amounts. We get the report on Thursday, money is deposited Friday, and the annual Berkshire meeting is Saturday. Well that meeting didn’t give investors the answers they wanted and on Monday my company stock was worth about 78% of what it had been on Friday. Thankfully I’m young and only lost out on a few thousand, but the experiment only lasted that year before they allowed us to designate if we wanted company stock, or money market/mutual fund options.
This year finally for the first time since I’ve been here the company is just doing a 401k match and bigger bonuses. We’ll see how it does, but it was an interesting ride for a bit to see how the new (now current) regime tried to change up “company ownership” for the little guys.
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u/zeromussc Jan 21 '23
This is why I'm happy with my sometimes boring government job. I have a pension and it isn't a "cash" account, so like, I can't leave whatever's left to my kids when I die. But, for my own retirement, I know with the years I plan to put in, I won't have to worry about my retirement. And if I die too young, my wife gets an amount based on my salary and contributions until she dies, and my kids get something until they turn 18 if they don't do post secondary. As long as they're studying their stipend goes to the age of 25.
They also have the choice of a lump sum. But as long as they are in receipt of survivor benefits they also get to pay the retiree rate for the supplemental drug/dental/health plan.
With life insurance and the above, I'm pretty happy. Worth the trade off even if 10% mandatory deductions for my portion is not sitting in a cash account. As I get older I can save more into those kinds of cash accounts. But in the meantime I can focus on the kids education fund and paying mortgage, vs actively worrying about retirement. It's just not something I think about because it's there and it's inflation adjusted for life.
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u/intelminer Jan 21 '23
That's also why these companies usually have brutal share "vesting" periods (how long it takes before you can 'cash out' that stock)
The average tenure of an Amazon employee is 6 months
They hand out their shares at 5% after 1 year, 15% after 2 years, then the remaining 40% on years 3 and 4
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u/peepeedog Jan 21 '23
Amazon is the exception there. It’s not competitive in the tech labor market to have some ducked up beating schedule. Companies like Google start beating immediately.
Edit: I meant fucked up vesting schedule, but I am leaving the original text.
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u/tomroadrunner Jan 21 '23
"It's noon, Mark, time for your fucking beating, get your ass into my office, now!!!"
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u/Syntaire Jan 21 '23
Edit: I meant fucked up vesting schedule, but I am leaving the original text.
I mean, to be fair "beating schedule" is probably not wrong in Amazons case.
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u/bottomknifeprospect Jan 21 '23
Well, I work for a billion dollar tech company (not faang but close), and the salaries are very competitive, but the vesting is progressive. About 60% of my package is in year 3-4.
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u/mr_birkenblatt Jan 21 '23
I mean it makes sense. You don't want employees to jump ship after a year
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u/alpacagrenade Jan 21 '23
Amazon also front loads with tons of cash sign-on bonus vesting over the first two years (or used to, at least), which more than offset the lack of stock vest in the first two years. It all evens out.
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Jan 21 '23
Amazon for long time was considered a great gateway company in the industry. Not somewhere you wanted to be long term, but it looked great on a resume and would open up a lot of doors. They skated by on that reputation knowing only a handful of employees would actully vest more than a year before they moved on or were PIPed out.
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u/PhlabloPicasso Jan 21 '23
Whoever came up with their comp structure is brilliant, but part of the reason Amazon opens doors is because everyone knows it’s easy to convince people to leave. As a tech recruiter who has been at a few FAANG and late stage startups there’s a handful of these companies that give people exposure to scale and not much else. They’re not known for hiring or producing great engineers, but somebody there will be a lot happier and motivated to go elsewhere.
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u/motsu35 Jan 21 '23
Yeah, Microsoft is generally 25% each year for 4 years... I forget the exact vesting schedule, but I think it was a 1 year cliff and then quarterly vestments? Tbh the benefits at Microsoft are very advantageous for devs, they also do a 50% 401k match as well
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u/intelminer Jan 21 '23
It seems to be a high bar to clear to work there so I'd assume the benefits and pay are worth it. A recruiter there tried to hire me about a year ago to work as an engineer on Azure when I was working at AWS
Except they offered me half of what Amazon was paying me
And I'd be a contractor with no benefits either
Needless to say I turned down such an "enticing" offer
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u/Lightningstruckagain Jan 21 '23
Don't work at MS at a contractor. It is wild to see the classist system of the Blue Badges vs the Orange Badges.
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u/nashbrownies Jan 21 '23
Rise up fellow Orange badgers! Jk. Going Blue is an option for some of our department leads and no one is exactly jumping into that role.
At least I don't have a purple badge anymore lol.
But yes there is many, many jokes made about the class divide between FTE and Contractor
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u/Lightningstruckagain Jan 21 '23
I was a blue badge and one quarter tried to nominate an extremely helpful coworker for an MVP type award. Was told nope, contractors aren’t eligible. That’s just shitty. I later learned more of the “why” behind that, but it still sucked.
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u/EdOneillsBalls Jan 21 '23
Your offer from a recruiter for a contract gig is from the company doing the recruiting, NOT the company hiring for the work. That recruiter’s job is to offer you as little as possible as an hourly rate while pushing for as high as possible a rate for the customer (I.e. they pay you as little as possible and charge MS as much as possible.) Typically the customer is barred from even discussing these details with you.
What you had was a moron for a recruiter, or someone who just tries the shotgun approach and doesn’t give a shit.
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u/zeromussc Jan 21 '23
The recruiter was probably working on behalf of a consulting firm. They weren't head hunting for a "permanent" staff member
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u/Unlikely-Rock-9647 Jan 21 '23
As an Amazon engineer, though, you get a cash hiring bonus, paid out with every paycheck, to make up for the lack of vested stock in years 1 and 2. The next couple years are going to be interesting because Amazon’s internal calculations assume a growth rate of roughly 15% every year to keep comp in line with the sign-on total for employees. Historically that was a reasonable assumption on their part, but this year…. not so much.
Note: I have no idea how other corporate, non-engineer salaries/comp work, just how the engineering side does things. It’s totally possible other positions function similarly, I just don’t know about it.
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u/MyRightAsAnAmerican Jan 21 '23
Yep, career in tech. I’ve had stock options and RSUs.
There are timeline limitations on both, at least in my experience.
I prefer RSUs since its more like a bonus.
Regardless, all that I speak with diversify. Theres a big gray area regarding insider trading and my understanding is we are not supposed to sell RSUs or options and buy back (remember, time limited) stock even in a non-blackout period.
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u/KSRandom195 Jan 21 '23
Any competent financial advisor will tell you that you are not supposed to hold stock in the company you work for. You are supposed to diversify so that when something happens to your company and you lose your job you don’t also lose your financial nest egg.
Some folks in tech have profited wildly by not following this advice, but tech, specifically, has gotten pummeled in the past year or so. So many of them are regretting their decisions vs putting that money in the general market.
And to make it worse, house values in tech areas are partially propped up by the stock and high salaries of tech employees, so people that did not diversify can get a triple wammy of 1) losing job, 2) losing value in investment nest egg 3) losing value in house during a tech downturn.
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u/DeltaBurnt Jan 21 '23
Most people who work at large tech companies basically have no choice but to hold stock in the company they work for. After a certain point in fact, employees will often make a larger portion of their pay from RSUs rather than salary.
Some people will indeed continue to hold that stock after it's vested though. Either because they're too lazy, or they wanna ride the gains train (which recently derailed).
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u/bottomknifeprospect Jan 21 '23
It's really not. What is interesting is people defending billion dollar companies, when we all know they could be very very rich without taking tens of billions of dollars.
Even if everyone at microsoft was paid 300k, keeping those 12k would have still be a very profitable year.
They exploded their staff using covid benefits, and now that they doubled their money they need to pretend to tighten the belt.. we could tax profit reported to investors at 100% after a couple billion and these people will still build businesses, except now they'll be encouraged to specializes instead of monopolize.
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u/Wade_W_Wilson Jan 21 '23
Every single one of them. It’s partially why the “fat cat execs” get paid so much to make tough decisions.
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u/Tintenlampe Jan 21 '23
Tough decisions, lol. The personality types of many of these people means they either don't give a shit about these decisions or are actively gleeful about them.
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u/jcutta Jan 21 '23
My wife is director level at a tech company. She recently came to a realization that basically she's reached the highest level she can reach without totally selling her soul, and it's really fucking with her. She's a very good leader, people trip over each other to apply for positions in her organization, VPs constantly try and poach her to move into different departments.
Because of her position she is now in the room with GVPs and C-suite and sees the conversations and how they operate and it just kills the illusion of a "caring" company it's all smoke an mirrors. We've been a very profitable company for a long time, but it's never enough, and you can only grow so much from sales, you have to start cutting benefits and squeezing more work out of your people and ruining a culture that makes a company a good place to work.
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u/Wade_W_Wilson Jan 21 '23
“It’s never enough”
Well said.
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u/jcutta Jan 21 '23
I went to an event the CEO had when he took over the position after the OG CEO retired and it was like the LeBron Miami decision conference "we'll reach not just 4 billion not 5 not 6..." it really was ridiculous, not to mention he tried to act like he was just a middle class kid, but he holds degrees from 2 different ivy league schools and his first job outside of college was some director level position for a huge financial firm.
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u/skat_in_the_hat Jan 21 '23 edited Jan 21 '23
Just because you lost your job doesn't mean we dont get to see Celine Dion at the quarterly concert, right?
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u/walkslikeaduck08 Jan 21 '23
Won’t anyone think of the poor execs that had to settle for a vegan slider?? /s
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u/kaloPA Jan 21 '23
The only way a exec is eating a vegan slider is, if they get to hunt and kill the vegan the slider is going to be made out of beforehand.
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u/slash_asdf Jan 21 '23
Sorry Jim, we're going to have to let you go, those appetizers at the concert costed us like 3x your annual salary lmao
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u/Badtrainwreck Jan 21 '23
I hope little Timmy gets the surgery he needs this Christmas, but you’ll have to find healthcare somewhere else, here is a copy of JohnQ to give you some ideas
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u/Drugbird Jan 21 '23
As a European, it's always seemed insane that Americans tie their healthcare to their jobs.
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u/Aaod Jan 21 '23
It also fucks over small businesses and people trying to break off to start new competitors as well so it makes the market less competitive. It doesn't help healthcare costs have gotten so insane that now even mid size businesses are struggling to pay for it which is why some are trying to pass the costs on to employees when possible.
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u/CatWyld Jan 21 '23
Totally! We pay for our own private health care in Aus, which supplements Medicare. You could choose to salary sacrifice it with work, but if you leave, you just pay for it yourself anyway.
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u/TyBenschoter Jan 21 '23
Nobody designed that system on purpose. It naturally evolved this way. Then when there were wage controls in the US during WWII companies couldn't legally raise wages for workers so instead they offered them health insurance. Then the system was basically set in stone.
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u/Drugbird Jan 21 '23
Sure, that makes sense. But it also missed the point that your country had 70 years since then to fix/change this and never did.
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u/Holovoid Jan 21 '23
Because we aren't a country. We're eleven corporations in a trench coat, and having workers effectively chained to their jobs for fear of losing healthcare is extremely beneficial to those corporations
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u/EdOneillsBalls Jan 21 '23
That’s because it is. It’s a relic from a bygone era that came about purely as a means of companies trying to figure out ways to pay people more that wasn’t subject to income taxes because taxes at the time were much more aggressively progressive.
It got momentum and never went away, now there is no meaningful market for people to pay for insurance directly (meaning no market for competition, which means it’s more expensive than you can imagine), and no single payer system because insurance companies make so much money from group health insurance premiums.
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u/stereogirl78 Jan 21 '23 edited Jan 21 '23
You can actually buy healthcare in the marketplace now but it is still privatized. I work in a small practice and my employer stipends the staff in their check so they can do whatever they want in the marketplace which is cheaper and equally as effective than providing work-based coverage. A lot of kids we see are on Medicaid though which basically means they have to live below the poverty line to qualify.
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u/Kyanche Jan 21 '23
This works OK if you're young and single. My employer also used to do that! As we grew they switched to a fully employer paid high end plan that covered dependants.
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u/Arizonagreg Jan 21 '23
"You can have my doggy bag from the concert if you want. I hate eating leftovers."
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u/kywiking Jan 21 '23
“Why aren’t workers dedicated to their employer’s these days?”
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u/jwhitey2004 Jan 21 '23
But, but... Satya Nadella said those 3 magical words!
We know this is a challenging time for each person impacted. The senior leadership team and I are committed that as we go through this process, we will do so in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible.
This seems transparent in the sense that the rich are gonna rich no matter what, but thoughtful? Yeah, not so much.
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u/King_Mandu Jan 21 '23
I love it when people who get paid $54 million in a single year talk about challenging times.
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u/uptwolait Jan 21 '23
Seriously? I mean, that third yacht isn't gonna buy itself.
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u/imnos Jan 21 '23
Only $54 million? That's barely even enough to cover the salaries of 600 employees all on $100k a year - pocket change!
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u/hublaka Jan 21 '23
Reduce overhead costs. Instant boost in profits
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u/ManiacalDane Jan 21 '23
Not gonna lie
Reducing his pay from 100+ million a year (I've not got the real number since bonuses, but base pay is 54ish million) to like, a few million a year sure would reduce those overhead costs.
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u/lordicarus Jan 21 '23
I have a bunch of friends who work there, some who are managers (M1 and M2) and the one consistent thing they have said is that "thoughtful and transparent" is about as far from the truth as can be. The fact that Satya is getting good press in any way is unbelievable. They all have the anxiety of uncertainty for the next two months hanging over their heads. Yea... super thoughtful.
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u/savagemonitor Jan 21 '23
Satya gets good press because of the stock price and little else. I literally had a discussion with a Microsoftie who worked under all of the CEOs (Gates, Ballmer, and Satya) and every criticism that I stated about Satya was countered with "but look at the stock price!".
I'm also personally of the opinion that Satya could teach a master class in how not to lead but I don't think people are disillusioned enough yet to agree with me.
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u/RandyHoward Jan 21 '23
"Oh you thought we meant thoughtful of the people we fired? Our mistake, we meant we'd be thinking about ourselves and how much more delicious those wagyu sliders taste while listening to Sting live in the same room"
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u/kletcherian Jan 21 '23
"We feel deeply sorry for those who were let go"
5 minutes later.
"Let's party"
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u/heywhadayamean Jan 21 '23
The message in the bottle says…you’re fired.
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u/WrittenSarcasm Jan 21 '23
I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money. We're starting up a brand new day
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u/yulbrynnersmokes Jan 21 '23
As a shareholder I see no value in financing private entertainment for people who should pay their own way.
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u/iPommy Jan 21 '23
Now I feel better selling my fractional shares of Microsoft stock last year.
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u/spongeworthy1967 Jan 21 '23
If you're going to kick employees to curb, what better place to do it than an annual circle jerk for billionaires in the Swiss Alps after a concert by a musician worth an estimated $300 million. It's just so poetic.
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u/Navydevildoc Jan 21 '23
What’s sad and comical at the same time is Sting would be considered one of “the poors” in that setting.
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u/one_dimensional Jan 21 '23
Now they didn't buy Sting as some sort of human music slave for their entertainment at $300m.... But I am curious how many FTE salaries it took to set up that afternoon of tunes?
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u/hblok Jan 21 '23
I'd guess an average MS fulltime gets around $250k / year, and costs maybe some $400k in total for the company. Google says Sting can be booked for $1M to 1.5M. So, with just a handful of fired engineers, they can easily afford Sting.
Now, MS is firing 10000 people, so looks like Sting will be on the menu every day throughout this year!
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u/Destination_Centauri Jan 21 '23
Cut backs for thee, but not for me.
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u/Tattootempest
Jan 21 '23
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Archived link to the article to bypass paywall: https://archive.ph/QBTQL
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u/Sniffy4 Jan 21 '23
the sad part is corporate concerts are the worst places to play for artists because there are zero excited fans in the audience
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u/Zealousideal_Algae49 Jan 21 '23
woah woah woah id like to interject; ive been to several corporate concerts and i was stoked each time lol
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u/horseren0ir Jan 21 '23
The Rick Astely one looked like a lot of fun
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u/Somnacanth Jan 21 '23
I may actually have a video of it since I was there, I’ll look it up.
Edit: omg found it!!
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u/Hazzman Jan 21 '23
This is an issue I've only encountered since working for American companies. Corporate America doesn't know how to loosen the fuck up. I get it though... it's too dangerous to give your company an open bar and a dance floor. It's pretty much a recipe for disaster as far as HR is concerned (and it can be in my experience)... but fucking hell man.
Just let go of the reigns just fucking once.
Coming from British offices - it is always something we looked forward to. Christmas parties, launch parties... ultimately it was just an excuse to open the bar, clear a dance floor and for corporate to say thank you by footing the bill and letting us fucking vent like mad people for a night. It was awesome.
You'd always have one trying to be an idiot... but nothing bonds a team like just being able to see each other for real for a change. Not these stiff, cardboard cut out humans acting professional all the time its fucking stifling man.
I continue to work for American companies and intend on continuing for as long as they pay such great salaries compared to Europe... but fuck me if I don't miss British office culture. I miss it so bad. Everything here is just so suffocating and its EVERYWHERE.
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u/NaughtSleeping Jan 21 '23
This sounds like a literal nightmare to me. I would fake my own death before dancing at a company party.
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u/Extrodar Jan 21 '23
Same, if I wanna vent and party I'm not doing it with coworkers
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u/wholesomethrowaway15 Jan 21 '23
My husband always tells people how supportive I was when he decided to start working for himself. Don’t tell him, but I just didn’t want to be subjected to his former company’s corporate events anymore.
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u/DarkMatterTorpedo Jan 21 '23
American work culture is so stuffy, uptight, and completely lacks emotion. Young, single employees like to party and mingle. There is nothing wrong with that. Companies need to stop policing people and controlling their personalities and social lives. A friend of mine had to hide the fact she and a coworker (a direct report) were going out for a couple years, until he could move to a different team. Now they can talk about it and he can propose to her. Unbelievable.
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u/JeebusChristBalls Jan 21 '23
Wait, why would you think it is okay to date your direct report?
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u/majinspy Jan 21 '23
Dating a direct report is a potential problem for obvious reasons.
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u/WideAwakeNotSleeping Jan 21 '23
This is the experience at my company.
Xmas parties at the American HQ: Afternoon, at the office, snacks, small bar, rather sad and disappointing.
Meanwhile, Xmas parties at the European office I worked at: Rented out fancy venues, DJs, bands, lots of booze usually with open bar, event host, games, etc. This one year I stayed till like 5AM. As the place is winding down, they're collecting who's left and what's left. It started as a joke, but I ended up taking home a box of booze. Whisky, vodka, wine, juices. Wild! And it's not like we didn't have issues. A buddy of mine once broke his hand, some scuffles have happened, too much drinking, etc. But it's always outside of the office, outside of business hours, attendance is optional. If anything happened, it was on you for being a dumdum.→ More replies (9)22
u/WeirdSysAdmin Jan 21 '23
It’s all fun and games until the Jamaican intern decides to show Vanessa what daggering is.
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u/irrational_design Jan 21 '23
LOL. I work for a Fortune 100 company that has had a number of super famous musicians perform at company events. It is exactly as you describe. There are a few actual fans in the front, but the vast majority of the employees are just eating the food and chatting while the concert is just background noise.
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u/nonthreat Jan 21 '23
No, I assure you: the sad part is that thousands of people lost their jobs.
I’m a musician in a semi-serious band — we’d love for the audience to be excited, but we really only require that the show pays well.
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u/mechaghost Jan 21 '23
we had sir mixalot sing for a corporate party and everyone was rocking it! Granted that was a video game company but still!
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u/Azifor Jan 21 '23
Would you all have preferred a bonus instead?
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u/mechaghost Jan 21 '23
He’s pretty cheap to hire so it would have been a pittance bonus. I’d rather sing drunk to baby got back
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u/RandyHoward Jan 21 '23
Depends on the size of the bonus. I don't have a clue what a private sir mixalot concert costs, but let's just say 100k for some easy math. If there's only 20 people in the company, I'm taking the bonus because that's $5k to each employee. But if there's 500 people in the company, that's only $200 per employee and at that point I think I'd rather have the concert.
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u/Supersnazz Jan 21 '23
Can't be that bad. Sting is not in a position where he needs to take jobs purely for the money. A person of his wealth performs because they want to, not because they need to.
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u/johntwoods Jan 21 '23
Ooh, that stings.
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u/gin_and_toxic Jan 21 '23
Under fire? Well they shouldn't have called The Police.
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u/syrynxx Jan 21 '23
"If you love somebody, set them free."
Thank you, you've been a great audience!
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u/Bcatfan08 Jan 21 '23
Lol. This is like when the automotive execs all showed up to DC in private jets to ask Congress for bailouts back around 2008.
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u/CptRedbeardRum Jan 21 '23
What a time to be alive. I am not a socialist but......business leaders have lost their way due to their faulty moral compass'. How can a business that is making very healthy profits justify sacking it's staff?
FY23 Q1 profit $17.6 billion.
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u/jmdg007 Jan 21 '23
I'm not sure if Microsoft is in the same boat, but a lot of businesses overhired staff due to big performance increases at the start of 2022 that didn't last.
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u/view-master Jan 21 '23
They are absolutely in this boat. Unfortunately it’s not those same hires losing their jobs. I know people who have been at MS for over 20 years who lost their job.
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Jan 21 '23
Yup. Pay the new hires lower wages and let the older higher waged workers go. Dragons gotta hoard.
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u/gabkatth Jan 21 '23
What are they supposed to do?? Cut their own entertainment?? Pfff…come on guys
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u/aphexxtwinkie Jan 21 '23
All of these companies want to pretend that after a layoff the messaging isn’t “we are better and stronger because of it” - of course they celebrated big. Before, during, and after the investors and execs circle jerked to the cost savings projected on the screens 🙄
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u/Tagurit298 Jan 21 '23
Under fire? What a ridiculous saying, NOTHING ever happens to anyone “under fire” same thing with “condemned” quit reporting on bullshit.
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u/MissionAlt99
Jan 21 '23
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Gonna get downvoted. But in reality Sting might have made $250k for a show like this. That’s 1 employee salary. He was also likely booked 8 months ago given he’s an international artist. Microsoft probably had no idea layoffs were coming back then.
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u/morningisbad Jan 21 '23
The other thing people are missing is layoffs aren't always done because money is tight. Layoffs are often from over-estimating need or projects not being successful. Of course they lay them off to save the money, but they may not have jobs for them to do. Microsoft added more than 40k jobs in the last reported year (ending June 22). Since Microsoft isn't hurting for cash, over hiring makes the most sense to me.
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u/baildodger Jan 21 '23
But in reality Sting might have made $250k for a show like this.
And then there’s the venue hire, the catering, the hotels, the private jets, etc, etc.
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u/PRSArchon Jan 21 '23
And cancelling him would likely have resulted in still having to pay him. Artists also cant just cancel because suddenly MS does something he doesn’t like.
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u/David_Jonathan0 Jan 21 '23
Every big corporation does this. They overstaff for a year or two, let the performance reviews come in, and slice of the lower performing 10-20%. Then rinse and repeat.
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u/blueblurspeedspin Jan 21 '23
probably the WEF, where they travel on private jets to talk about climate change lol.
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u/NerdCrush Jan 21 '23
Last year my former employer announced they couldn't afford COL raises the same day they posted Gala Event photos to LinkedIn talking about what a great year we had.
When I left, they offered my replacement several thousand less than me. My boyfriend is on his way out and they offered his replacement 15k less than he makes.
Companies don't give a fuck about you. The more they pretend they aReNt LiKe OtHeR jObS, the less they fucking care. Get a job at a company that is upfront with the shitty parts of your job. We are not a fucking family and you shouldn't have to do more with less.
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u/Snarkblatt
Jan 21 '23
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MICROSOFT UNDER FIRE!!!
Take cover!
pew pew pew
SUPPRESIVE FIRE!!!
Dakadakadakadakadak
PULL THE GOLDEN PARACHUTE!
🎶 Desert rose fades in over a chopper delivering a charcuterie board 🎶
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u/T1NP3NNY Jan 21 '23
This is literally 2008 behavior all over again. So how deep does everyone think this recession is going to get? I'd love to hear your take on things.
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u/meloc2001 Jan 22 '23
From the 2022 Microsoft annual report - Amid this dynamic environment, we delivered record results in fiscal year 2022: We reported $198 billion in revenue and $83 billion in operating income. And the Microsoft Cloud surpassed $100 billion in annualized revenue for the first time. But sure lay off 10k. Late stage capitalism at its finest.
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u/Inferior_Jeans Jan 22 '23
I’m 29 and grew up being told that loyalty will be the only way up the corporate ladder. Found out at 21 that it was all bullshit when someone with no experience was hired for more pay than me and I had to train them(turned out to be the GMs nephew). So I said fuck loyalty. During Covid i job hopped and landed my current job which I love and pays quite well with job security. My advice to everyone is treat a job like a stepping stone because everyone above you is already gonna step on you to get somewhere better or get something more.
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u/DrunkenGolfer Jan 21 '23 •
Well they weren't laying off execs, duh.