Apparently, Jason said it’s mostly marketing and management positions that were cut. Was said on Bloomberg TV so I don’t have a direct source.
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I always found “Microsoft fans” (not Xbox) weird, when they celebrate stuff like “Microsoft is now a $3 trillion company” “is now worth more than Apple”, because Microsoft also does stuff like this at the drop of a hat. People buy too much into their good guy persona.
But I will say that this makes the “humanizing” aspect of Developer Direct feel extra weird (I completely understand that the event planners have nothing to do with lay offs) because all those people you see, MS could eject them any time no problem.
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This is not meant to be a correction, but I would like to add some nuance to your comment.
As to whether layoffs are good or bad for business, I would argue that there is no universal answer. It’s a very complicated issue that depends on many factors. As with most decisions, the correct answer on whether a decision like this helps or hurts is, “it depends.”
As to the “first place you go to cut costs is employees” - that depends on a lot of factors as well, like the industry, business model, the state of the labor market in the industry, projected growth rates, etc. Companies that default to slashing headcount any time things get tough (or they just want to goose the numbers) often regret it.
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Yeah, redundancy position is the easiest target.
It happens every year in January, and it will keep happening long after we’re dead. This is business as usual.
I remember one of the professors even referring to workers as “The Enemy”. I was like…boy its a good thing Im just doing this to position myself for a team lead role, because this is some scummy shit"
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That is pretty shocking. I’ve been teaching in MBA programs for over 20 years. Neither I or any of my colleagues would ever say that.
I’d like to hope this was just a poor attempt at humor by your professor - but who knows?
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Well, I do live in Ohio. So…there are a lot of…special…people here.
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I can see why he would say that in a European country with very strong unions and strict lows. In the US that’s just silly when people just need a phone call from HR to lose their job.
Yeah, I saw people applauding him for it, for not being a kiss ass to MS/Xbox. But going by what you guys are saying that has nothing to do with it.
are layoffs good or bad for business
we are consumers. at most we can make cursory glances on what’s good and bad but ultimately what conducts good business are good labor practices. mass layoffs of worker roles is never a good labor practice no matter how many times you and I try to spin the block over it.
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So let me get this straight…a guy who was at MS up till a few years ago, and only led blizzard for those past few years…is somehow instrumental to Blizzard being Blizzard. Despite most of the news about him during that tenure…being bad.
This is why no one should take Jez seriously.
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At least your official anthem Swag Like Ohio by Lil B is great.
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I only hope MS won’t scale down AB marketing, which was far better than theirs.
I’ll make one more comment here before getting back to work.
I’ve seen quite a few comments blaming this on capitalism or on the stock market. While economic factors like that are certainly relevant and contributed to the decision let’s not pretend that only for-profit, publicly traded companies treat people like shit sometimes.
I work for a well regarded private university. It is a non-profit organization. It is financially stable, though like most universities these days it is facing some challenges with changing demographics, student preferences, etc.
The University’s leadership decided sometime around December, 2022 to make some faculty layoffs. However, they did not announce these layoffs until May, 2023 (in the week after graduation).
The academic world works on a very slow time table. All hiring for Fall positions is usually completed by the previous February. So, by delaying the layoff announcement until May, they basically guaranteed the affected faculty would be out of work for at least a year.
In my department I had worked for six months to get someone hired for Fall 2023. This guy and his wife had already given notice at their current jobs that they were leaving and he had already sold his house. He was moving to our area in early June. In mid-May the order came to me from up top that we couldn’t afford him anymore and that I needed to call him and tell him he didn’t have a job anymore…
Needless to say I didn’t do that. I had a couple of very “loud conversations” with people up the chain of command and ultimately told them that if they had to hit a certain headcount then I would quit and the new guy could have my slot. At the end of the day they “found the money” to keep both him and me.
And all of this BS at a not for profit where everyone makes lots of noise about our fantastic “family culture.”
So, it’s not just capitalism and not just the stock market that makes people act like assholes when it comes to stuff like this. Those certainly contribute, but sometimes people just suck.
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Not that any layoffs are good but do we have any details about the type of staff that were let go?
From what I have seen so far it’s indicated that the bulk of these are from ABK where there is duplication. Therefore I’m wondering if these are ‘devs’ or back office staff (Legal, IT, HR, Business Support, Secretaries etc).
Awful either way.
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https://twitter.com/business/status/1750564702130762237?t=hoohVdlaSS7QpEPGJFPKoQ&s=19
Edit: basically what @AtticusFincher wrote.
Schreier also said new projects are in development.
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I hope from now on there will be actual good news from the ABK saga, for now only litigations and bad news.
These tech layoffs really suck especially when companies are doing record profits but are nuking people to keep up with short term double digit growth. I wish this crap would stop.
Hwoever it is pretty expected to get some layoffs or changes with an acquisition especially when ABK had a negative culture and many internal issues.
But I woke up saw the news and went well guess Ill stay off most gaming forums for a bit while the rage and drama media mchine chews through this and tries to make it an assualt on Xbox.
This is about the only place that is worth talking to others about these subjects as everywhere is to toxic to talk maturally about it.
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