But I guess I don’t see how empathizing with that means. . . What? Microsoft should cancel an investment they think is strategic? Microsoft should keep job roles they no longer things are important?
Highly profitable companies like Microsoft are not zero sum. Nobody said “let’s lay people off so that we can invest in openAI”. Each decision is made independently, for its own ROI. If they believed that keeping these people and making the investment was the best approach, they have the funds to do so, easily.
I love the McSweeney’s piece, and I’m sympathetic to those laid off, I just don’t get the innuendo that a company should do something differently.
If a family in financial trouble just lost their son to a car accident, for example, is it the right time to say "well, at least you won't need to pay for his college."?
Especially in software, skills are pretty fungible, and most of the support organization's on-going requirements are likely to be highly agnostic of what, specifically, is being engineered.
IT does bring up an interesting alternative. What if instead of layoffs, companies provided an ultimatum:
Your employment costs $X. You have 3 months to find a new source of $X+1 revenue that requires your continued labor.
"But so what?"
Their response is _exactly_ on topic. There is a real sting on these human lives where a company has decided they don't have value relative some new tech purchase. This is contrary to particular ethics frameworks many of us are familiar with around human value.