IMHO….It has nothing to do with performance, not really. MS needs to recoup revenue as the wallet is a little light. Stacks and stacks of cash have been thrown at AI and quantum research. The cash reserves are a little light. Any company who announces a layoff usually gives you a stock bump as it shows investors “you are serious about where your money goes and are constantly assessing spending trends yada…yada..”
Let there be no doubt, the AI and quantum war against other companies is a serious race to the finish line. Microsoft has to win to stay on top, so MS feels the need to laser focus all revenue on it. Unfortunately those NOT let go have to pick up the work in light of those let go. So your upper performers now get burned out and if this is the status quo for too long, they themselves very well may leave. I mean MS peeps already put in 60-80 hours per week as a norm already. How much more do you want them to work. The answer will be “much more” so the current performance metrics will be adjusted and workers will now be “goaled” on towing the company line and giving even more to pick up the slack. How far can you run as fast as you can? 100 yards? 200? a mile? whatever the answer is, you will eventually reach your limit.
Oh sure, there’s supposedly efforts to back fill with top talent from the outside but if there’s constant churn on layoffs, who’s going to want to jump on board? Yeah, it’ll be desperate people who need a job but for how long will they stay under such conditions? Just long enough to confidently put “I worked at MS” on the resume and then move on to somewhere not as demanding and more stable on retention and lets face it, probably more money.
Disclaimer: There have been no animals injured during the writing of this post.