> “How do you really tweak the incentives, go-to-market?” Nadella said. “At a time of platform shifts, you kind of want to make sure you lean into even the new design wins, and you just don’t keep doing the stuff that you did in the previous generation.”
Ok, sure, what does that mean though.
> The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April.
Agree! Better tighten the belt. Don’t want to dip below $100 billion net income a year.
zeroq · 2h ago
When covid started a big name came to our office to announce cuts and saving plans. It was one hour townhall style meeting with everyone present to receive the news in person.
I was shocked and flabergasted that someone could stand in front of couple hundred people and tell them with the same breath that the situation is so dire that we have to stop using printers and we'd better start bringing our own toilet paper to the office, and complain that the company only made 2 billion last year, which is absolute disaster and the company won't surive if we won't adapt.
I was even more shocked when I approached fellow colleagues after the townhall, whom all seemed to completely swallow the pill - "you heard it? bollocks, right?" - "yeah, but you saw the charts, it's absolute disaster. I'm glad they took my bonus and let me keep my position".
Basically Azure earnings were at the low end of their own projections. And their explanation was Azure non-AI services earnings have dropped as customers who have ongoing non-AI projects are working out how to incorporate AI services.
npalli · 2h ago
All FAANG (or whatever is the latest acronym) have layers and layers of middle management who not only don't do anything to build product or support customers but irritate and impede work by putting in nonsensical processes and rules. Counterintuitively, one should expect the quality and quantity of customer beneficial work to increase by eliminating them.
reverius42 · 29m ago
Somehow I doubt all 6,000 laid off will be from middle management.
jasonthorsness · 4h ago
> "one objective is to reduce layers of management"
This seems a common theme: even in a company like Microsoft that takes pains to emphasize and support the IC track in addition to management there is a tendency towards creating layers that end up reducing agility.
Maybe it's just an excuse though. I am surprised they announced the 3% rather than just accomplishing it with attrition and slowing hiring. Maybe it looks smart to stockholders so they want the attention.
nomel · 3h ago
I know it's definitely been a theme in every org I've worked in. Higher level manager is unable to attend all meetings, so spawns a new lower level manager. Repeat. Then you're left with a hierarchy that is more about meeting attendance than actual enabling/planning/accountability, where having project leads would probably work just as well.
pwthornton · 4h ago
I wonder if this 3% is just their normal amount of attrition being dressed up in a way that stockholders will like.
0cf8612b2e1e · 3h ago
3% of Microsoft’s estimated 250k employees is ~7000 people. You cannot hide such numbers from reporting.
CSSer · 2h ago
It's roughly six thousand people's jobs (estimated base on headcount from last year), for anyone wondering. I don't know why they make you do the math, or provide such a fuzzy statistic.
adrianmonk · 20m ago
I find percentages plenty useful, arguably more useful than raw numbers. If a company is laying off 3%, it's probably optimizing profits or shutting down failed projects. At 10%, they might be responding to some longer term issue. At 25%, they are in some kind of serious trouble.
mandeepj · 1h ago
> I don't know why they make you do the math, or provide such a fuzzy statistic.
Because uncalculated 3% is a smaller number than 6000?
soulofmischief · 1h ago
The intended effect may have been the opposite. Maybe many people thing Microsoft is a much larger company and that 3% sounds more significant than 6000.
jgrowl · 1h ago
The WARN act website lists the number at 1,985 employees.
Ok, sure, what does that mean though.
> The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April.
Agree! Better tighten the belt. Don’t want to dip below $100 billion net income a year.
I was shocked and flabergasted that someone could stand in front of couple hundred people and tell them with the same breath that the situation is so dire that we have to stop using printers and we'd better start bringing our own toilet paper to the office, and complain that the company only made 2 billion last year, which is absolute disaster and the company won't surive if we won't adapt.
I was even more shocked when I approached fellow colleagues after the townhall, whom all seemed to completely swallow the pill - "you heard it? bollocks, right?" - "yeah, but you saw the charts, it's absolute disaster. I'm glad they took my bonus and let me keep my position".
The earnings call transcript is more useful than these stupid news articles - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2025-Q2...
Basically Azure earnings were at the low end of their own projections. And their explanation was Azure non-AI services earnings have dropped as customers who have ongoing non-AI projects are working out how to incorporate AI services.
This seems a common theme: even in a company like Microsoft that takes pains to emphasize and support the IC track in addition to management there is a tendency towards creating layers that end up reducing agility.
Maybe it's just an excuse though. I am surprised they announced the 3% rather than just accomplishing it with attrition and slowing hiring. Maybe it looks smart to stockholders so they want the attention.
Because uncalculated 3% is a smaller number than 6000?
https://esd.wa.gov/employer-requirements/layoffs-and-employe...