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☆ During a leaked all-hands meeting meant to discuss Salesforce layoffs, CEO Marc Benioff bemoaned leaks. Employees say they've been left without answers.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The day after Salesforce began informing thousands of employees that it was terminating their jobs in what will be weeks of rolling layoffs, some 47,000 employees tuned into a virtual all-hands meeting. "I have a thick skin after doing this for 24 years and I don't care what people say about me. Some days earlier, Benioff had also bemoaned leaks to the press in a company-wide internal Slack message viewed by Insider. "I hope you will agree it is also disappointing that our private conversations here were almost immediately given to the public media," Benioff wrote. "We are going to operate as a team and with integrity and transparency and open honesty going forward," Benioff said during the all-hands.

☆ Salesforce's Marc Benioff defends his statements that new employees — and possibly younger remote workers — are not as productive, in leaked all-hands meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In leaked all-hands audio, he doubled down, then questioned if younger remote workers were less productive, too. And this time, he made a new suggestion — that younger employees not coming into the office may be less productive as well, according to leaked audio of the meeting shared with Insider. "When we look at some percentage of the employees, especially some of the folks that are new employees, are just not as productive." "Are we not managing our remote employees well enough? Employees who heard their CEO repeat these allegations on the productivity of new employees, younger employees, remote employees — particularly in sales — were less than pleased.

☆ Inside Salesforce's week from hell: Angry employees describe chaos, confusion and 'tone deaf' leaders as they fight for their jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

"We can't sleep at night," one employee told Insider. Senior vice presidents who were not themselves impacted were invited to a mandatory meeting, Salesforce said. "Can execs commit to never referring to Salesforce employees as 'family' again? "Ohana is far gone," one employee told Insider. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dodged questions in a rambling 2-hour all-hands. Leaked messages show employees weren't pleased, and one executive even apologized for it later.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Salesforce plans to cut 10% of its workforce, CEO Marc Benioff told employees Wednesday. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dodged questions about the company's plans to cut 10% of its workforce during a rambling two-hour all-hands on Thursday, and — judging from internal Slack messages viewed by Insider — employees weren't pleased their questions went unanswered. During Thursday's all-hands meeting, Benioff described the company's current situation as a "spiritual moment," and compared layoffs to death. Sources said Benioff has been exerting increasing control over the company, alienating his closest lieutenants while dialing up performance pressure on employees, Insider previously reported. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Salesforce tells some managers it has notified all laid off US employees — yet more cuts may be coming
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce plans to cut 10% of its workforce, co-CEO Marc Benioff told employees Wednesday. Salesforce has told some managers, however, that all US employees have been notified. Salesforce announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce, but the company has provided few details — even to managers — about who will be cut and when. What isn't clear is whether this notification is for all of the US employees who will be laid off among the 8,000 employees Salesforce plans to cut or just the first group of them. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Salesforce managers were blindsided by news of layoffs, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some senior managers learned of the cuts at the same time as rank-and-file staffers. Some Salesforce managers, even those with senior titles, were blindsided by the company's layoff plans when they commenced on Wednesday, according to internal Slack messages viewed by Insider. Slack messages viewed by Insider were sent by managers ranging from senior manager to vice president level. Salesforce laid off around 1,000 employees this week in an initial round of job cuts, insiders say. Insider reported in December that some Salesforce managers were being asked to identify their bottom 10% of performers.

☆ In Salesforce layoffs, MuleSoft is hardest hit as the company cuts the first 1,000 employees of its planned 10% workforce reduction
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Salesforce plans to cut 10% of its workforce, co-CEO Marc Benioff told employees Wednesday. MuleSoft was the hardest hit by layoffs so far, which amount to around 1,000, insiders said. Salesforce has already laid off about 1,000 employees as part of a plan to slash 10% of its workforce, and the MuleSoft unit was the hardest hit so far, insiders said. A Salesforce spokesperson referred Insider to the email when asked for comment on the details of this report. Benioff has been stoking employees' fearsBeyond MuleSoft, Benioff stoked many Salesforce employees' fears in a recent all-hands when asked about the possibility of future layoffs and how the company planned to balance cost-saving with employee morale.

☆ Big Tech predictions for 2023: A rival for Twitter, Amazon deceleration, Google's AI wake-up call, Microsoft's serious game, cloud bills, and DTC decline
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Hugh Langley | Kali Hays | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The painful adjustments will ripple across the industry in 2023.Insider's Big Tech reporters share what to watch this coming year. At $44 billion, the debt-fueled deal was completed quickly at valuations from the frothy tech bull market of 2021. Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesThe slow breakdown of Twitter under Musk appears to be upon us. Mastodon has experienced a major influx of users, hitting more than 5 million accounts after Musk took over Twitter. With intense tech antitrust scrutiny, these new services are unlikely to be gobbled up by Big Tech.

☆ In scathing exit memo, Meta VR expert John Carmack derides the company's bureaucracy: 'I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced his exit in an internal memo. Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 before Facebook acquired it, and moved to a new consulting role at Oculus in 2019. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced plans to leave the company Friday in an internal memo viewed by Insider. The scathing note, posted to the company's internal Workplace forum, openly criticized Meta's AR and VR work, core to its metaverse ambitions. "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort," Carmack wrote in the memo.

☆ Salesforce's Marc Benioff causes an uproar by suggesting in a leaked internal Slack message that new employees are less productive
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce's Marc Benioff suggested in an internal Slack message that new employees are less productive. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appeared to cause an uproar among some employees on Friday by suggesting in an internal Slack message that new employees are less productive, and that remote work might be to blame. "How do we increase the productivity of our employees at Salesforce," Benioff asked in an internal Slack message viewed by Insider. Hundreds of employees responded to Benioff's Slack message, many of them pushing back on the premise that new employees are less productive. "Are our managers not directly addressing productivity with their teams?," Benioff also asked in the Slack message.

☆ John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving. 'I wearied of the fight'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as CTO, prior to its acquisition by Facebook. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving, according to two people familiar with the company. Overall, Carmack said he simply "wearied of the fight" with Meta, formerly known as Facebook, which acquired Oculus in 2014. Despite being one of the best known and more popular VR headsets on the market, Meta changed the name of the brand last year to Meta Quest. During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset.

☆ Salesforce asked some managers to rank their lowest 10% of employees, insider says, as Benioff tells employees to expect 'changes' in a leaked all-hands meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some managers were asked to rank their bottom 10% of employees, one person familiar told Insider. Some Salesforce managers were asked as recently as last week to rank employees to identify their bottom 10%, one person familiar with the instructions told Insider. Salesforce declined to comment on additional layoffs, cost cutting and directives to managers to rank employees. Benioff tried to downplay the question, saying in the all-hands that questions about personnel changes come up on every meeting with employees. Employees recently told Insider about what they see as a shift in how the company treats them.

☆ Meta wants managers to rank twice as many employees in its lowest performance-review categories
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The range includes layoffs and "non-regrettable" exits by staff who managers aren't sad to see go. The higher range includes already laid-off employees and "non-regrettable attrition," a term for staff considered not critical to operations who managers would not be sad to see leave. NRA, as it's also known inside Meta, includes people who quit of their own accord and those who are let go after being deemed underperformers. "Unregretted attrition" includes employees Amazon considers low-performing who are often pressured out via notorious performance-management programs. Shortly after the recent layoffs, Meta revealed it was looking to shrink its office footprint and would continue its current hiring freeze well into 2023.

☆ Salesforce employees are bracing for more layoffs amid the company's major executive exodus
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce employees told Insider they're bracing for another round of layoffs. "People are afraid it could come at any point," one employee told Insider. "People are afraid it could come at any point," one employee told Insider. A person familiar with the matter told Insider the firm has pushed for cost-cutting measures since first approaching the company this summer. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Salesforce has a succession crisis. Cofounder Marc Benioff is taking increasing control over the company — alienating his top lieutenants and dialing up pressure on employees.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Salesforce insiders attribute these departures to Marc Benioff's response to recent economic headwinds. Last week, Salesforce revealed heir apparent Bret Taylor's plans to leave the company — exactly one year after taking over as co-CEO alongside Benioff. Lately, employees said, Benioff has turned those meetings into a tribunal for his sales executives. While the pandemic was a boon for the company, Salesforce has since trimmed its annual revenue projections to roughly $30 billion down from the roughly $31 billion in May. Salesforce's co-CEO model has failedAs Benioff puts pressure on sales executives, people close to him said he's exerting increasing control over C-Suite executives.

☆ Read Marc Benioff's internal memo explaining Bret Taylor's departure from Salesforce
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Salesforce co-CEO and heir apparent Bret Taylor is leaving the company. Salesforce heir apparent Bret Taylor is leaving the company, chairman and cofounder Marc Benioff announced on Wednesday, exactly one year after Taylor took the reigns as co-CEO alongside Benioff. With that as our backdrop, I also want to share that Bret Taylor is stepping down as co-CEO, effective January 31, 2023. As the founder of two very successful companies, Bret is leaving Salesforce to return to his entrepreneurial roots. I'm grateful that he'll stay with us until the end of FY23 and help us finish the year strong.

☆ 'They are untouchable': Microsoft employees say 'golden boy' executives are still running wild, 8 years after the company vowed to clean up its toxic culture
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

The Microsoft executive walked into the small, windowless room in Studio C at about 8 o'clock that evening. Despite Nadella's public stance against those he has called "talented jerks," many inside the company say Microsoft retains a nearly unlimited tolerance for bad behavior by its top rainmakers and developers. "The Microsoft of 2021 is very different from the Microsoft of 2000 to me and to everyone at Microsoft," Nadella said. But some women say the investigations drag on for months or even years, with no clear timeline for resolution. What's more, some employees say Microsoft's efforts to promote racial equity often smack of tokenism.

☆ Leaked Salesforce policy documents show up to six-months severance. But laid-off workers were told to expect 60 days.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An internal policy document viewed by Insider shows Salesforce offering up to six months severance. Employees laid off this month were told to expect 60 days. An internal Salesforce document viewed by Insider outlines a severance policy where laid-off employees could qualify for up to six months of pay, depending on their years of tenure. And yet, employees terminated in Salesforce's November round of layoffs were told to expect 60 days, according to two sources, regardless of tenure. The person said they had read the up-to-six-month severance policy shortly before these layoffs hit, and that the company has yet to send the formal severance offer beyond that informal notification to expect 60 days of pay.

☆ Amazon employees are cobbling together lists of teams experiencing layoffs, and a 'Safe List,' in a communication vacuum from leadership
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Katherine Long | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Staff anxious to know more formed a Slack channel to discuss layoffs. The channel keeps a tally of teams where employees appear to have been cut, and a "Safe List." In a Slack channel, created Tuesday morning, employees are swapping news of job cuts, sharing resources, and supporting laid-off colleagues. Members of the new Slack have also drafted a "Safe List" of divisions that likely have avoided serious layoffs, underscoring the uncertainty some Amazon employees are experiencing. Employees criticized the offer, including the warning of layoffs, on the internal Slack channel.

☆ A review of Microsoft's sexual harassment policies found it could have acted earlier to address executive misconduct alleged in Insider report
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft released results of what it said was an independent review of its sexual harassment policies. The review cites Insider's report about allegations of misconduct from "golden boy" executives whose value gave them impunity. Current and former Microsoft employees alleged Kipman repeatedly got away with inappropriate behavior toward women employees, including unwanted touching. Microsoft, according to ArentFox's report, provided the firm with records related to allegations of misconduct by Kipman and Keane from 2021 and earlier. The firm did not investigate the allegations, but reviewed the results of Microsoft's own investigations into the allegations and found the company could have addressed inappropriate conduct earlier.

☆ A hiring freeze finally comes to Amazon Web Services as enterprise spending slows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Katherine Long | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meanwhile, at least two AWS engineering orgs are planning to freeze headcount until the end of 2023, according to two current employees. People who depart may be replaced, but the goal is to keep total headcount static, according to two of the current employees. AWS reported its slowest revenue growth ever last quarter, which Olsavsky attributed to reduced enterprise spending as cloud customers gird themselves for potential economic turmoil. Amazon announced a hiring freeze in its advertising business on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported. The New York Post reported last week on a hiring freeze in AWS.

☆ Oracle layoffs finally hit its all-important cloud unit, as sources say as many as 200 are laid off
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Oracle laid off as many as 200 employees in its cloud unit on Tuesday, two sources tell Insider. The cloud unit has largely been insulated from layoffs this year. Oracle's cloud unit on Tuesday laid off as many as 200 employees, according to two people familiar with the matter. The company has had layoffs throughout the year, but its important Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) unit has been insulated unit now. Oracle last week began layoffs in a separate cloud unit, North America Cloud Infrastructure & Technology (NACT) unit, according to internal emails viewed by Insider.

☆ Leaked Microsoft organizational chart shows the 19 people running its all-important cloud business
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An internal org chart shows the 19 people running Microsoft's Cloud + AI org under CEO Satya Nadella. An internal Microsoft organizational chart viewed by Insider shows the people in charge of the company's cloud and artificial intelligence business — a business so tremendous, it employs at least one-third of Microsoft's massive workforce. The Cloud + AI org is responsible for Microsoft's Azure cloud business, plus its data platform, developer services, and software like its Dynamics 365 customer relationship management tool. The org is run by Scott Guthrie, one of CEO Satya Nadella's top lieutenants and the exec who has led Microsoft's cloud business since at least 2011. Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Microsoft subsidiary GitHub who stepped down in November 2021, also remained on the org chart viewed by Insider.

☆ Microsoft quietly laid off under 1,000 employees in teams across the company, from Xbox to government tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft laid off employees across the company, with a person familiar saying it affected under 1,000 jobs. Microsoft in July said it planned to lay off less than 1% of its 180,000-person workforce. Microsoft laid off employees in teams across the company, according to affected employees who spoke to Insider. This week's layoffs affect less than 1,000 employees, according to a person familiar with the matter. Zach Kramer, who runs Microsoft's Mission Engineering team, in an email viewed by Insider notified employees that the group would be "deprioritizing work already underway."

☆ Leaked Amazon slides instruct employees to 'double down on frugality' in all-hands meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon urged frugality in an all-hands meeting this week, according to excerpts reviewed by Insider. The comments signify the tone shift at Amazon, as it tightens its belt in the face of a looming recession. Amazon's leadership team urged employees to "double down on frugality" in an internal all-hands meeting this week, according to slides and excerpts viewed by Insider. The slides instructed employees to "accomplish more with less," meaning to adjust hiring, reduce costs, and inventory levels. At the meeting, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy conveyed a similar message when asked about the economic downturn and its effect on Amazon's future investments.

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