Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

As the WSJ source article explains [1]:

> "...hobnobbing at Davos is part of doing business for major tech corporations and the events are planned far in advance making it difficult to change them..."

As far as I can tell, the concert wasn't a perk for MS execs, it was a networking event for those execs to build relationships on behalf of Microsoft with powerful people/institutions from across the world at the World Economic Forum. And an exclusive concert with Sting is a good way to get important people into the room with you, rather than competing events.

And of course planned long in advance of layoffs, and totally separately. But this is what the elite trying to influence other elite looks like.

So I'm not really sure what anyone is complaining about. Was Microsoft supposed to cancel the event at the last minute but still pay Sting his full fee that had already been contracted? Or is Microsoft not supposed to be engaging in the kind of elite influencing and lobbying that it needs to build its business? Because Davos is exactly the kind of place that can pay large dividends for Microsoft.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/davos2023/card/microsoft-ho...

> Was Microsoft supposed to cancel the event at the last minute but still pay Sting his full fee that had already been contracted?

Yes, on both counts.

Optics matter, apparently enough so that we're talking about it right now.

Also, those aren't the only alternatives, but no matter how you spin it, what was done was not a good look.

Then the same journalist writes the same article, only about Microsoft wasting money on booking Sting and then not even having him show up, a day before layoffs. Which because it's even more wasteful, maybe comes across even worse.

Journalists are always going to try to find/invent "optics" problems. But when companies aren't actually doing anything wrong, is it really worth their time to worry about "optics"?

I don't think this particular article or HN post is going to matter at all in the long run, or even in the short run.

> Was Microsoft supposed to cancel the event at the last minute but still pay Sting his full fee that had already been contracted?

No, Microsoft was supposed to time their announcement of large lay off so as it not be days after a private concert for executives because it looks bad and gives a bad impression on the company and not doing that is part of what executives are paid for.

I don’t understand why this site seems so full of apologists every time an article is published rightfully criticising a large American company.

Are you all that loyal to your masters? They are not going to pet you you know.

Because a minor coordination failure across an enormous company is...not worth chastising them over?

Because if you cry wolf too many times about trivial innocuous issues, nobody will believe you when companies are actively being evil? My default assumption on seeing this sort of headline is already "outrage bait".

> a minor coordination failure across an enormous company

We are talking about the CEO announcing the firing of 5% of the workforce.

If you call that a minor coordination failure, I think there is some massive recalibration you should be doing. At that point, I think it’s unlikely we will ever find a common ground.

This is not and will never be an innocuous issue.

From the second sentence of your link:

>"It was an intimate gathering of 50 or so people, including the company’s top executives, who got to while away the evening listening to a performance by the musical artist Sting, said people familiar with the event."

So let's look at the real reach of the networking opportunity. We have 50 people total minus the Microsoft execs themselves, let's say there were 10 Microsoft execs and let's say half of them brought their significant other or assistants etc. So now we have 35 people. Out of that 35 there were likely a bunch of other celebrities in attendance. Davos has a big celebrity draw(the Bonos, DiCaprios, Idris Elbas, Matt Damons etc.) Of course they are going to be invited, the private Sting concert was probably "thee" A list event. Throw in a couple of well-connected journalists as well. So how much new business potential was there really? 12-15 people? Is that really enough to justify the 1 million to 1.7 million fee that Sting charges for private bookings?

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