$1.8 billion would have paid all 9000 people 200k for a year. 27 billion profit for one quarter.
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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"Now that we threw all the supplies overboard, we're going a lot faster now."
The delusional motto private equity lives by.
I mean the private equity people get rich. It works for them. Sure, the hospitals / software companies / investors / employees / customers all suffer, but fuck 'em.
I don't think Microsoft is owned by private equity
in a way... private equity blocks of institutional investment represent a huge chunk of outstanding shares.
and one of the cruel aspects of all this: so many of those devs were drawn to work for MS subsidiaries - or their companies were drawn to sell to MS - because of stock options. Stock options which - for the vast majority of those devs - will never vest, and they'll be shitcanned, and their shares will go back to the mothership.
Stock options are a huge component when people are negotiating and studios are selling out, but only the top tier executives will ever get good shares vested in a sane timeline. The rest get it dangled to keep them onboard, then yanked because of a mythical need to cut costs when profits are through the roof.
And they tell me Microsoft will suffer because I pirated their software
Actually these days, windows is free because what Microsoft wants is your user data. And unless you stop that from being sent to Microsoft, you are generating profit for them every time you use your computer.
Its actually brilliant. Every day when people turn on their computer or phone, Microsoft and Google makes billions from their time. By doing nothing. Passive income.
because what Microsoft wants is your user data
yup. adverts all over windows 11, edge and now AI garbage pushed onto hapless users.... it's a complete shitshow.
If windows is free why are they still selling windows licenses. you might get* a free upgrade between 10/11. But windows is not free.
What they mean is that it's like WinRAR, you can use it without a license forever, but you'll have features locked and get constantly nagged to purchase license.
Yeah. I havent used windows in a long time but when I was, you could play games without any license... What is locked?
Some features and settings. Like, for example any desktop customization.
Seems minor. If they wanted people to pay for it, they would block games since thats what most young people use windows for....
They aren't trying to prevent regular people from using unlicensed Windows, it's mostly for corporations. As mentioned before, they are better off letting ppl use it and gather data and stuff. Keep people dependent on the OS.
If it weren't for you, they could do 27,20000000001 USD! Shame on you!
I don't think Microsoft has cared about people pirating Windows for decades. They still permit people to use the MAS. It's like two seconds to activate Windows for free forever now.
I think it is silly to "support" large for profit companies
Buy something if you like product.
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we should introduce a digital service tax for tech giants that want to enter the EU single market. Fuck greedy capitalists.
Here in Canada we just canceled our digital services tax to please Trump.
Now he's making more demands, so it was well worth it.
Stolen value.
So what is that like 3 million per lay off?
Then they lay off more employees soon!!
another layoff
then another press release on how high the profits are!
In the same light, they've applied for 14k H1B visas.
I'm getting the same vibes as when I spike taxes in Sim City for Palm OS just before the year rolls over and then drop it back after.
for Palm OS
A coyote of culture I see
Sadly not very well preserved in terms of emulation
How would one working at said company who wants to work NOT get laid off? Is it simply luck, or does one need to manually suck every dick that exists in the company to remain an employee? Like, what's the point of ever doing a competent job if they plan to cut you anyways?
Large companies like Microsoft tend to have very high competition. The trade off is that if you can do well the pay is going to be very well.
No, no.
The vast, vast majority of MSFT 'employees' are contractors, V dashes, A dashes, etc, who functionally keep working different MSFT contracts over and over again, but get paid far less than actual salaried, proper employees with stock options.
MSFT will string along these contractors along with what you are saying 'do well and we'll hire you and pay the big bucks', and in reality this basically never happens.
This institutional, pathological reliance on contractors over traditional employees is a huge reason why MSFT's work culture is so toxic, why MSFT's management is so incompetent, and why their products seems more and more like a bunch layers of inefficient and buggy spaghetti code worked on by hundreds of random people with no core, consistent design principles.
Because they are.
Anyway, you only get hired as an actual proper MSFT via grandfathering or nepotism, actual competency only qualifies you to be a contractor.
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"demand"
Does anyone know why they layed off that many?
It seems like a weird move
Up til about ten years ago, doing mass layoffs was seen as a sign of company in trouble; it scared shareholders and it made talent less likely to apply to your company.
Then enough of them did it often enough that the stigma fell away and it became a thing you did to get rid of underperformers, scare people into working harder, and separate the wheat from the chaff. Now it's so commonplace that I've heard execs (in another profitable multinational tech company) talk about it like it's just what you're supposed to do as part of good governance.
Up til about ten years ago, doing mass layoffs was seen as a sign of company in trouble; it scared shareholders and it made talent less likely to apply to your company.
really good point.
Short term gains.
They think they can treat people like shit and then just re-hire when they need then again.
I hope people learn not to trust them, customers and employees alike
from a gamedev perspective - they overinvested in studios, which are only pumping major returns into their coffers, but not anticipated AI returns so, cut the teams. and cut the teams some more.
then cut the teams a bit more. 9000 layoffs ya know.
well, maybe, then hire a bunch because maybe you cut too far?
nah, cut some more. oblivion remastered only made an absolute shitton.
it's a move that's making any dev looking to work with MS/Xbox really wary because it seems that they want their IP a lot more than their studios.
They massively over-hired and over-acquired during covid. Demand spiked and they started poaching every studio and developer they could find. These layoffs were likely always the plan for when demand dropped again, and when they needed to streamline and consolidate the studios they purchased.
So it's BAU for M$.
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