Microsoft CFO calls for 'intensity' in an internal memo, after blowout earnings (www.businessinsider.com)
from FenrirIII@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 02:00
https://lemmy.world/post/33933161

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/33767928

#technology

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CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 02:00 next collapse

Take note. It’s never enough, no matter how much you give.

deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz on 04 Aug 02:40 collapse

Do more with less.

In good times and bad.

AreaKode@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 02:44 collapse

Work your wage.

rafoix@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 03:19 next collapse

Microsoft has/had good wages.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 Aug 00:31 collapse

also work for what you believe in, whether that be community service, supporting your neighbours, making a computer game, chatting with friends, everything helps as long as you can believe in it with your heart

obvs@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 02:44 next collapse

I call for employees to tell their employers to FTFO.

AbidingOhmsLaw@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 02:50 next collapse

Paywall

reddig33@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 02:58 next collapse

  • cloud services exceeded $75 billion
  • Office productivity software and LinkedIn, delivered $33.11 billion in revenue
  • Personal Computing unit, which encompasses Windows, search advertising, devices and video games, totaled $13.45 billion

Writing is on the wall. Xbox and Windows made money, but a fraction of what Office and enterprise services made.

voytrekk@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 03:38 next collapse

That is how it has been for a long time at Microsoft. They know Enterprise is where the money is, it hasn’t stopped them from trying to venture out into other areas tho.

reddig33@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 04:56 collapse

They stopped venturing a long time ago. Microsoft should’ve been split up. Then maybe some of their consumer products would’ve survived and thrived. Even Windows OS seems like an afterthought these days.

shalafi@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 05:53 next collapse

I dunno. MS has become such a behemoth that us home users suffer nothing these days. Apparently they can pay enough, and enough workers, to keep consumer Windows alive. Why kill the golden goose? As to Office, that requires the bigger goose to run on top of.

Always an unpopular take around here, but I don’t have 1/20th the issues lemmy tells me I should be enduring under Windows 11. No telling how old my install is. Started with Win10, years and years ago, swapped SSDs a time or two. Only reason I reboot is when the power blinks. (need a new UPS battery)

This from a guy that reinstalled Windows weekly in the 90s. Meh. Works fine now.

datavoid@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 13:49 collapse

Wait until Windows SE (subscription edition) comes out and you have to pay for it monthly… that’ll get those numbers up!

RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 03:53 next collapse

Vertical integration. Windows underpins Office, and even cloud services.

Xbox though, they’ve already pretty much written its epitaph.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 09:13 next collapse

Xbox is actively being dropped from Target and Walmart, but it doesn’t help that the push is for digital games with no physical presence in stores.

Ugurcan@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 15:56 next collapse

Xbox should’ve been the prestige product for Microsoft (just like Logic/Final Cut for Apple) but Xbox itself depleted any prestige it ever accumulated over the last few years.

SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 04 Aug 23:41 collapse

Isn’t Linux mostly used for cloud services though?

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today on 04 Aug 07:12 collapse

its like what AWS for amazon, its delivery/online market pale in comparison to thier licensing to the govt and other services.

some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org on 04 Aug 03:30 next collapse

Capitalism is collapsing under the weight of record profits and additional billionaires.

floofloof@lemmy.ca on 04 Aug 04:28 next collapse

“We’re entering FY26 with clear priorities in security, quality, and AI transformation, building on our momentum and grounded in our mission and growth-mindset culture,” Hood wrote, mentioning Nadella’s email. “Both the pace of change and customer expectations are continuously accelerating.”

Hood’s email, notably, didn’t mention Microsoft’s recent workforce cuts, which have exceeded 10,000 this year even as profit swells. Nadella’s email last week attempted to explain this “seeming incongruence” as the “enigma of success.” Some employees weren’t satisfied with the explanation.

These people get paid so much for spouting this utter bullshit every day. I hope they have moments when they realize the hollowness of what they do.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Aug 05:13 next collapse

Agreed. What even the fuck is that string of complete nonsense? These C-suite dipshits say it so much, someone is eating it up.

shalafi@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 05:38 next collapse

The “someone” is the investors, or generally speaking, the market.

Major CEOs can’t say they’re taking a financial hit, for whatever reason. This is why I like working for small companies, and most Americans work for small businesses.

Last company: CEO announced to the board that he intended to lose money in order to build staff and products. Yes, he even included tech debt. The board applauded him.

Meh, we fucked around and still made a profit, so he gave the board the same report the following year, same results. We fucked around a made a profit. Again.

tl;dr: Don’t mistake all CEOs for the bullshit you hear from Nadella and Musk and the like. Remember; You only hear crazy talk reported, because it’s crazy talk.

floofloof@lemmy.ca on 04 Aug 06:36 next collapse

I would say Nadella is the biggest bullshitter of them all. I don’t think I’ve heard him speak a single non-bullshit sentence.

onslaught545@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 14:03 next collapse

Kinda like HMOs. You only hear about the bad ones because people in good ones don’t bitch about them at every opportunity.

boonhet@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 19:06 collapse

Worked for a company like that, but not everyone was happy. Investors were brought in and place went to shit. Sucks, but I got out just as it started getting worse.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 05:40 collapse

They’re trying to tell their “stakeholders”, employees, customer, shareholders, what to believe, what to think that’s the bullshit dazzle spell to preserve your suspension of disbelief just a little longer.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Aug 06:20 collapse

That’s the thing though. If I as an employee heard the CEO spout this crap, I would laugh at them. It’s ridiculous. Use real sentences with real meanings.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 06:24 collapse

That’s why they’re at the podium and expect peer pressure to keep everyone quiet until they can retreat back into their lair

TheBat@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 07:07 next collapse

customer expectations are continuously accelerating

Just make a functional OS that doesn’t get in user’s ways. Those are the expectations.

realitista@lemmus.org on 04 Aug 09:55 collapse

Microsoft doesn’t expect growth in their OS offerings. These days all their focus is on AI and cloud.

Simulation6@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 09:44 next collapse

I wounder how this person defines quality in their mind?

systemglitch@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 12:32 next collapse

They know every single word is hollow. Eat it and rejoice peasant. Are you not filled?

GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 21:12 next collapse

“The enigma of success” whoever came up with that line has truly mastered the art of auto-fellatio.

Taleya@aussie.zone on 04 Aug 22:02 next collapse

Burn the business colleges to the ground

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 Aug 00:28 collapse

the hollowness of what they do

i suspect they intentionally hollow out their soul to save weight or sth

Supervisor194@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 04:30 next collapse

At what point will we look at these numbers with skepticism? When not one worker is left who can afford their services nor one customer left who wants anything to do with their utterly shit “products” - but they still blow out the quarter with 100 billion? At what point will society recognize that this money can’t possibly represent anything actually real? Will it matter if all of us starve to death and only billionaires are left if the Microsofts of the world will still be able to post 200 billion dollar “profits”?

I’m actually curious. Because I personally think that’s increasingly what all this is. Fake as shit. Some combination of algorithms, cryptocurrency, dark pools and I dunno, the Illuminati I guess.

Chronographs@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 04:41 next collapse

I wouldn’t say it’s fake, it’s the money other companies steal from their workers by not paying a fair wage being given to Microsoft to burn at the pyre of ai.

Supervisor194@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 04:53 collapse

I mean, I don’t disagree that that’s historically what it’s been. But increasingly, it seems like record profits just keep going through the roof no matter what. And record stock market numbers. And record everything. Nothing goes down, not substantially. Negative news seems to have no (net) effect anymore.

Chronographs@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 05:02 next collapse

In theory the line should go up, population increases, technology allows us to become more efficient, inflation etc. That said what’s going down is at least the standard of living, employment, adjusted wages. Personally I’d put money on the AI bubble popping and crashing the market eventually but who knows how long that’ll take

orclev@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 06:43 collapse

It’s because they’re concentrating all the wealth. The wealth in the US used to be far more distributed, with the majority existing in the large middle class. Reagan started the policy by Republicans to pass laws and regulations designed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and then Clinton got the Democrats on board with the same strategy. We’re approaching the end game now where the middle and lower classes are nearly bled dry and the rich will start cannibalizing each other to be the last fattest rat in the garbage pile while the entire US economy collapses around them. Be on the lookout for the smarter rats to start fleeing the ship by transferring as much wealth as they can into foreign assets that will survive the collapse of America.

NewDayRocks@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Aug 04:53 next collapse

Big companies are subject to constant audits. You, too, can check their balance sheets that are released and scrutinize the numbers.

While you may personally dislike MS products, most of the world’s businesses and governments run on them. That’s licensing money every month without fail. They can literally charge whatever they want because companies with staff want Office and Windows Server backend.

AmidFuror@fedia.io on 04 Aug 04:58 next collapse

The money is real. Perhaps you don't work somewhere that pays to use Microsoft Enterprise services, but there are many and a lot are huge. Those companies build and/or do tangible things that others or consumers buy.

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 14:04 collapse

That doesn’t mean the money is real.

AmidFuror@fedia.io on 04 Aug 14:23 collapse

If we're going to get into a debate about what money is and represents, you might have an argument. If we accept that we use currency to exchange for goods, services, and labor, it is real money.

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 14:28 collapse

Then what is the function of the stock market for the economy?

You are arguing for an extremely simplistic vision of money that does not exist.

AmidFuror@fedia.io on 04 Aug 16:04 collapse

The stock market is a way to publicly trade partial ownership of companies. The value of a stock is whatever people are willing to pay for it. That's based on speculation but at least somewhat anchored in the companies' revenues and profits/losses.

The revenues and profits/losses are real values reported quarterly. Projected revenues are just that - estimated future predictions. Of course there can be fraud, but that's unlikely from a company as large as Microsoft.

Event DJT, which has a valuation based on nothing but speculation and political loyalties still reports that they are losing money hand over fist.

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz on 04 Aug 16:11 collapse

The stock market is a way to publicly trade partial ownership of companies. The value of a stock is whatever people are willing to pay for it. That’s based on speculation but at least somewhat anchored in the companies’ revenues and profits/losses.

Sometimes it is but no the stock market is often very unanchored from any real sense of value and as a result all of the money involved becomes a part of something unreal that will catastrophically collapse at a later point.

Exhibit A) See Uber, it isn’t even a business in any pure capitalist sense since it has never or almost never turned a profit.

No, the macro-economic function of the stock market is to determine the capitalist value of things, the stock market IS the hallucination at the center of the value of currencies like the US dollar.

You clearly believe in some magical power of rationality to the stock market like people believe in God, I can only debate you so far before your rhetorical defenses become purely emotional and based on feelings not facts.

AmidFuror@fedia.io on 04 Aug 18:48 collapse

The only one making irrational arguments is you. I think you have some ideological points you want to score and are therefore not looking at what is being commented or grasping the reality of financial reporting.

How do you know Uber isn't profitable? Because Uber is reporting it is not profitable. The question that started this thread is whether Microsoft is accurately reporting its profits. It is. So is Uber.

Whether the stock prices are irrational is irrelevant to the question.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 04 Aug 05:15 collapse

Business contracts and licenses are MS’s bread and butter. They don’t give a shit about individuals, they know we pirate Windows, and they don’t care. But if a business pirates Windows…

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 09:10 next collapse

Publicly traded companies have to continually make more money than they did last month, last quarter, same time last year.

Failing to do so means they are somehow “losing” money that is “rightfully owed” to them and the stock market punishes them.

It doesn’t matter if you’re profitable or not, so long as you’re continually making more money.

onslaught545@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 13:57 next collapse

They actually have a legal obligation to maximize profits.

ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml on 04 Aug 16:18 collapse

Technically they don’t - it’s a lie told often by CEO. But its a lie. law.stanford.edu/…/Fiduciary-Duties-of-the-Board-…

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 Aug 00:27 collapse

the way i understand it, the company has an obligation to fulfill “shareholder’s requests”, which is maximizing profits in 99% of cases, at least on publicly traded companies.

ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml on 05 Aug 03:36 collapse

Same document, section about Shareholders.

There’s no such thing. There COULD be something like shareholders voting on smthing and those votes are binding, but the agenda is declared by the company and can be only shiet like dividends rate, certain acquisitions, etc. Not the company strategy itself.

grrgyle@slrpnk.net on 05 Aug 13:16 collapse

Ah so it’s the classic “but my hands are forced to do the machine’s bidding” then goes on to do the thing they really wanted to do while their hollow appeal to authority is still echoing.

I believe it’s one of the things corpos love about AI so much - it can be used as a stochastic authority to excuse their behaviour. And if they don’t like what it extrudes? Well they can just shake up the inputs and run it again, until they get what they want.

vithigar@lemmy.ca on 04 Aug 14:34 next collapse

It goes a layer further than that even. If the rate at which that growth is happening isn’t itself growing then investors start getting nervous.

DemBoSain@midwest.social on 04 Aug 16:05 next collapse

It’s not only “more”. The company I work for had “record profits, far and beyond anything we were expecting” in 2021. In 2022, we were told that the company made more than in 2021, but didn’t meet the earnings projections. That’s still record profits, but phrased like a loss.

Not only must the line go up, but it has to go up faster than it did before. Nothing less than exponential growth.

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 05 Aug 12:24 collapse

It’s supposed to be growth related to the things which didn’t progress, so to say. So it’s not literally supposed to be growth of processes, just that stagnation makes things diminish in value, and compared to them things more alive “grow”. Something like that.

Kinda like inflation. And that’s fine, that can describe a pretty sustainable society, it’s not about consuming more and more, it’s like rotation.

Except with today’s oligopolies there’s a different idea, that they really have to grow as in capturing more and more of humanity’s resources. The AI bubble (or not) is their most recent approach to that.

That’s because expectations were shaped by the 90s when many things exploded (unfortunately much of that were countries, also landmines and other expendable means of destruction).

In the 00s it was possible to create illusion of that explosion still going on brighter and brighter, despite just continuing what started in the 90s, and then to create a few large-scale scams (or madness pandemics, or tech fashions, whatever ; point is they weren’t the same as years 1993-1999) with iPhones, new Apple in general, Google, Facebook, Twitter.

I’m not saying it was fake or worthless, it was a revolution too, but not what companies try to show since the dotcom bubble.

So - they are still trying to show that, with kinda rough, generic, and insincere effort, a bit like sex workers in their makeup.

And they can’t show that without such expansion in width, not in height.

aramova@infosec.pub on 05 Aug 00:49 collapse

Yeah, except for Tesla, how the fuck man.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 05 Aug 01:42 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/bac15ac0-7826-4995-89fc-c9dc9a339db4.jpeg">

aramova@infosec.pub on 05 Aug 01:52 collapse

Mmhmm compare that with the sales numbers, then compare against any company in history which has had a similar sales pattern for a publicly traded company.

phoenixz@lemmy.ca on 05 Aug 16:17 collapse

I’ll assume that is a rhetorical question? I mean, it’s obvious why Tesla has been going off a cliff and continues doing so

It was 10x overbloated at the least, it’s CEO is publicly a nazi, most claims that Tesla can do were all lies for over a decade now, the only new design it came up with is the cyber truck garbage container, the quality of all the cars is shit (even though they’re overpriced) with the cybershit being literally more explosive than a Ford Pinto, and now there are way WAY cheaper options competing with Tesla. Then add to that that Tesla just decided to give the CEO 26 some billion dollars because that is apparently okay to do during a shitshow like this

Anyone still investing in Tesla gets what they deserve, you’re an idiot if you do

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca on 04 Aug 14:33 next collapse

God I can’t wait to get out of the grind.

I’m over halfway to freedom, I really want FIRE so I never have to deal with this corporate bullshit again.

pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip on 04 Aug 15:32 next collapse

“intensity, clarity, and bold execution”

Not just “intensity”.

floofloof@lemmy.ca on 04 Aug 23:47 next collapse

Maybe if they keep going and add a few more words it will magically start to mean something.

grrgyle@slrpnk.net on 05 Aug 13:22 collapse

I prefer emphasis, highlighting, and italics execution.

etherphon@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 18:58 next collapse

These people are fucking insane, Greed is a sickness and with Trump in the white house the disease is absolutely flourishing.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 Aug 00:22 collapse

it’s crazy for me to watch people rapidly waking up to that fact after i’ve said it for what feels like decades and was completely ignored for the longest time.

burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 19:06 next collapse

quick, shut down activision blizzard king, bethesda, and xbox game studios before they make any more money

Reygle@lemmy.world on 04 Aug 19:40 next collapse

clicks reply

Intensity huh? Here you go

@#$% YOU

bitwolf@sh.itjust.works on 04 Aug 20:24 next collapse

Very happy to see my employer slowly moving away from their shitty products.

All they’re good for is stress, frustration, and justifying the jobs of old Sys Admins that sit in ivory towers.

The rest of the world is moving on. I challenge them to show growth next year.

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 05 Aug 12:03 collapse

I remember it when old sysadmins would remember OS/2, Fidonet and be respectful to FreeBSD (despite not having touched it for many years). And I’m kind young.

There are now “old” sysadmins loyal to Windows? Something is wrong with this decade.

SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works on 04 Aug 22:56 next collapse

Collaborate in a few more genocides eh Microsoft

Kurious84@lemmings.world on 04 Aug 23:24 next collapse

Societal collapse. Greed has won.

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 05 Aug 12:01 collapse

So dramatic, LOL

Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world on 05 Aug 04:00 next collapse

You know, Im not certain, but I think the job of being a cunty CFO could be done by AI… Are you listening Microshaft?

jpablo68@infosec.pub on 05 Aug 14:39 next collapse

Maybe don’t release an operating system that cannot be installed in a lot of computers?

Etterra@discuss.online on 05 Aug 18:01 collapse

There is no explaining job cuts when you’ve made record profits. You’re just being greedy assholes.