Many tech companies made the same assumptions in the last two years (e.g. online transactions/ecommerce will stay at COVID levels). Those assumptions turned out to not be true, so they are course correcting to match the current economic climate.
a. With cheap money, placing and chasing risky bets was risk almost-free.
Although, this has been the case for past 4years, 2021/2022 was where it eclipsed new highs.
b. Wag-wars: In 2020, 2021, 2022, in SV, I have seen people getting insane offers. Sometimes accompanied by multiple expansion of stock (TSLA, NVDA). This eventually meant that if you don't pay top-dollar, someone else will and you will have to keep hiring belt burning. [presume that prospective employer finds you worthy enough]
I also find hard to believe that decision makers believed that pace of growth/expansion in 2020, 2021 was sustainable. There were signs that it isn't and cheap money kept flowing. Some would also criticize the stimulus checks but in my view, it helped folks who needed it the most but it also went on to chase risky or unproductive things like NFT etc.
Yeah Microsoft is an interesting case, since they aren’t as impacted by ecommerce spending. As far as I know, they haven’t launched a completely new service/offering that would require that many people.
That might be a case of them cutting the costs to prop up the stock price so they can make acquisitions? Time will tell
