Microsoft interestingly enough appears to be standing their ground on DEI. [0]
Yet, they hopped on the layoff train this time around with a particularly nasty twist. [1]
Perhaps they were afraid they'd need to be sociopathic in at least one regard, lest they buck the wider ethos lately. Facebook for example, offered generous severance packages but threw DEI in the trash immediately. [2]
Companies with strong DEI programs most certainly have an authoritarian leadership style and for Microsoft that certainly is the case.
As DEI sees itself as better to determine who needs discrimination, so does Microsoft leadership. It is not much more complicated than that and fits the picture. A company with a long history of policies to not enable people to be more independent.
That is nothing new for Microsoft. I don't think they invented stack-ranking, but they were doing it basically from the 90s until Ballmer left. That's where you're required to cut the bottom 20% of your team every year.
When MSFT did stack ranking officially, the buckets were 20% "overachievers", 70% "achievers", and 10% "underachievers", with the latter being targeted for cuts. If I remember correctly, these specific numbers originated at GE.
Yet, they hopped on the layoff train this time around with a particularly nasty twist. [1]
Perhaps they were afraid they'd need to be sociopathic in at least one regard, lest they buck the wider ethos lately. Facebook for example, offered generous severance packages but threw DEI in the trash immediately. [2]
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/business/dei-programs-ini...
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-performance-based-...
[2] https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/laid-off-meta-employees-blast...