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Microsoft execs partied with Sting in Davos hours before announcing layoffs

E

eastcoastkody

Member
at this point Sting the wrestler is more famous than Sting the singer. when i hear Sting i don't think of the guy in Dune that hasn't had a hit song in 30 years.
 
Dick Jones

Dick Jones

Gold Member
It was okay for MS to hire Sting to play the gig. The only issue was the executives sent the firing email during "Message in a Bottle".
 
GHG

GHG

Member
bentanchorbolt said:
This doesn't seem worth getting upset about.
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I wonder why.

Suspicious Will Smith GIF
 
SenjutsuSage

SenjutsuSage

Banned
bentanchorbolt said:
NeoGAF slowly turning into ResetEra. None of this should bother you.
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I was about to suggest this same thing. I thought this is the type of thing you would see on the other place. Are we suddenly angry that rich corporations do rich corporation stuff? Did anyone think that expensive expenditures would stop because they were doing layoffs? It won't stop for any company out there. They're still going to be flying on private jets and the like also.
 
bentanchorbolt

bentanchorbolt

Banned
SenjutsuSage said:
I was about to suggest this same thing. I thought this is the type of thing you would see on the other place. Are we suddenly angry that rich corporations do rich corporation stuff? Did anyone think that expensive expenditures would stop because they were doing layoffs? It won't stop for any company out there. They're still going to be flying on private jets and the like also.
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In the end I'm here to talk about games. Executives partying with some dork like Sting doesn't really check any boxes for me.
 
Topher

Topher

Gold Member
bentanchorbolt said:
NeoGAF slowly turning into ResetEra. None of this should bother you.
Click to expand...

SenjutsuSage said:
I was about to suggest this same thing. I thought this is the type of thing you would see on the other place. Are we suddenly angry that rich corporations do rich corporation stuff? Did anyone think that expensive expenditures would stop because they were doing layoffs? It won't stop for any company out there. They're still going to be flying on private jets and the like also.
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Uh.....the folks here on GAF are discussing something that is being reported across the media in general. The difference between GAF and the "other place" is that you have the freedom to have your own take on this story without fear of being outright banned for not agreeing with the approved political position. Sucks you don't like that this is being talked about, but there are other threads.

bentanchorbolt said:
In the end I'm here to talk about games.
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Nothing stopping you.
 
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bentanchorbolt

bentanchorbolt

Banned
Topher said:
Uh.....the folks here on GAF are discussing something that is being reported across the media in general. The difference between GAF and the "other place" is that the freedom to have your own take on this story without fear of being outright banned for not agreeing with the approved political position. Sucks you don't like that this is being talked about, but there are other threads.
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It was a joke, I know this place is much better than GAF. I was mainly commenting on some of the more Karen-esque responses.

Topher said:
Nothing stopping you.
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Huh? Ok...
 
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Rush2112

Rush2112

Banned
Must be nice to get a half a mil for singing a bunch of songs. Wouldn't know what that's like.
 
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K

knguyen

Member
Come on, these people are executives of the very big company. Why do you think they still have heart or care about others?
 
DarthPutin

DarthPutin

Member
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star, like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are

Now I imagine Sting singing it to Microsoft corpos, as montage of laid pff personnel walking out with their things is playing. Few of them posted on resetera, saying that some of their coworkers were crying after the news.

Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Good illustration of corporate greed.
 
E

El Pistolero

Banned
lachesis said:
I heard there was a huge influx of sex workers at Davos for the WEF too.
Well, private jets, away from their wives, hookers/booze galore, high end food and & private Sting party etc all sound grand.
But that fowl smell of hypocrisy is just so awful - and seeing them that they have some sort of moral upper hand over general population.
True leaders would set a example of themselves first, and these things are not a good examples.
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They are not leaders...They are owners.
 
OuterLimits

OuterLimits

Member
El Pistolero said:
That is the world we live in, unfortunately. We are faced with so many SERIOUS problems (Climate change, recessions, terrorism, massive inequalities, artificial intelligence related challenges...), and we, as a human race, have been unable to propose an alternative to the current socio-economic paradigm. Am I mistaken in believing that we are headed toward some major catastrophes?
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"Serious Problems". Welcome to Planet Earth and all of recorded human history.

On a happy note, people live far longer now on average, weather and bacterial infections kill far less, and technology makes life a hell of a lot more fun.
 
AJUMP23

AJUMP23

Member
The one time I was laid off the HR person was in the hall crying after laying us off. I looked at her and asked “why are you crying you still have a job.” This was not a popular comment with her but legendary to my fellow employees.

If you’re in leadership you just keep on living. You don’t want to lay people off for the most part but in the end it doesn’t affect you.
 
bentanchorbolt

bentanchorbolt

Banned
Corndog said:
It’s stupid but I do think things get blown out of proportion. My question would be why would you ever have a private concert? Seems a waste of money.
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Reminds me of that scene in Silicon Valley where Kid Rock was giving all those nerds a private concert. Agreed though, giant waste of money. But I'm not wealthy so maybe I'm missing something here.
 
SJRB

SJRB

Gold Member
AJUMP23 said:
The one time I was laid off the HR person was in the hall crying after laying us off. I looked at her and asked “why are you crying you still have a job.” This was not a popular comment with her but legendary to my fellow employees.

If you’re in leadership you just keep on living. You don’t want to lay people off for the most part but in the end it doesn’t affect you.
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I got fired once in my life and the manager was in absolute shambles after he told me the news. I was like "dude are you going to be al right" while I was packing my belongings, lol.

In retrospect that was fucking wildly inappropriate.
 
jakinov

jakinov

Member
Ghost of Caelid said:
Considering his booking fee, they had to layoff 10k people, let’s low ball it and say they only paid him 750k you have no issues with executives who make millions a year using budget to party with celebrities when they just announced layoffs due to economic pull backs?

https://www.celebritytalent.net/sampletalent/4011/sting/
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Economic pullback means you are going to take less risk because less people are buying; and it's expensive to lose at this time. You are also going to cut down from when you thought a lot of people were buying. Most layoffs happened to sales and marketing people because other companies are spending less and people in general are also spending less. Unless they are pressed for cash, it's not a reason to cut beneifits and perks they use to make employees happy (big or small). When the times were good Microsoft grew like crazy, they are simply cutting back now that the times are bad. They added 77,000 employees since covid started and now cutting a fraction of that. But that doesn't mean they need to penny pinch in other areas. They've been actually increasing benefits for existing employees this month, they just gave everyone "unlimited" time off.

It just looks really bad for them to happen so close and maybe they should have canceled for the optics.

Dr. Wilkinson said:
They could’ve easily canceled it, though, all the same. And I very much doubt retention is an issue at all, in regards to the 50 C-suite executives that were invited to the private party.
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For optics sure. The money is likely already gone. Retention is always a problem people come and go all the time but my point is more so as a whole is a company, they don' normally cut their inititatives to make employees big or small happy unless they really need to. But you will cut employees you don't need anymore. Microsoft isn't in a dire situation. It's that it doesn't make sense to have more sales and marketing people than you need. It doens't make sense to have extra engineers building something that if you launched it nobody will bite. But it makes sense to keep the reasons why people want to work for you the same. It's just unforunate timing.


Also c-suite executives refer to a handful of positions.
 
B

BattleScar

Member
From a Microsoft employee's point of view, they have $70 billion dollars to buy ABK and all their employees, but not enough money to keep them around.
Must feel pretty fucking shit to lose your job after your company made billions.
 
Mr Reasonable

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Corndog said:
It’s stupid but I do think things get blown out of proportion. My question would be why would you ever have a private concert? Seems a waste of money.
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What they do is create an event where they can talk business and sign deals. The point of getting a big act along is to make it something that their potential business partners won't want to miss.

A lot of the time it'll be on a yacht or somewhere away from the main festival/forum/expo, so people end up having to be there for a decent amount of time.

I'm not saying that people will sign deals just so they can see a famous musician play in a tiny room, but offer people an opportunity to do something unique and they're much more likely to choose to hear your pitch rather than your competitor's who aren't offering what is likely to be a once in a lifetime experience.

And it's all tax deductable.
 
C

Corndog

Banned
Mr Reasonable said:
What they do is create an event where they can talk business and sign deals. The point of getting a big act along is to make it something that their potential business partners won't want to miss.

A lot of the time it'll be on a yacht or somewhere away from the main festival/forum/expo, so people end up having to be there for a decent amount of time.

I'm not saying that people will sign deals just so they can see a famous musician play in a tiny room, but offer people an opportunity to do something unique and they're much more likely to choose to hear your pitch rather than your competitor's who aren't offering what is likely to be a once in a lifetime experience.

And it's all tax deductable.
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You are probably correct. Thanks for your insight.
 
Azurro

Azurro

Banned
AmuroChan said:
Ironically, one of the major talking points at the WEF over at Davos is about how climate change is to blame for many of the world's issues. Even more ironic, most of them elites flew private to Davos.
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Their chatter is not aimed at them, it's aimed at us, the unwashed plebes.
 
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