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The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft: Seventh Wave of Microsoft Layoffs (Over 20,000 to be Cut) Allegedly Going to Start Shortly, Probably Start of Next Week, Microsoft Spreads Chaff and Noise Before the Big Axes Fall

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 09, 2025,
updated May 09, 2025

Seventh in 2025 alone! For those who don't know, Lou Gerstner accepted that IBM was unsustainable as a business and fired an unprecedented (truly huge) number of staff. For this he became either admired or reviled at IBM (depending on which side of the axes one fell). He sure left "his mark" (or stain).

IBM CEO Lou Gerstner ca 1995. Black and white photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel

Throughout the week this week some people in IRC (and several other protocols) keep sending us reports about some "performance"-related cuts at Microsoft. Slashdot participates in this, as usual, but the comments sort of compensate for the spin. We always just tell them it's not the real news and it is likely meant to distract from massive cuts which are in no way related to workers' performance. Microsoft just tries to associate cuts with "improvement", "innovation" and "efficiency" rather than business failure. This is pure spin and sometimes LLM slop! (Perhaps most of it is nowadays fake; sometimes LLM slop, sometimes "hybrid" (mildly-edited slop) to hide or distract from the layoffs or the key, exclusive, investigative reports, which get parroted and over time 'replaced' by slop)

Microsoft's debt has surged despite many waves of layoffs (mass layoffs every month last year; some months had several waves of layoffs) and half a day ago someone published this message which 'validates' based on what we know and moreover it seems credible based on media-published leaks (mostly leaks sent to B-I) last month.

"Microsoft has not been able of late to buy new victim companies to use to offload debt," an associate explains.

Here's the key thing: (emphasis added by us)

May 13th Layoffs Confirmed

Several leaked emails and early confirmations of manager notifications going out Monday the 12th with employee notifications beginning the 13th of May. Estimated 5% reduction immediately and another 5% at end of FY. These layoffs are going to be driven by management flattening and higher IC to Manager numbers. Also massive reductions of redundancy caused by the flattening of MCAPS. Satya is following Amazons recent business models and changes and the new definition of “100” is not just doing your job great it’s over achieving and if you are not getting 100’s you are fired.

"Man, I hope I get laid off. This place has turned into a total shithole," says the first comment. We heard similar things from Microsoft employees, who generally already prepare for the worst (proactively).

"The "former" Microsofters are metastacising into other companies," we got told, and thereby bringing both their useless products and services with them along with their most toxic work culture and attitudes.

It's hard to keep a secret when the scale is so big and hence there are so many people "in the loop" (hard to know or pinpoint the whistleblower/s as well).

This is understandable given how much trouble Microsoft has had. Someone has just brought up again the Microsoft Wicresoft Layoffs, as covered in the media last month. Quoting the report: "Wicresoft, founded in 2002 by Microsoft and Shanghai partners, is a business consulting firm based in Bellevue, Washington."

By that stage, in 2025, we can estimate Microsoft already laid off about 5,000-6,000 staff. Based on the above 5%+5% claim (unverified but plausible), we're talking about nearly 30,000 Microsoft layoffs this year, not counting temps, permatemps, contractors, forced resignations (we covered examples a few weeks ago) and therefore we urge people not to pay too much attention to any distraction from the main news, e.g. this thread: (about PIPs, "attrition" and so on)

Changes...

• Microsoft introduced a two-year rehire ban for employees laid off due to poor performance or placed on performance improvement plans (PIPs).

• Employees flagged for low productivity may be offered a year-long PIP or the option to leave through a voluntary severance package.

• Those with performance scores between 0–60% are ineligible for internal transfers and face stricter compensation limits.

• The company is also rolling out AI-based tools and clearer compensation guidelines to help managers handle low performance more effectively.

PIPs are the quiet or silent element of layoffs, as are the forced relocations and RTOs.

There's a lot going on right now and if one adds up those pushed out, those laid off, and those whose contract "ends" we might be looking at about 50,000 people that Microsoft gets rid of this year. In the past 2 years Microsoft also got rid of 25,000-30,000 staff based on estimates we gave before.

LLM slop keeps spewing out false figures like 10,000 (or 14,000 from 2014). They call it "hallucinations". It's a huge problem [1, 2]. "They may call the output hallucinations but the proper name is "disinformation" or lies," an associate explains.

Microsoft is now shrinking like IBM in the Gerstner era. And "as usual," an associate partly jokes, such "news is on a Friday to ensure minimal attention". Microsoft's communications about it could have happened weeks earlier, but those that leaked to the media did not mention these humongous numbers.

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