Microsoft boss Satya Nadella will earn a wallet-busting $79.1m (£60.9m) this financial year, up 63 percent on his compensation for 2023.
The huge boost to Nadella’s pay in both cash and stock, announced by Microsoft last night, comes after a positive year overall for the company’s financial revenues - but a turbulent 12 months for its employees.
2024 has seen two mass layoffs at Microsoft, with 1900 staff laid off in January, before a further 650 Xbox employees were shown the door in September.
I mean, yeah. Isn’t that what we would like here? To not have to work if we don’t want to and yet tech progresses steadily, industry still operates, the world continues moving while people are free to engage in their desired pursuits?
Not If the profits are in the hand of a single owner, who relied on his workers to get to this point of automation and profit
Transition periods are never without issue.
And rarely peaceful.
As long as they’re generating profits then that wealth will not go to the people who lose their jobs. They’ll just be a surplus population.
*in America
Americans have to realise there are other ways to run a country. What’s going on there isn’t normal for the rest of the world.
Most Americans have never owned and will never own a passport, and they dont read much. 60% of them live paycheck to paycheck too. So they dont know and they dont have the time or energy to care.
Profits by definition only go to the owners and investors. Once they’re seized by the government they’re no longer profits, they’re company expenses.
Those are the only two options?
For corporations, yes. Profits are always the money left after expenses that are taken as surplus. I suppose there’s also cooperatives, which redistribute the profits to the member-owners.
But profits are for the owners. That’s how private property works?
Yes. Those laid off workers aren’t going to a world where they’re free to engage in their desired pursuits. They’re making hard decisions to keep their family alive. That second part is important.
If everyone has all their needs adequately met and excessive 79 mn annual salaries are non-existent.