And while employees might give him a hard time for this, shareholders can definitely give him a harder time if they see a (potential) decline in dividend. So cutting cost to keep dividends steady with a decline in profitability and revenue is the easiest fight for him.
While it sucks, when working for a large tech company which is publicly traded like Microsoft antics like this should be no surprise to anyone.
What's the worst they can do? Fire him? He's worth somewhere between $300m-$800m according to Google. Even if he's "only" worth $100m. He'll never have to worry about providing/monthly expenses to cover rent/food. Can't say the same for employees. Obviously that's not his responsibility/concern. Just an interesting take.
What's harder? Getting squeezed by shareholders or being unable to afford your rent?
Let’s see how fast the stock tanks then :)
That's enough time for a new bachelor's degree.
5% headcount reduction is attainable just by freezing hiring and letting churn happen and performance management.
With nearly any company I've seen employees who can dodge performance but are a low performing employee. It drags down their team, and makes your high performers quit.
Layoffs like this might not even have front line managers input aside from, "who is critical to keeping the lights on in the company". All those things that have helped an employee avoid being PIP'ed out are gone.
The managers who I've talked to in these situations will almost always pick their high performing individuals regardless, because they know if they don't they'll be cut next due to poor performing team.