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Some Microsoft employees fume over the company's open offer to hire hundreds of OpenAI staff
(www.businessinsider.com)
The answer is always money
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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I worked for Microsoft for a long time, and by far my least-favorite part about it was the way politics from on high turned hard work into a cruel joke- oh, you did awesome work this year, but the c-suite spent all the money so you can't get the bonus or level promotion I want to give you and oh here's this news:
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they're laying 18,000 of you off
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while hiring H-1b contractors
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and buying back shares
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and killing off in-house projects because we bought a competitor
Yeah if you wonder why MS employees have opinions about stuff like this, it's because it's genuinely unpleasant to realize that your career depends on not getting fucked by people with every incentive to fuck it
I've never really understood why anyone would want to work there, unless it's really about selling your soul for the pay. They have been known to be a terrible employer from at least the early 1990s, where people famously had cots in their offices and would only go home a couple times a month before releases.
For the money. From 1986 to 2003, there were 9 stock splits and MS handed out stock options to almost all employees. Many employees who started there in the early 90s are now multimillionaires.
I doubt that it’s worth the loss of your soul for most people, but monkey want shiny is enough for many.
I wonder why MS employees don’t take offers elsewhere. Their salary is probably under market value if they are at MS for too long (ie. their initial vesting is over).
It's not so easy to just replace your job when you have a specialized skill. It takes months of applying to other jobs, doing interviews, coordinating with recruiters, etc. Not everyone has the time, patience, or ability to do that.
That being said, I am constantly looking for a better position. It takes time out of my day but it's worth it in the long run.
This. Job hopping works for some time even when you are young, when you learn fast and when everyone is hiring.
I took me one year to get out of my managerial job and I took a paycut, went to work a smaller company with lesser job title. My previous job was too good on paper. In reality it was a total shitshow. I was open to take the first reasonable offer, but recruiters were hesitant to even talk to me.
And it's not just job titles. Skills fade if you are in position where you don't continue learning.
I get why they'd be pissed. If they cut staff in their old AI team for 'strategic reasons' or whatever they told employees, they should stick to that reasoning and say it doesn't make sense to bring on a different AI team. Otherwise it does send the wrong message to existing employees that they will just be replaced by an acquisition. I can't imagine working at Microsoft and trusting anything that leadership team says regardless, but even the fact that they made that offer with all the cost cutting they've been doing just says that they aren't being truthful about why they are doing it.
Wait, a giant corpo didn't actually do cost-cutting because they 'had' to and instead lied to all of their employees about pocketing money?!
... ... oh god, wait, I've misplaced my surprise Pikachu face... one moment...
In Finland this would be illegal. Firing employees requires reason, and if the reason for firing was "cost cutting", the old employee must be hired back first before new can be hired. There are of course some time limits.
This is what unions do for you.
I mean, I get why people would not like this but it is a value proposition. They think a random OpenAI employee is much more valuable than a some Microsoft employees. Hence, they'd rather boot specific Microsoft employees and hire OpenAI people instead.
I mean articles like this are kind of bullshit propaganda anyways. Microsoft is such a big company that there is going to be a huge range of opinions. The author is just selecting one opinion for their own reasons
Yep plain and simple. Everyone’s catching up to OpenAI and this is hardly any secret. MSFT team should know that they are second-stringers, but I’m sure they’ve been thinking much more of themselves.
The OpenAI people built ChatGPT, the Microsoft folks worked on Clippy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In February, even some staff working on cloud and AI — Microsoft's priority growth areas — were cut.
In May, CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft was freezing salaries and reducing its bonus and stock award budget for the year.
In July, Microsoft was still conducting layoffs, beyond the original 10,000, BI reported at the time.
Microsoft also shuttered projects and laid off staff in its "industrial metaverse," its previous major AI initiative.
And then, after Microsoft's AI partner OpenAI fired its CEO Sam Altman, Nadella announced on Monday that he'd hired Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman to run a new cutting edge AI research group.
Some believe that the new OpenAI unit could be good for employees, especially if Microsoft's stock rises.
The original article contains 353 words, the summary contains 123 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
So they need to leave M$ and join OpenAI first. Then they can return with their nice new salary from OpenAI.
/s
No sarcasm necessary. This is literally how tech industry employment works.
Satire, not sarcasm.
In reality most of them do not work in an AI related area and therefore they do not have a chance to pull such a stunt. That's why they are complaining now.
/s is commonly known as sarcasm
It’s neither because that’s actually a proven strategy.