Microsoft executives hanging out in Davos this week enjoyed a private performance from recording artist Sting on Tuesday night—just hours before the company announced it would lay off 10,000 employees, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The event reportedly did not sit well with Microsoft employees, who considered it insensitive to pay for a private concert from an artist who commands up to a $1 million per show while the company was planning to hand out pink slips back home.
The performance's glamorous setting—the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland—also didn't help with the optics. This year's forum attracted government leaders from nearly every content, including five US senators and business leaders like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
On Tuesday, the night before announcing the layoffs, Nadella spoke on a panel about artificial intelligence. The following day, he took the stage to discuss hard times ahead for the tech industry and how organizations should prepare.
“We are going to go through a phase today where there is going to be a normalization of demand,” Nadella said, the Journal reports. “We in the tech industry will have to get more efficient. It's not about everyone else doing more with less, we will have to do more with less."
“First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less," Nadella said. "We’re also seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one."
That cautious approach means Redmond will trim its headcount by 10,000 employees. It's unclear if any of the executives present at the 50-person Sting concert were laid off.
Microsoft laid off 800 employees this week, and plans to complete the full 10,000 by March, The Verge reports. The company continues to make large investments elsewhere, and is reportedly considering a $10 billion investment in ChatGPT's maker Open AI, per Semafor. "We will continue to invest in strategic areas for our future," Nadella said in announcing the layoffs.
Meanwhile, Google parent Alphabet announced 12,000 job cuts this morning, while Amazon recently confirmed that layoffs announced last year will affect 18,000 positions.