Did you read the part about Satya Nadella getting himself a big fat bonus while laying off tons of people? Doesn't seem like this "difficult decision" really hurt him that much... in fact he seems to feel justified in being rewarded for these actions.
Spoils of war? Cost of doing business? What excuses are we using to discard ethics today?
Why shouldn't running a large cost cutting exercise be rewarded (provided it was profit accretive)? Not that easy to do - a lot firms struggle with those. There is a different discussion on the level of executive compensation.
In the end, it really comes down to what you think a stock corporation is for. If it is some sort of profit maximizer, then cost control is part of running it.
Why should the financial gains of the company be completely disconnected from how it treats the people it employs? There is a perverse lack of incentive for people at the top to be good to people at the bottom.
If a CEO is rewarded handsomely for tricking / deceiving a large population of his employees (at the expense of the employees, benefit enjoyed exclusively by company) should this now be seen as an accepted business practice? How slippery do we have to get this slope before it just turns into a meat grinder where all issues ethical or otherwise uncomfortable are just hand-waved away into "but it's profitable!" sausage?
> People choose their employers in a fair number of situations.
When was the last time you were out of work? Have you ever been let go from a job for reasons completely disconnected from your performance?
I think the idea that people are able to "vote with their feet" is a capitalist fantasy told by the ruling class. The actual opportunity on the ground is much lower and you often have to compromise your values, ethics and morals to pay the bills.
Of course if you make enough money it's easy to insulate yourself from the things us dirty peasants concern ourselves with, so I can understand if you don't get it.
Don't think that is deception, happens rather frequently especially if firms don't have good experience with downturns or changes.
I would agree with the notion that by far not everyone has real choice, hence organized labour as one defense. Reality is, some firms care much more than others, not all run by greedy psychopaths in my experience.
If you want total freedom on what you do then can only do things that don't need clients/customers, though. Some compromise is somewhere is likely.
