My husband was laid off from Microsoft by an algorithm – after 25 years | Hacker News Reader

My husband was laid off from Microsoft by an algorithm – after 25 years

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29 pointsthenaturalist10 comments

Intel did this years ago and ended up laying off a principal engineer in-charge of a major chip project. Stupid^3.

If a company hates its employees that much, it's probably a sign to find more stable employment elsewhere. If there don't appear to be such candidate organizations, this is a sign to found a worker-owned co-op.

His manager may have told him that was how he was selected but no sane company would do a random layoff lottery. It was a cop-out by his management chain.

Don’t know if this is real or not but if the person was hired in 2000 they likely received stock at $35/sh worst case. And follow on grants. It’s $450 now so I assume, at least financially, the arrangement worked well?

Even if they sold all stock immediately upon vest, they made several million dollars in the worst case scenario. Likely much more.

Receiving millions of dollars in the past doesn't necessarily make being laid off today less painful. What if he invested those millions of dollars in Enron, Lehman Brothers, or Mt. Gox?

Companies have no loyalty towards employees, especially large companies, with only the people who sacrifice the most having a semblance of job security. If you want to limit your hours every day, or draw lines around your role, then you inevitably are filtered out. This is the subtle way that companies exploit individuals.

I don't know what the fix is, but it probably has something to do with not letting companies have double standards. If they demand loyalty and sacrifice, then employees should demand that back.

Everyone always forgets that the employee is getting paid thick stacks the whole time. No one owes them shit. When you get to the Cxx level all the mamby pamby employee shit goes out the window. Reality sets in. People get hired to fill a role. That's it. All the culture fluff and whatnot? The timescales of employment no longer fit the old mold we are pretending to fill.

> People get hired to fill a role.

Why should the employee care deeply about the company if the company just treats the employee like an asset in return?

I'm just pointing out the double standard. I'm ok with caring about the company and product but there needs to be some reciprocation there. If I'm just an asset then I also want to not give two shits about the product, just do my tasks and go home (and it should be perfectly fine and not affect my reviews).

> I don't know what the fix is

Unions.

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