Microsoft would rather spend money on AI than give workers a raise

If you work at Microsoft, hey, good job. Stock's up 31 percent this year and the way top brass decided to reward you was to... not reward you. But we do sympathize, especially when the CMO says this is because the company wants to "invest in the AI wave." As The Register reported earlier in the month, CEO Satya Nadella broke …

[Someone Else]

CMO == Chief Moronic Officer?

[DS999]

"We don't care if some of you quit over not getting a raise"

"We hope to replace all of you with AI before we lose enough people for it to become a problem"

[cookieMonster]

Re: "We don't care if some of you quit over not getting a raise"

Could you imagine how much better windows would be if all the cheap, unskilled, inexperienced and shit developers they employ, were replaced with BobAI/ClippyCoder/ChatGPT??

Nobody would even notice!!

[b0llchit]

Cost and costs

Simple... You can "own" AI.

Your employees cannot be owned because we banished slavery (yeah, yeah, you know what I mean).

[ChoHag]

> I would appreciate hearing the rationale behind not providing any raises

Because they can. What are you going to do about it? Strike?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're going to go straight back to Yammer and anonymously shitpost about it.

[captain veg]

Yammer.

*Shudder*

I'd almost blotted that out.

-A.

[Dave Null]

all the real bitching is on Blind

[CowHorseFrog]

Every day America is starting to look more and more like Czarist Russia, same roles just different actors.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say that the proletariat is way better armed, but then I realised the the Russian revolution happened during WW1, when many prols were better armed, and experienced in use thereof, than was usually the case.

[Karlis 1]

Yammer is still alive? My understanding was that M$ buying it killed it.

I guess you need to have teams account to post now :D

[ChoHag]

Sounds like they turned it into dog food.

[Anonymous Coward]

More USA Corp BS

Americans need to realise that you are “owned” lock stock and barrel.

When the wonderful US of A beat the British and became “Free”, you really just had a change of ownership.

The rich own you and you will jump to their tune.

AI will be all about putting the people who managed to raise themselves up back in their places.

YOU are only needed to be in debt.

[GruntyMcPugh]

plus ca change plus c'est la même chose

When I was blue, Ginni Rommetty addressed us in a podcast, and broke the bad news that PBC Grade 2's weren't getting a bonus that year, yet IBM had found millions to develop Watson 2.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Scum

Management are scum. It's as simple as that. Nobody, absolutely nobody, deserves a $100 million pay package, no matter how good they are or think they are. Everyone within the company works hard. Some piggies are more equal than others.

The problem with C-level execs is that there's literally no one to reign them in. They're making up all sorts of excuses to give themselves stock options and bonus packages, essentially robbing the company and its shareholders.

[computing]

Companies nickel-and-dime us with below-inflation payrises, hoping we don't notice

Microsoft CMO: "The most important lever for almost all our employees' compensation upside is the stock price. So great quarterly results contribute to making the stock attractive which in turn drives everyone's total compensation up."

By that logic, cut employee pay! That'll improve quarterly results, which will jack up the stock price - (almost) all employees wiil be fabulously rich!

So that's what they just did. :-)

I'm sure this works well for CEO/CMO/CIO-level employees who get a lot of stock and cash that they can funnel into investments. Not so much for folk far below their level who have mortgages to pay.

The average Microsoft employee tenure seems to be around 5 years. Microsoft stock dips and swells (there was an almost 50% dip last year, before its rescue by ChatGPT). However, Microsoft stock is up 50% from 2.5 years ago. So let's assume stock increase 20% in value annually for the last 2-3 years.

Assume employee stock is about 20% of MS employee pay (Source: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/microsoft/salaries/software-engineer). The vesting schedule is 5 years, so on average only half of the first year's stock award has vested. But let's be generous and assume half of all annual stock RSUs have vested. That means 10% of pay (which is stock) is available to sell. Over 2.5 years, this stock increased in value (say) to 15% of pay -- but that's over 2.5 years. So if you sell off the increase in stock value, that a pay hike of 2% per year. Not enough to beat inflation (around 5%), nor loss of bonus this year (another 5%).

So the average Microsoft employee got a pay cut of around 5-8% this year. If they do this in a good season, imagine why they'd do in a bad one.

It's sad how companies hire at one price, then nickel-and-dime you with below-inflation payrises, hoping you don't notice. Eventually, people leave just to maintain their standard of living. Maybe that's why the average Microsoft employee tenure is just 5 years - the lure of unvested stock isn't enough to offset pressure to move elsewhere. However, it's the same dance at many other companies.

I recall discussing this with my manager once. I'd received a payrise significantly below inflation, so I asked if I'd performed poorly that year. He denied it. Then I asked "then why did you cut my pay?". He denied that even more strenuously, saying "you're getting more dollars this year than last year, so we have given you a pay rise", etc. I said it was a pay cut in real terms. To his credit, he came back a couple of days later saying he'd thought about it and that I was right - it was a paycut. I don't recall what happened after - it was almost two decades ago. But I like to think I got an out-of-turn payhike to compensate.

Anyway -- all the numbers are approximate. I may be wrong but that's my view at this point in time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now CEO is a task that could be done by AI

And, as a plus, extra CPU or RAM is a LOT cheeper than share options.

[SnOOpy168]

When top execs sells, we better run.

[Steve Davies 3]

re: When top execs sells, we better run

Don't forget to monitor members of congress. Many of them sold their shares in SVB just before it went TITSUP.

[Triggerfish]

Let's hire a load of people, that will look like growth and our stock will go up, let's fire a lot of people that will look like savings our stock will go up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wages have been decreasing for some time.

Unfortunately profits for large corporations are not the same story and have risen in comparison. Lack of competition, consolidation, overt political influence, take on no burdens / all profit, regulatory capture, zero risk positions, lowered trust, low credibility, general poor behaviour etc.

This is especially true for big tech companies. Its important to highlight this and to always bring the discussion to law makers/politicians. The current situation is not sustainable.

[s. pam]

Get ready for the redundancies MSFTees

This is largely the same to how it went down in other companies, time to update CV, lube up your orfices and get ready!

[Binraider]

Capex failures are tax deductible. Staff wages aren't. If they get something useful out of it, great. If not, they still win.

Have you not worked out the system is rigged against mere mortals yet?