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2024 has seen two mass layoffs at Microsoft, with 1900 staff laid off in January, before a further 650 Xbox employees were shown the door in September.

Regardless, Microsoft's shares are up and the company's market value is now higher than $3tn, as it works to capitalise on the rise of AI.

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[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 178 points 2 months ago
[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 95 points 2 months ago

That’s roughly 30k for every employee laid off

[-] weew@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If they were software engineers, they saved $200,000+ per person laid off

That's how he makes dem big bux, by telling other people to fuck off

[-] theneverfox@pawb.social 7 points 2 months ago

So the CEO gets less than half their salary for the year?

Sounds like a great deal for the company. Until, you know, the whole thing collapses because they laid off the workers who kept the whole thing running

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[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 95 points 2 months ago

When I entered the work force in 2005, it was with a company that had never had a layoff in its thirty-year history.

Then, in 2009, they had their first layoff, and I learned later our CEO had taken an 80% pay raise that year.

Taxes aren't theft. Literally firing people and taking their salaries is theft.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago

Also that CEO has an eminently punchable face.

[-] RagingHungryPanda@lemm.ee 73 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Headline confused "despite" and "due to"

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

yeah lol what do they think is happening here

[-] ysjet@lemmy.world 62 points 2 months ago

He made $12000 off each fired employee.

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 41 points 2 months ago

Per year. And lets not talk about his stock options and other benefits... Fucking disgusting.

[-] unmagical@lemmy.ml 52 points 2 months ago

When was the last time you got a 63% raise?

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

70% workload raise

[-] iii@mander.xyz 8 points 2 months ago
[-] unmagical@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago
[-] iii@mander.xyz 30 points 2 months ago

I'm self employed.

Found out I'm depressed, decided to reduce work to 3 days a week.

Raised prices to reduce clients. Turns out I now make more, doing less work. It is what it is.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

I once quit my job at a software company I really hated. They were desperate to keep me around for the projects I was leading so they asked if I would work hourly for a while. I quoted them a go-fuck-yourselves hourly rate which they immediately agreed to, which made me even more angry about my prior years of poor compensation. I worked under this agreement for about half a year and further improved my effective hourly rate by not working very hard.

[-] bbuez@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Dont mean to pry, but I'll gladly do whatever you're doing

[-] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

He’s mainly dealing with depression.

[-] datavoid@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago

Only 2 days a week for depression? Rookie numbers

[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Well his compensation is tied to the stock price so it’s not exactly a “raise.” My employer’s stock is near an all time high right now so I’m not complaining about how much I made from the shares I sold, but neither do I consider it a “raise” because it’s not guaranteed to be the same next year.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

At my last company, they usually gave end-of-the-year bonuses instead of raises. They were pretty generous, usually amounting to about half of our annual salaries, but it of course prevented us from being guaranteed that level of compensation the following year. That's why I always describe bonuses as raises followed by pay cuts.

[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah pretty much. Everything about it is a hedge. They can pay less if their numbers tell them to. They can lay you off and not give you anything. They can make more cash disappear if they have to. It’s the squirrelliest shit yet they cast it like a gift from god.

[-] interurbain1er@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In case you missed it, in our broken model of civilization a CEO's only responsibility is to increase value for shareholders. Not to clients, not to employees, not to the biosphere.

Market cap increased, job's done successfully.

[-] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A) 1971, Economist Milton Friedman explicitly told the world the "only social responsibility" for businesses is to increase shareholder value. The Business Roundtable heartily endorsed this view, setting the stage for the next half century of villains to gleefully enrich themselves without compunction.

B) 2019, Business Roundtable reversed their 50 year position to include that businesses should be beholden to all Stakeholders, not just shareholders.

But of course the damage has been done, and continues onward. To compound this, the FED's open-purse monetary policy for 14 YEARS ushered in the worst inflation in 40 years, while wages have stagnated for 4 decades, kicking off around the time Baby Boomers were birthing the first Millennial children.

These are just some of the reasons Millennials lay the bulk of culpability at the feet of Baby Boomers, who of course respond with something like: "Well, I don't remember that."

[-] Default_Defect@midwest.social 43 points 2 months ago

Because of layoffs, not despite them.

[-] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 35 points 2 months ago

The board doesn’t care about the number of people employed. They care about the current profitability and future profitability.

Of course that’s their job; to look after shareholder interests. And the money would move to a better investment if they didn’t.

It’s the whole system you need to change, if you seek change, not moan about an individual CEO.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago

That's why Mitbestimmungsgesetz can be goddamn fucking awesome.

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[-] sgibson5150@slrpnk.net 31 points 2 months ago
[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago

Typical and most people in the US view CEO's as heroes. US income distribution is on the same level as fucking Russia.

[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 24 points 2 months ago

I think the author got confused, it's not despite off it's because of.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago
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[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

CEO = SIC: Shareholder in Chief

[-] AshMan85@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

Regulate monopolies. Eat the rich.

[-] card797@champserver.net 19 points 2 months ago

They should be paying 90% tax over 1 million.

[-] billiam0202@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Well, yeah. How do you think they could afford Nadella's pay raise?

[-] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The entire point of AI as it stands right now is to allow more of those layoffs. Anyone telling otherwise is a liar.

Also I hate how currently, AI is used to remove the fun parts of creating things at a computer. Take coding for example, I think I can speak for many people when I say that the fun part of their job, is not the planning or the meetings, it's the actual coding and stumbling upon a hard problem to solve. Now with AI you the human will only keep the boring parts of the job!

[-] Nalivai@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Don't overestimate LLMs, it can't code and never will be. It can create templates convincingly enough and do boilerplate parts that are nonsense only sometimes, but those aren't the fun parts of the coding process anyway. In my experience, LLM isn't helping at all and I spend more time fixing it's nonsense than I would do if I don't use it at all, so I don't

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[-] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 months ago

His salary increase must be inversely proportional to the quality increase in Windows 11.

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[-] Ragdoll_X@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

I would like to propose some changes to that title:

Microsoft CEO's pay rises 63% to $79m, ~~despite~~ [because of] devastating year for layoffs: 2550 ~~jobs lost~~ [employees were fired by their greedy CEO] in 2024 [because he wanted more money]

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

fuck him not just for making those people's lives miserable, but for stamping down the fucking wages of everyone else in tech by flooding the fucking market

[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thank god, all these employees lost their jobs so Satya Nadella can pad out their already insanely high salary.

We don't want Satya to starve like the rest us of plebs!

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[-] zante@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 months ago

I just want one outlet to break the shit cycle and report it for what it is : CEO got big pay rises thanks to savings made by eliminating jobs.

That is simply the neutral truth.

It’s not some freakish occurance, not some overtime golden goal shit, this is how it works. It’s the norm.

[-] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago

He's doing what the Board wants, stock price is up. If there was a worker advocate on the board, maybe things would be different.

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[-] Imhotep@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

his payrise is equivalent to something like 3000 US workers minimum wage annual salaries

if my math is correct (which it probably isn't)

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[-] bamfic@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

An old friend was one of the people who got laid off in January. Fuck MSFT.

[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

This is why every profession, blue or white collar, needs to unionize.

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Thinking of all the cool products this CEO has killed off. I would love to see this company split up so that maybe they could innovate again.

[-] kamen@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

CEOs gonna CEO.

[-] HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.one 7 points 2 months ago

“Look timmy, it’s a man made entirely of bullshit”

[-] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Let's start exercising that 2nd amendment y'all!

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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
866 points (100.0% liked)

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