2mo ago

Microsoft CEO's pay rises 63% to $73m, despite devastating year for layoffs

t.co Microsoft CEO's pay rises 63% to $73m, despite devastating year for layoffs

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella will earn a wallet-busting $79.1m (£60.9m) this financial year, up 63 percent on his compe…

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella will earn a wallet-busting $79.1m (£60.9m) this financial year, up 63 percent on his compensation for 2023.

The huge boost to Nadella's pay in both cash and stock, announced by Microsoft last night, comes after a positive year overall for the company's financial revenues - but a turbulent 12 months for its employees.

2024 has seen two mass layoffs at Microsoft, with 1900 staff laid off in January, before a further 650 Xbox employees were shown the door in September.

94 comments

And I bet he does less work in a day than every single one of the people who were laid off to fund his pay
- Maybe they can come up with some technology that would someday take the position of CEO. Think of the savings...
  
  Right, but the whole point of a corporation is to benefit insiders at the expense of the owners, employees, suppliers, customers, people that breath air, dolphins, platypi, etc.
  
  I'm pretty sure CEOs are supposed to be one of the most AI replaceable jobs.
- Lemmy, stop upvoting this BS, you jealous basement dwellers.
  Say all you want about unfair pay, but those CEOs work absolutely mad hours and the most insane schedules you can possibly imagine.

Because of the devastating year for layoffs.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
- Came here to say exactly this.
- Exactly, they were labor heavy and he fixed a problem which resulted from gross over hiring. Sounds like he’s doing a good job.
  
  The ideal corporation has no labor and only profits. Somehow.
  
  This just might be the stupidest fucking comment I've seen all week.
  
  The trap where the thing you're saying is totally valid and accurate but it's not the thing to be talking about. I don't know where this thinking comes from or what it's called, but I notice it within conservative groups (probably because I'm critical by default of those ideas). It reminds me of BLM protests and how Ben Shapiro was talking about damage to property and business owners when the actual issue and discussion to be had is entirely different. It just serves to support the problematic behaviour that people are trying to change.
  So yes, there was a surge in demand and they over-hired and letting people go is the right choice, but the whole situation is fucked and the optics of this kind of raise is dogshit.
  
  They were labor heavy because they (and all the other tech giants) overhired during the pandemic assuming that record profits would continue forever. Then they had Surprised Pikachu Face when that didn't happen. That's not doing his job. It should have been obvious the spike was temporary.

Every time a big company lays people off I always try to remember that it's not because they aren't making enough money as a company. It's because the "important" people want more money.
- He get this pay becuase he laysoff people.
  Executive compensation is structured around this.
  He wouldnt bother withnthe layoffs if his comp didnt improve...
- “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell”

"Despite"
- ...because of layoffs
- Yeah they want to make it clear that they laid off people and he should not get rewarded for it, however I think we all read 'thanks to the layoffs he could increase his pay'

Eat. The. Rich.
- We can't even get people to go outside and meet live humans for sex anymore, everyone has switched to online apps for dating. People order food and groceries because we learned from Covid we don't need to actually interact with other people.
  Does anyone actually expect us to mobilize and topple powerful financial institutions? We have the most comfortable society on Earth in the US. Despite how miserable everyone is, nobody wants to leave their soft chairs and giant computer monitors and immersive video games and discord chat channels where you can mute and block anyone you don't like. The only thing that could possibly change our course at this point would be some transhumanist/singularity nonsense like artificial general intelligence being developed and wrecking the economy.
  But that's tech being developed and controlled by the wealthy elite, so my hopes faded long ago.
  
  Maybe someone can make an app, so I can have someone paid at an insultingly low hourly rate to go protest/riot in my place?
  
  Everything is going exactly to plan. You're welcome.
  
  Sorry, the first sentence in your reply is wrong. I've literally spent the last two weekends going out and meeting people. If you don't go outside, that's on you.

Absolutely insane. I literally cannot fathom accepting that much money when there are so many other people who need it more.
- That's because you're not a piece of shit. Most major companies CEOs are pieces of shit
- Employees are a companies biggest expanse. Thats why they want to get rid of them as much as possible. Why are people really thinking that AI will free up new jobs? There is a finite amount of things only humans can do more "effeciently"(not sure if thats the right word, forgive my german) or better, and it is only getting smaller.

Wow! He must be not just hundreds but many thousands of times more productive than an average employee! Incredible! Well deserved.
- Wow such work, much deserve

~~despite~~
thanks to

Remember, he's the real victim here, he had to sign off on all those layoffs, he's going to have to live with that decision...
...in one of his multiple mansions.
He gets paid that much because he's one of the few people on earth who can make those kind of tough choices. The poor guy must be weeping into his caviar.
- Our CEO announced layoffs recently and then even more recently sent a follow up email complaining about how people were complaining about it and saying how hard it has been for the executive team. We're a small company and I get the pain they are feeling due to financial constraints but at the end of the day we work for money and they are taking home 3-4x as much as anyone else each month while making all the decisions about how money is spent. It's hard not to become resentful.
  
  Sorry to hear that, typical hierarchical power structure.
  We need more worker protections, and more workplace democracy.
  
  3-4x is in the fair region still. Do you think Microsoft employees make 20-30 millions each? (3-4x less than the CEO)

What a miracle! He must work that much harder than everyone else there! I'll bet A.I. could never do as good a job as he does!
I almost forgot... I heard his marbled meat will taste better than many other breeds of billionaire, especially when slow-smoked over Mesquite. I hope we are able to taste that one day.
- Im a vegetarian but this one would be good for the planet, so…
  
  Hello fellow vegetarian! I made the comment while holding my nose. It would definitely be my one meat exception.

Glad my layoff could help you out!
- Where do folks think that money comes from if not layoffs?

It’d be cool to never be held accountable for bad business moves, but we also know that layoffs are celebrated by Wall Street for cutting costs.

more like because of the layoffs

On the one hand, Nadella has, in my opinion, saved Microsoft. They were on a downward spiral right before he took over. On the other hand, nothing justifies a $79.1MM salary. That is grotesque.
- They still are, they might have started to pull up, by they're still squarely on a collision course with the ground. When this AI bubble pops, thier Boeing provided auto-pilot will crater them into the ground.
  Sorry, this metaphor got away from me.
- I wonder if you will still feel this way after he kills the Xbox console.

I got a 63 cent raise this year too!

Fire the CEO and hire back the best with pay rises, if they're willing. JC, MS, get a grip on yourselves.

Satya's union of 1 knows how to negotiate apparently.

I remember whn he first came on the scene, everyone was talking about what a genius Satya was-- for copying AWS's business model. Tnen he stated women should not ask for raises in 2014. This is what you get when you put someone in charge who was raised and educated inside India.
This is not India and we dont want it to become like India.
- This is what you get when you put someone in charge who was raised and educated inside India. This is not India and we dont want it to become like India.
  I think we can acknowledge this man's poor behavior and systemic misogyny in India without painting over a billion people as unqualified to lead or as dangerous to our country's cultural character. I have several of friends raised and educated in India, now living in the US, who are quite feminist--almost certainly more so than the average American citizen, especially given near half of Americans will vote for a sexual predator for the third presidential election in a row.
  
  What you dont get is that people aculturized in this stuff see their abuses as good and righteous. Just like 80 years ago in the US husbands thought it was just fine to spank their wives if they werent keeping the household the way they wanted it, and thought of it as teaching them proper upbringing. I dont want anyone raised in a regressive culture in charge. The ideas of an exeutive leader filter down through the org they lead a lot mroe than you'd guess they would.

while trying to buy a license they claimed i needed a subscription to 365 garbage first. hung up and installed linux.

"despite"

Can't he get the extremely terrible way of grabbing focus and changing z-order fixed? That would be great..
- Sorry, that would mean prioritizing something that doesn't directly increase executive pay in the short term.
- Curious about this - you mean in Windows? What's the solution as you see it?
  
  Every single application or popup window will always attempt to get the highest z-order and switch keyboard input focus from wherever you were working to this window.
  More than once, this resulted in input into the wrong window, causing problems.
  And running this piece of junk os in a triple monitor setup; why do new windows (mainly outlook related) open on a different monitor ? If my input is on monitor 2, why are new windows opened on monitor 1 or 2?
  A straight forward install of a recent Ubuntu version is much friendly for the user. But, as stated by someone else, improving the product is not gaining any cash flow.

Each day I become closer moving my setup away from windows entirely. I installed Ubuntu alongside windows but now I'm thinking I want a different distro and need to repartition I guess.

Interesting... So according to this ign most of that was awarded in stock. It kind of solidifies the comments about making money for the share holders by cutting costs. Was gonna say would be nice for us peasants to be awarded in stock but then I would feel like crap if I'd get ton of money while others lost their job.

Yeah but those layoffs saved a LOT of money! /s

Come on guys, you can't expect them to take care of their CEO and their employees.

Wow, the price of a soul went up 63%.

With all the suffering that they've been inflicting upon Windows serfs, he's more than earned it. If it were up to me, I'd up his pay tenfold. I can't wait to see what MS has in store for the tech cattle in 2025!

"earn"

Yeah but I bet he met a KPI

CEO (and really the whole executive committee and board of directors) is beholden to the shareholders, not the employees. Employees are not only an expense, but the largest expense a company has.
- Employees should buy up all the stock.
  
  Unfortunately, they would only be able to buy stock that is for sale.

He is compensated for company performance, not headcount.
- Oh, fuck right off with that corporate rimjobbing there.
- I'm guessing you are not rich enough to stop working. Maybe don't bother trying to defend oligarchy.

94 comments