Help me understand: Why do executives stay when decisions lead to massive layoffs and cuts?

PJX

Member
Can someone explain to me the business logic behind keeping the same leadership team that made decisions leading to layoffs? What am I missing about how corporate accountability works at this level?

How are people like Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Aaron Greenberg, and Matt Booty still in their? Don Mattrick was let go for a lot less. Satya has to be the WORST CEO in Microsoft history.
 
Can someone explain to me the business logic behind keeping the same leadership team that made decisions leading to layoffs? What am I missing about how corporate accountability works at this level?

How are people like Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Aaron Greenberg, and Matt Booty still in their? Don Mattrick was let go for a lot less. Satya has to be the WORST CEO in Microsoft history.
Are you crazy? The xbox people sure but Satya Nadella has roughly tripled MS stock price - he has added maybe $2 trillion in value.
 
Because the board of directors and investors know they will do it again for them to make profits go up and for their purses to get fatter.

Investors don't care that games were cancelled and people lost jobs, they made money and that's all that matters. They'll only pay attention if they lose money.
 
Can someone explain to me the business logic behind keeping the same leadership team that made decisions leading to layoffs? What am I missing about how corporate accountability works at this level?

How are people like Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Aaron Greenberg, and Matt Booty still in their? Don Mattrick was let go for a lot less. Satya has to be the WORST CEO in Microsoft history.
Satya took MS from like $330-380 billion to about $3.7 TRILLION. He basically increased the value of the company by a factor of 10.

He has been kind of shit to employees lately and his focus on AI may backfire but from investor perspective he has done a tremendous job.

The whole Xbox crew should have been given the boot long ago though.
 
Executives are, by and large, rich people. They protect their own kind because, deep down, they know they're all just winging it and making bets.

If you take the time to work at companies, you'll quickly recognize there's a glass ceiling between directors and the c-suite.

You can, generally, work your way into becoming a director at a company. It's fucking grueling, cutthroat and miserable; but it's possible.

You can't, generally, work your way into becoming an executive at a company. You're hired into the C-suite because of who you're related to, where you went to school or how rich you are.

This is the pitfall of our time: many rich folks today think they're competent because they're rich. The truth of it is some ancestor of theirs was competent and hoarded cash due to that.

What's left for little folk? To be bossed around by rich idiots.
 
Laying off people and having uncomfortable conversations is hard. I have had to fire individuals over the years and it feels terrible even if they deserve to lose their jobs.

So it takes a special kind of person to do it at scale. I would imagine once you do it you will do anything to keep your job.
 
How are people like Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Aaron Greenberg, and Matt Booty still in their? Don Mattrick was let go for a lot less. Satya has to be the WORST CEO in Microsoft history.
Microsoft's market cap had a high of ~$500 billion before Satya. It's gone to almost $3 trillion since he took over. He's CEO and Chairman. He's not going anywhere unless he wants to.

Phil is still there because he's still executing on the board's plans for Xbox (plans he presented to the board for approval). Sarah, Aaron, and Matt are there because Phil doesn't want to fire them.

Out of those 3, Sarah has fucked up the least, and that's probably because she's been there the shortest. Booty should 100% be gone, because holy fuck. Greenberg as VP of Marketing is....I don't even know why.

But Matt Booty has been so incredibly ineffective as a studio head it's mind boggling that he's still there.
 
Cult Illuminate GIF by Squirrel Monkey
 
Explanation incoming: No one cares about the pawns. They are there to sacrifice for the company to make money. In reality you are a number that no one gives a shit about and only pretend to, so you work harder, feel better about whatever the hell is wrong with you, so you will perform on that spread sheet.

Always new I was a number, never cared and used each place I was positioned to meet my personal goals in life.
 
because they get hired to do that. Spencer got hired to make money for the shareholders. Guess what? He just did.
 
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I'm not a corporate person but it seems that there are multiple layers of protection for the upper brass. You're thinking that investors give a shit that Perfect Dark got canceled. Their only concern is that the line keeps going up. And more than ever, these companies will let people go in the hundreds of thousands to ensure that happens, zero fucks given.
 
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