Microsoft offers buyouts up to 7% of US employees

darth_avocado

> employees will be eligible if their years of work at Microsoft plus their age totals 70 or more, with some exceptions. Seems like a voluntarily retirement offer for older employees

ecshafer

Isn't this one of the things IBM did multiple times through the late 90s and early 2000s? Is Microsoft the new IBM?

HNisCIS

So the goal is to get rid of the people who have all the internal knowledge?

nickandbro

A lot better than what Oracle offered their laid off employees which was `Severance includes 4 weeks' base salary plus 1 week per year of employment.`

donatj

I feel like paying your most experienced employees to quit is exactly the opposite of what Microsoft needs right now. Paying to get rid of your institutional knowledge and experience is an insane move, especially as everything is on fire.

rdtsc

> years of work at Microsoft plus their age totals 70 Is that ageism? How is that different than saying if their gender is Y, their race is X or their religious belief is Z?

barelysapient

Microsoft isn’t known for great judgement.

avaer

Can't help but notice the trend of tech companies shaving employees at an accelerating pace. Nobody wants to admit this (and there's a lot of reasons it could be temporary factors like "overhiring"), but to me this seems primarily if not exclusively driven by AI. You just can't say that to HR. The bigger question is if this keeps accelerating, can the industry and broader economy handle so many jobs disappearing, so fast?

cromka

I think they're removing old rust that would crate friction in moving towards AI assisted development. Old rust which is used to higher quality of code...

lateforwork

If you quit at age 55 or later and you have been with Microsoft for 15 years your stock continues to vest. That has always been the case. This "buyout" appears to extend that benefit to employees who are >= 50 and have been with the company for 20 years. (Or any other combination that adds up to 70, for example you are 46 and have been with the company for 24 years).

ForgotMyUUID

"Who is going to provide critical updates for my Win11 workstation?! Hey , Microsoft, I'd like that old guys, who built 3.11 to do that, please"

6thbit

Satya is 58, plus his years at ms totals over 70, maybe he takes the buyout : )

ChrisArchitect

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/microsoft-plans-first-volunt... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47877184 )

JKCalhoun

History suggests the axe may well fall on the remaining if a certain target head-count is not achieved. Seeing a lot of layoffs lately in tech generally. My sense is that Corporate knows something that the rest of us do not. (Or at least that Wall Street does not.)