Microsoft CEO addresses layoffs in memo to employees amid strong earnings

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella addressed employees Thursday over the apparent disconnect between the company’s mass layoffs and its strong earnings and record spending on data centers.

In a companywide memo, Nadella said the recent job cuts have been "weighing heavily on me," but the company's efforts to achieve success will depend on its "continuing to maintain and scale our current business, while also creating new categories with new business models."

“This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value,” Nadella wrote. “Progress isn’t linear. It’s dynamic, sometimes dissonant and always demanding.”

Across the tech industry, companies have doubled down on artificial intelligence, increasing their investments even as hiring has slowed. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy predicted in June that the company's use of AI would eventually lead to reductions in its corporate headcount.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/07/24/microsoft-ceo-tells-employees.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I am losing my ability to comprehend

“This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value,” Nadella wrote. “Progress isn’t linear. It’s dynamic, sometimes dissonant and always demanding.”

I don't think I could understand that if I spent the rest of the day on it. Sounds like word-hedge to me. Escapism. Substitute reality.

The larger the problem, the more problems it creates, and the less ability we have to make any changes to fix the large problem or the smaller problems it generates.

I think it will all solve itself when global warming cooks the data centers and the crypto mining complexes.

Did you know there are large investment companies who will not directly invest in bitcoin?

But there are so many generative AI companies I can't track them. All using electricity by the boatload.

[LisaM]

2. One of the layoffs was a good friend of mine.

He loved working at Microsoft, he loved his team, and he expected to retire from there in a few years. He was completely blindsided by being laid off, which came within a few days of his mother's death.

There are human beings attached to these layoffs.