Why Microsoft Became the Layoffs Leader
Published 8 hours ago, citing this comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs (last updated yesterday):
Today we see several dozens of new articles (in English) about the XBox crisis (too much debt and cumulative losses). It is expected that another wave of XBox layoffs is just around the corner, maybe before the upcoming 'results' or by month's end (Microsoft has already had at least two waves of layoffs this month alone).
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs. Can't this media point out the contradiction and assert that someone isn't being honest here? The same can be said about IBM.
To answer the core (and very simple) question, Microsoft is a "market leader" in layoffs because its core products - i.e. Windows and Office - don't sell well. The "licensing" (rents) aspect of these isn't doing too well either; they just rebrand those as "cloud" and "AI". Reclassification and cannibalisation lets the company fake "growth" in supposedly "strategic" area. It also pays many salaries and bonuses in the form of "shares" (in Microsoft) with extra restrictions on selling these, in effect inflating its supposed "worth" at the expense of people enrolled into the pyramid scheme. The people at the top will know best when to dump and how quickly. We've seen that in action many times in modern human history. █