In the wake of another round of layoffs at Microsoft, it’s time to talk about something deeper than numbers: the human cost of toxic management.

Employees aren’t just being let go — many are being driven out by a culture of psychological pressure, unrealistic expectations, and emotionally manipulative leadership.

“Growth mindset” vs. Gaslighting
What’s often sold as high-performance culture masks deeply unhealthy management practices. Deadlines are weaponized. Feedback becomes intimidation. “Accountability” means blaming the most vulnerable.

Psychological Pressure is Not Leadership
Many managers are pushing their teams to burnout under the guise of “excellence.” This isn't just poor leadership — it's emotionally abusive. Employees report sleepless nights, anxiety, and a constant fear of retaliation for speaking up.

Layoffs as a Management Tool
Layoffs are no longer a last resort. They’ve become a tool to trim “low performers” and employees targeted, envied, or resented by management.

Mental Health Matters
We must stop normalizing environments that erode psychological safety. No paycheck is worth chronic stress and emotional manipulation.

#Microsoft #Layoffs #ToxicLeadership #MentalHealth #CorporateCulture #Burnout #TechIndustry

Every article about the layoffs seems to detail the same thing: https://insider-gaming.com/microsoft-new-round-of-layoffs/

• Actual count not published

• Seems to target PMs

• Linked posts suggest they were PMs in non-core mission stuff?

• Not focused in any one geographic area

As a MSFT PM hopeful, this news wasn't fantastic.

What's the sentiment in MSFT? Does it feel like the cutting is slowing?

I need help understanding this article on Inc.

https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/microsofts-xbox-ceo-just-explained-why-the-company-is-laying-off-9000-people-its-not-great/91209841

Between May and now Microsoft laid off 15,000 employees, stating, mainly, that the focus now is on AI. Some skeptics I’ve been talking to are telling me that this is just an excuse, that the layoffs are simply Microsoft hiding other reasons behind “AI First”. Can this be true? Can Microsoft be, say, having revenue/financial problems and is trying to disguise those behind the “AI First” discourse?

Are they outsourcing heavily? Or is it true that AI is taking over those 15,000 jobs? The Xbox business must demand a lot and a lot of programming (as must also be the case with most of Microsoft businesses. Are those programming and software design/engineering jobs being taken over by AI?

What I can’t fathom is the possibility that there were 15,000 redundant jobs at the company and that they are now directing the money for those paychecks to pay for AI infrastructure and won’t feel the loss of thee productivity those 15,00 jobs brought to the table unless someone (or something) else is doing it.

Any Microsoft people here can explain, please?

• Too much hiring during Covid

• overspending on purchasing game studios

• investing into AI infrastructure with nothing in return

• reducing American workers, hiring offshore workers

• moving from personal growth model to make profit fast model

• Microsoft leadership has lost focus

In 2023, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela made a notable statement on the company’s internal Yammer platform: “The most important lever for almost all our employees’ compensation upside is the stock price.” Below article looks into it.

Why Working at Microsoft May No Longer Be Worth It (2025)

This philosophy tied employees’ financial futures directly to Microsoft’s stock performance.
With negative one year returns, layoffs without severance is it worth to stay at microsoft.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/microsoft-laying-off-about-9000-employees-in-latest-round-of-cuts.html

👀

I started with Microsoft back in October. Now I’m hearing more rumors recently of extreme budget cuts & hiring freezes for the cloud & devices BUs. Anyone have any insight on what’s going on now? Also, is this normal for Microsoft?

News Article: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-layoffs-hit-security-devices-sales-gaming-2025-1

Seems to be not performance based. Meta is doing it too. Are we doing a re-run of 2023?

Microsoft is laying off employees across organizations including security, experiences and devices, sales, and gaming, according to two people familiar with the matter. A Microsoft spokesperson said the layoffs are small but did not specify a figure and unrelated to the job cuts Business Insider recently reported targeting underperforming employees across the company. One of the people familiar with the matter said employees started receiving notifications Tuesday about layoffs in Microsoft's security unit. The group is run by Charlie Bell, a former top cloud executive at Amazon, who stunned the industry when he left for Microsoft in 2021 to lead arevamped cybersecurity effort. Microsoft expanded its Secure Future Initiative last year, making security the top priority for every employee. The change followed years of security issues at Microsoft, including what the Department of Homeland Security called "a cascade of security failures" that allowed Chinese hackers to access emails from thousands of customers. The company also made security a core priority on which employees are evaluated during performance reviews. "If you're faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in an email to Microsoft employees last year.

I recently applied to a lot of Microsoft jobs because they’re hiring a lot, but I don’t know why they are. I’m just confused to why they are laying off dozens but then hiring dozens again. It’s like every month I hear that they laid off like 2k or more employees. Is this just a trial and error? Like what is the point? I’m just confused because I know if I get hired I should definitely prepare to see a lay off wave but, if anyone has insight that’s in Microsoft, do you guys know? And are these jobs just ghost jobs for Microsoft?

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-to-lay-off-as-many-as-9000-employees-in-latest-round/

Microsoft is kicking off its fiscal year by laying off thousands of employees in the largest round of layoffs since 2023, the company confirmed Wednesday.

In an ongoing effort to streamline its workforce, Microsoft said that as much as 4%, or roughly 9,000, of the company’s employees could be affected by Wednesday’s layoffs. It’s unclear how many are based in Washington.

The move follows two waves of layoffs in May and June, which saw Microsoft fire more than 6,000 employees, almost 2,300 of whom were based in Washington.

Microsoft had over 228,000 employees worldwide as of June 2024.

UPDATE: Based on the volume of responses, here’s a quick list of what to do if you believe your severance was wrongfully denied: • File a complaint with WA State Labor & Industries • Appeal to Microsoft’s Severance Plan Administrator • You are not alone - this is happening to others with no documented performance issues (Full details and how to are in the comments below, or message me if you need help)

I was recently laid off from Microsoft after 5 years, and like others, I didn’t get severance. No formal LITE designation or performance plan, no misconduct. Just a “performance-based” termination, even though my most recent review was strong and I received a bonus last fall.

What I’ve learned since is that Microsoft is denying severance to anyone who’s ever had the LITE box checked, even if it was removed later and performance improved. It’s not about how you’re doing now. It’s whether they can point to something in your past and use that to save money.

If this happened to you (or someone you know), you can file a complaint with Washington State’s Labor & Industries department. They’re seeing more of these and are starting to notice the pattern.

Here’s how to file: 1. Go to: https://secure.lni.wa.gov/wagecomplaint/#/ 2. Select “Willful failure to pay agreed wages” and anything else that applies to your situation 3. Say you were denied severance despite recent solid performance 4. Estimate what you were owed (Microsoft gives 1 week per 6 months of service) 5. Attach docs like your termination letter, reviews, severance policy, or appeal (if you have them)

It’s free, takes 20–30 mins, and adds to the case. If enough of us speak up, they’ll have to respond.

Happy to answer questions in the comments or DMs.

I was in M365 Core working on the Copilot Data Platform team which basically is the infrastructure that Copilot runs and gets its data trained from.

I started in 2022 before Copilot or even ChatGPT were even a thing really and the company I started at vs the one that I ended with is like two completely different entities.

Before 2024, the growth chart for a SWE at the company was a lot more holisitic, focusing on growing through people skills, technical understanding and having my manager help me get to the next level. I managed to get to an L60 which is one off from SWE II, but right after I promoted the company shifted into this AI-driven mindset where the growth chart changed to start emphasizing performance metrics and throughput. The problem for me was that it was hard for me to find ways to actually improve these metrics because of our team was heavily DevOps focused with only a few people on my team working on features that could actually generate meaningful performance metrics.

Every single 1:1 my manager was asking me how much I was using the AI tools we have at our disposal, how many PRs I was completing a week, how many PR reviews I was doing a week, and pushing me to do talks on my experiences using AI as a developer. My manager even acknowledged that a recurring complaint from our team was the amount that we don’t get to code stuff compared to DevOps related work which cannot be factored into PR metrics.

Looking back, it is crazy that once Copilot surfaced as a CLEAR cash cow for the company, they went into overdrive into this performance-based mindset.

I’m not writing this to bash on anyone or anything because I genuinely did enjoy my time there, but I’m not gonna act like Copilot/AI hasn’t shifted the company into a less holistic version of itself. The main thing I’m sad about is that I lost like $30k of stock that was part of my signing agreement and with how these financial reports are coming out that would have been so much damn money to sit on for the next 3-5 years since Microsoft is doing incredibly well from a business standpoint with no signs of slowing down.