The morale there must be awful.

MSFT is about as evil and shitty as a corpo can get. Helps that their products are terrible and anti-user. Anyway I hope everyone who gets laid off repents and uses their knowledge to harm the corpo.

Article about how MSFT is increasingly turning to fascism

My current company recently had a huge round of layoffs. When I asked what leadership planned to do about the hit to morale, we were told we need to ask ourselves whether we really want to be here. I just tendered my two weeks' notice.

I have a friend who was part of their 1900 layoff shortly after acquiring Blizzard in 2024. Basically, brought into a meeting and then no more job.

She learned last week that every single person who remained in her former group except one had been laid off in this last round. We’re talking about people who had been with Blizzard for years and years and had been happy with their jobs and loved even playing the games that they were making. Just poof! Gone.

The layoffs have been asinine enough, but the completely tone-deaf response from one of their leaders saying “use AI to help with the trauma of job loss” has just been the icing on the cake.

one of their leaders saying “use AI to help with the trauma of job loss”

no way

Man... I really want to kick this guy right in the dick.

How will you address the hit to morale?

"By making it worse!"

The message was probably in poor taste but i fell like people though he meant use it as a therapist, but he just said use it to improve resume, or reach out to network. so basically a proofreader to reduce the amount of work you have to do.

I swear, such stories seem as if all these bosses really expected to become some sort of Soviet directors. There's no way they can expect this shit to work in a market economy.

Maybe they really believe into that "replace everyone with AI" thing.

Then we'll see evolution at work.

I don't know why I feel that urge to compare what happens with western societies today to USSR. Probably has similarities with the moment when Soviet space dream found its' model's ceiling of capability.

I don't think it's reasonable to work for them in day and age and claim you know nothing of their wrong-doing.
Even if you're working a menial job you're still turning a profit for one of the most evil corporations in the world. "Just following orders." or "Just paying bills." doesn't cut it.

Maybe they really believe into that "replace everyone with AI" thing.

A lot of ultra-wealthy people are incredible stupid, so, yes, this is likely.

If there's anything I've learned in my life, it's that I'm stupider than most. Maybe wiser at the same time, because being so stupid you evolve some wisdom or perish. Maybe.

(Except I'm not sure it's wisdom that I've learned the girls I was too shy to talk to 5 years ago and last week live in the same building, same entrance, and yet I don't know how to talk to them, and I feel as if that day 5 years ago was closer to my infancy than today to my death. Autistic things are sometimes truly depressing.)

People of this kind I've heard of seem very energetic. They may not always do the smartest thing, but they do it all the way in. Maybe that's what's wise.

Though then why be a corporate executive. Doesn't seem anything desirable.

You know what the hilarious part is? They are ending support for Win 10 in October which essentially means that the OS will no longer receive security updates. But judging by this blind adoption of AI and the extreme loss of talent at Microsoft, I'm not sure their security will really be worth anything in a couple of years.

I think it may be for the best that I'm using this impetus to migrate to Linux.