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.

  • interurbain1er@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 hour ago

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

    Market cap increased, job’s done successfully.

  • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 hours 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!

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    5 hours 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.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Taxes are theft the specific way they are designed in most countries.

      Another example of theft is a hired administrator administrating by the criterion of their own pay.

      I mean, it is understandable how this works - their pay is a counterweight to the incentive to “mismanage” the company if someone else pays a fitting price. The issue here is that these two incentives do not completely neutralize each other, in some dimension their components add up.

      Why I had to say that taxes are still theft - because a CEO is equivalent to a state official in this issue. It’s the same problem.

      Political ideologies divide these problems, because political ideologies are like hedge funds, they diversify investments, so that every political ideology could be usable in every landscape for every policy. They are the opposite of consistent, by design.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    5 hours 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!

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    6 hours ago

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

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      4 hours ago

      As someone from fucking Russia, people with biggest income in your country are usually first businessmen, second - something else, while in Russia those would be cockroaches from MFA, PA and other thieves, plus a few oligarchs who at some point were among those cockroaches.

      So it may not be as bad yet, but frankly yes, you are giving out vibes of going in the same direction.

    • P1nkman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      11 hours ago

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

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 hours 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.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        That would be awesome, but would have limited results if there are still a few enormous companies with patent and IP laws preventing competition.

        You can’t have that eternal fight between democratic egalitarian monopoly and competitive jungle. The whole point of civilization is to have both representation and competition.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Current profitability is up. Profit margins are also up from last year. But I could see investors looking at the lack of any path after the current Xbox and wondering why they employ so many there. I’m sure other areas have also seen some stagnation.