Microsoft Lay-offs - while CEO earns $84m in first year

[Misanthrope]

He is doing GREAT things at microsoft. Look at windows 10, xbox. 

 

1) I disagree

2) They have not translated in actual financial gains and probably won't for a really long time since his business plans involves adoption rates by giving away upgrades and turning a blind eye to pirates if they end up spending money on the platform

 

So particularly because of 2) he hasn't done enough to justify 1.9 million dollars per week. He basically did what the board of directors probably wanted which is "Let's try to be Google!" without any actual proof it will eventually pay off for them as of yet. 

[RH00D]

My god. Its funny how people who complain the hardest about some execs salary actually have NO IDEA how it actually works nor barely have any idea if how finance actually works nor how businesses operate.

HE DOES NOT RECEIVE $84 MILLION CASH. PERIOD.

Also to people saying he hasn't contributed anything? Are you stupid or ignorant or both? He ran the Azure division which has been one of Microsoft's MOST profitable and highest growing businesses the last few years.

[TheGosuStandard]

And I appreciate that, it's something I don't think I could do without a break down, but speaking of consequences...

 

 

Again, very good point, but I don't think they could have possibly thought that Windows Phone, today and now, would fend off Android and iOS?

 

They'll probably re-hire a bunch of them in a few years IF Windows Phone starts to do well. But anyway.

 

Didn't they buy Nokia for patents, I feel as if the CEO of Nokia is still making phones/tablets or planning to re-enter? 

[Bhav]

To this day, I still don't understand why Nokia exclusively stuck with Windows Phone only. They dug their own grave and died a horrible death. And I use a Lumia 925 too and cant wait for Windows 10 mobile, but they still needed to have made android phones to stay competitive.

They used to be the global No.1 mobile phone manufacturer. Then they went and commited suicide.

[Frix]

Good for him, I wouldn't personally lay off people if I was making that per year but it's his choice, it's not like anyone else has better experience running Microsoft.

[Centurius]

I wonder how many H1B workers he will hire for half what those 8000 were making.

Considering they are losing their jobs because their functions have been deemed no longer neccesary, close to 0.

[ItsAFeature]

1) In no way his decision to lay off people enlarges his bonus

2) It's just business

3) He's paid bonuses because he's a good business man and they want to keep him

 

It seems to me like 3) and 1) directly contradict each other: firing people like the QA team to instead shift the testing and debugging to public betas is a business decision. He's being paid a bonus because of his business decisions. The math is pretty fucking straight forward.

 

We don't need to argue about whenever it was necessary or not, good idea or not, but you can't sugar coat it like this because well, it's a contradiction.

 

Oh come on. That comment was in reference to how it was said that he could have taken a paycut to his bonus in order to keep these people employed. It doesn't work that way. 

 

Don't be daft.  Every CEO, and even every manager for large companies, know that if you increase profits or cut payroll, your bonus will increase.  It is the same with every major company worldwide.  

 

There's really a lot more to it than that. The company might be losing money and you could get a fantastic bonus because your business decisions saved the company from losing even more. Or the company might make a fair bit more than last year but your bonus is smaller this year simply because it is discretionary and subjective, therefore not directly tied to any one metric. For example, even my own bonus is only partly based on company performance. There is always a large chunk based on what those above you think about your own performance in your job duties.

 

All I'm saying is that he didn't fire the Nokia employees to increase his own bonus, and neither would he have been able to spend from that bonus to keep them on. People got fired because their positions are no longer necessary. That's a good business decision. It's the right decision. Microsoft needs to change and adapt, the CEO seems to understand that and be leading a change that might save Microsoft and lead them to greater profitability than ever before. I'd say that kind of leadership is worth a hefty chunk of money.

 

And as said above me, the $84 million is not entirely cash either.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Most of the lay offs were from the mobile division which was basically Nokia without Microsoft all of those people would've lost their jobs even earlier when Nokia went down.
Those are normal lay offs when companies buy other companies just that in the Nokia->Microsoft case the scale is bigger as both companies are/were huge.
And people getting pissed of by the CEO salary is also unreasonable it's not like Microsoft employees have tiny salaries that they can barely live off most engineers at MS make 100k+ a year and get tons of benefits.
 

[gill2k]

Why can't CEO's be more like Satoru Iwata who cut his salary just so there won't be layoffs at Nintendo?

[JustChilliing]

Why can't CEO's be more like Satoru Iwata who cut his salary just so there won't be layoffs at Nintendo?

 

He cut jobs of people who weren't doing anything, not people who were "needed" at the current time.

[dalekphalm]

He isn't salaried at $84 million. It's a discretionary year-end bonus decided by the chairman and high equity holders of the company based on the job they think he did. Much of the bonus is meant to reward what they believe is a good job running the company but large parts is also based around ensuring that your CEO does not get an offer they cannot refuse from another corporation.

 

In no way was his decision to lay off a large amount of their workforce based around enlarging his own bonus. It's just business. The employees were part of a technology that the corporation no longer invested in and thus there is no reason to keep them on. It's just part of life. If my own employer does eliminate my entire team due to not needing it anymore, I can't say that I would expect to be kept on. I haven't had exposure to, an interest in, or an understanding of the other parts of our technology and business. I would expect to be laid off and would start to look for opportunities elsewhere. 

Finally someone who noticed that his salary isn't actually $84m USD.

 

My god. Its funny how people who complain the hardest about some execs salary actually have NO IDEA how it actually works nor barely have any idea if how finance actually works nor how businesses operate.

HE DOES NOT RECEIVE $84 MILLION CASH. PERIOD.

Also to people saying he hasn't contributed anything? Are you stupid or ignorant or both? He ran the Azure division which has been one of Microsoft's MOST profitable and highest growing businesses the last few years.

Agreed. Satya ran Azure, and did a fucking awesome job of it too.

 

To this day, I still don't understand why Nokia exclusively stuck with Windows Phone only. They dug their own grave and died a horrible death. And I use a Lumia 925 too and cant wait for Windows 10 mobile, but they still needed to have made android phones to stay competitive.

They used to be the global No.1 mobile phone manufacturer. Then they went and commited suicide.

Nokia was dead in the water when Microsoft stepped in. They stuck exclusively with Windows Phone for a simple fact - if Microsoft had not stepped in, there WOULD BE NO NOKIA - Period. The end. Not just their Mobile division - I mean the entire company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Nokia dug their own grave years ago - especially in the mobile space by continuing to back SymbianOS, with devices that while well built, were mediocre for the most part. They failed hard when the smartphone craze happened.

 

Nokia would not have went on to make Android phones, or anything else. They would simply be a part of History, like Voodoo GPU's.

 

Why can't CEO's be more like Satoru Iwata who cut his salary just so there won't be layoffs at Nintendo?

Because that's a 100% different situation? Really people. Sony and Nintendo CEO's took pay cuts because their companies are performing like shit. Nintendo CEO would not have taken a pay cut if Nintendo was swimming in profits and revenue. Nintendo needed those staff to continue to develop their current and next gen products that will (hopefully) save the company and return them to profitability. If those staff were unnecessary, Nintendo would have cut them in a heartbeat.

 

Satya's salary at Microsoft is $17.5m USD. The REST OF IT is mostly stock options, plus cash bonuses. His "$84m" is mostly stock in Microsoft.

[Murdoch]

 In other news, Steve Ballmer is worth over $22 Billion. 

[Solkia]

Being the CEO of ANYTHING isn't just sitting at a desk all day counting your millions...

It's tough work. A simple mistake could have horrible consequences...

 

[JustChilliing]

 

Because that's a 100% different situation? Really people. Sony and Nintendo CEO's took pay cuts because their companies are performing like shit. Nintendo CEO would not have taken a pay cut if Nintendo was swimming in profits and revenue. Nintendo needed those staff to continue to develop their current and next gen products that will (hopefully) save the company and return them to profitability. If those staff were unnecessary, Nintendo would have cut them in a heartbeat.

 

Satya's salary at Microsoft is $17.5m USD. The REST OF IT is mostly stock options, plus cash bonuses. His "$84m" is mostly stock in Microsoft.

 

Sums it up very well.

[79wjd]

You're thinking of it like socialism, I see it as paying an employee a decent amount of money. Not just giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars, no, our economy would collapse overnight if that happened. But a healthy increase.

I agree that people should be paid a fair wage, however paying people to do nothing isn't the answer. And unfortunately you can't jut increase wages since there will be someone else who would happily work for less.

 

ahh ... bullshit.

the worst thing that can happen is that you lose your job and get some millions for doing so ...

 

 

 

In practice capitalism doesn't work either.

It actually works pretty well...certainly better than socialism...until welfare starts to become more and more rampant, at which point socialism starts to take over. 

[MrSuperb]

It actually works pretty well...certainly better than socialism...until welfare starts to become more and more rampant, at which point socialism starts to take over. 

 

 

I bet you that we will see civil wars in many of those capitalist countries in the next 20-30 years.

[Murdoch]

I bet you that we will see civil wars in many of those capitalist countries in the next 20-30 years.

 

There will be drone armies to control the underclass by that point, and truly capitalist nations are moving towards being total surveillance states already.

 

Can I hear you say dystopian future! Haha.

[Misanthrope]

I bet you that we will see civil wars in many of those capitalist countries in the next 20-30 years.

 

20-30? No I'll me much sooner in the case of Latin American countries, African countries and even struggling Eastern European countries hell just look at Greece: that's capitalism for you in a global level: Rich countries are rich just by collecting interests from loans offered to poor struggling nations that eventually have to basically sell all their assets to foreign banks at which point you're a Nation in name only but controlled by foreigners.

[Toddwjp]

Capitalism ladies and gentleman, working as intended. The super rich is a class of people we should have never allowed to exist,

[dalekphalm]

Capitalism ladies and gentleman, working as intended. The super rich is a class of people we should have never allowed to exist,

The problem with this is that the "super rich" have always existed in society, to some degree or another. There has almost always been someone who "has more". Be it the war-chief who keeps the people save. The priests or prophets who spiritually guide the people. The king/mayor/lord or otherwise person who is the leader of the society, etc. This has stretched back thousands of years - far before modern capitalism became a thing.

 

It's well and good to say "it should never have been allowed". But the more accurate question is "How could we have ever possibly stopped it?" True socialist-communism perhaps? But I don't think anyone - especially in the western world - is willing to give up their way of life for true socialist-communism. Even communist states like China, Cuba, and the USSR were not true socialist-communist societies.

[deviant88]

People like him and corporations are the reason products suck, why Miscrosoft sucks.Look at win10 ffs, instead of earning a fortune each year he could have hired a fucking GUI team designers for windows 10.

[dalekphalm]

People like him and corporations are the reason products suck, why Miscrosoft sucks.Look at win10 ffs, instead of earning a fortune each year he could have hired a fucking GUI team designers for windows 10.

Your personal opinion is that the GUI for Windows 10 sucks.

 

I actually quite disagree. I'm very fond of the Windows 10 GUI.

 

And FYI, they do have a team of GUI Designers, which I'm sure they pay very generously.

[Misanthrope]

Satya's salary at Microsoft is $17.5m USD. The REST OF IT is mostly stock options, plus cash bonuses. His "$84m" is mostly stock in Microsoft.

 

It's still his money even if it's on stock. Vis a vis he'd have to pay taxes you can't tell the government "Oh no I need unemployment money I don't have a job" while you own several multi million dollar buildings they're still your property.

[monstarmadness]

Are those comments written by teenagers?

That would explain a lot.

That is a very sterotyping, judgemental comment.

[JustChilliing]

​Greece didn't have taxes. They ran themselves into the ground - but that's a different topic.

 

The problem with this is that the "super rich" have always existed in society, to some degree or another. There has almost always been someone who "has more". Be it the war-chief who keeps the people save. The priests or prophets who spiritually guide the people. The king/mayor/lord or otherwise person who is the leader of the society, etc. This has stretched back thousands of years - far before modern capitalism became a thing.

 

It's well and good to say "it should never have been allowed". But the more accurate question is "How could we have ever possibly stopped it?" True socialist-communism perhaps? But I don't think anyone - especially in the western world - is willing to give up their way of life for true socialist-communism. Even communist states like China, Cuba, and the USSR were not true socialist-communist societies.

 

 

Capitalism ladies and gentleman, working as intended. The super rich is a class of people we should have never allowed to exist,

 

The "Super Rich" have always existed, but with todays access to all these things, and social media, we just see it more often.