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Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

Not really. If the CEO was in charge of the direction of the company, and that direction was so bad that they have to make major layoffs and cuts, then they shouldn't be rewarded for this.

This isn't a fucking game. These are human lives. Microsoft laid off 10,000 humans [1] because their idiotic CEO decided it would be a really good idea to overhire like crazy in 2021 and 2022. This was the wrong decision and now they have to do massive layoffs and paycuts.

Compulsively making high-risk decisions in the hope of short term rewards is such a common thing that we actually have a word for it: gambling. This gambling addict has uprooted 10,000 human beings' lives, and yet he still gets a $10,000,000 bonus. Get off your high horse.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/09/tech-industry-layoffs/

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It’s kind of odd to think it’s NEVER correct for a company to do layoffs. The CEOs job is to run the company - if the company is more efficient why shouldn’t the CEO be rewarded? Their job is to run the company not never fire anyone.

I am afraid that I cannot find the spot where I said they should never do layoffs.

I just don’t think they should be gambling with human lives.

A company like MS should have systems in place to make employees more productive than they would be at other organizations. (After spending nearly a decade there, that is somewhat true, but it could of course be a lot better[1].)

If a large corporation that has the power to do damn nearly anything can't figure out what to do with ten thousand highly talented software engineers, then some people in leadership need to discover some new sources of bright ideas.

[1] There are things MS is really good at operationally, getting contracts signed, getting marketing efforts in place, localizing software for true world wide releases, security reviews, etc. Sadly they got rid of their engineering excellence org years ago. I once spent over a year looking around for someone who knew SQL who was available to spend half a day helping me optimize a database. Then there is the time my group couldn't find anyone who knew how to write software for Windows...

I agree wholeheartedly with every point you make, except this:

> This isn't a fucking game

That is *exactly* what it is to these people, and I don't doubt that they make use of game theory to make some of these decisions.

Until the rules of the game change, nothing will.

I mean, it's not a game, these idiots in charge are just treating it like one.

If Microsoft limits changes to Windows and Office to security patches and bug fixes only for 2023, it could pay huge productivity dividends to the entire world.

The laid off people did great while they were employed when they wouldn't have been otherwise.

Getting and extra 100k is real beneficial for each of those 10k people.

If those 10k people took big risks, that's a problem with their own risk management, rather than microsoft's

it is a dangerous simple view and it is why communisum brought so much sufferings because in the real world, it is not that simple though. let's go along with your view. EVERY CEO from EVERY COMPANY must optimize for not hiring more than they think they need. The result would be that there would be much fewer jobs available in the market. Some of the 10000 humans would never get a good paying job in 2021 and 2022. Isn't it a worse outcome for these 10000 human beings?

I really have no idea what communism has to do with anything so I'll ignore that part.

I'm sure a good percentage of these people quit jobs specifically to work at Microsoft. When they quit those jobs, their employer probably filled that position. Then Microsoft fired those people, and it's likely that a lot of people were unable to go back to their previous positions.

This isn't even taking to account people who moved to Washington or California to work at Microsoft, who sold their homes to move to a place with a substantially higher cost of living.

Okay. So to go along with your assummptions. Their old employer filled their old positions. It means another group of people who filled their positions benefited (lets call them group B). group B moved up the career chain. It is annoying that group A needs to find jobs again. But we can assume that group A can find better jobs compared to group B. Overall, it is actually better for society that group B has an oppourtunity to move up their career ladder to fill up the previous job of group A. And then group C will be able to fill the previous jobs of group B. It brings down our society wealth gap.

You're really downplaying the agency of people who accepted these jobs and their own risk analyses.

Selling your house and moving for a job in a clearly ridiculous job market is going all in on a gamble. Much moreso than nadella did

Most of these people are not lauded as business geniuses and are not in charge of 2 trillion dollar companies.

ETA:

I would like to point out that I feel like your point would be more valid if Microsoft were a startup or something. However, I think a lot of people joining assumed that it was a stable company and as such their job would likely be more stable than where they were coming from.

Microsoft has traditionally been a very safe employer, who typically does a very good job of maintaining revenue per employee.

Of course Microsoft also historically benefitted from housing in the surrounding area being 1/2 to 1/3rd what it was in the bay area, so they could pay a lot less. Now that good family housing around MS campus starts at 1.5m, MS has been forced to increase salaries dramatically.

> Selling your house and moving for a job in a clearly ridiculous job market is going all in on a gamble.

Tech hiring had been crazy for years before the pandemic, IMHO pandemic hiring in tech didn't stand out as being particularly odd. Of course looking at the numbers afterwards, we can see how much companies grew, but no one applying for a job in Jan 2021 knew that Microsoft intended to hire 40K people that year.

> This isn't a fucking game. These are human lives.

Welcome to Capitalism...

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