My dad was a newspaper reporter in the early 2000s, so there were several dinner table conversations about this dilemma.

The buyouts were taken by superstars and low performers. The superstars moved on to other things, like working in other forms of media.

Dad didn't take several rounds of buyouts and was fine.

After suffering a stroke, he was "put out to pasture", which for a journalist means he was sent to cover city hall meetings in some suburb. Eventually, he retired with some much smaller payout than what the last buyout would have given him. The sense in the family was that the collapse of the industry denied him a dignified last decade of work. (When the industry was flush with cash, older journalists were sort of like "elder statesmen" in the newsroom. Post-internet, no longer.)

I've a neighbour who declined, and then got hit by layoffs. It was quite a gamble, and they lost out big time.

Honestly, if work was to come at me with a buy-out offer, and I was in a position to be able to afford to not work for a few years, I'd probably accept. Maybe go find some non-tech work for a little bit to stretch the dollars and ensure I have health insurance.

We're in such a bubble at the moment, things are going to get really rough.

> Certain pools of employees, including some focused on data centers, sales and marketing, aren’t eligible, the spokesperson said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-26/microsoft...

Sales alone is some 25 % of Microsoft expenditures, so are these 60k about 50 % of what's left?

When they offer a package YOU ALWAYS TAKE IT. It means that layoffs are coming.

My friend's company offered a voluntary severance package to a bunch of employees. She was talking to one of her employees and she knew that he was going to get laid off if he didn't take the package but was unable to advise him. I think the voluntary severance was 2 years medical, 2 years of vesting, many months of pay, etc. But he decided not to take the offer and was laid off for a much worse package a few months later.

ALWAYS TAKE THE VOLUNTARY SEVERANCE.

A couple of times in my career, I was one of those who were not given out a buyout. I was chosen to keep the lights on while the number of employees shrank every month. It sucked. I was given responsibility for systems with no documentation or than a username/password. I was called by all sorts of people I had never spoken to who had their hair on fire because the system was breaking left and right. I wished I was given the buyout; instead I was told I should be grateful I had a paycheck. No thanks.

Probably trying to entice people who are close to making a FIRE move (or even just close to normal retirement) to go ahead and do it.

If you still need a job, I don't see it as being very attractive in this environment, unless you're quite senior with very marketable skills.

Just because the offer is made to 25% of the workforce doesn’t mean they will all accept. These are generally very well paid jobs and the prospect of entering the job market right now isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Especially not when you have upcoming RSU vests after a recent 50% stock rally. If say a third of the employees accept then it’ll be an ~8% reduction, which is in line with a regular company-wide layoff.

I've never been involved in such a situation, but I assume part of individual's calculation is: If I indicate interest, but the company doesn't accept it or go through with it and keeps me... am I now viewed as a disloyal, detached worker?

If they're doing similar to what was mentioned back in April there is some calculation about current age + years of service that could be tempting to people on the "bubble" of retirement.

The worst case scenario is not taking the offer then getting let go for performance, which means zero severance, health insurance terminated same day. This has been happening at Microsoft for the last few years, sometimes in large waves. Many of these people were not egregious non-performers, just people who had been marked as not quite meeting expectations, and thought they had another chance.

Phew, scary! But it maybe a very real question to ask ourselves. 2027 may be the year when all companies do the same and follow the MSFT model.

I have been through a similar situation at a former employer, during the aftermath of 2008 crisis, and is complicated.

Exactly as you place it, the way they found out to push for buyouts was to terminate existing positions.

Everyone was forced to decide between taking the buyout, or apply to internal positions instead, naturally the later was much more complicated than just taking the money.

If you get the offer take it and start your own company with it. There's no use in staying if you're not wanted and even though you'll get a severance package it won't amount to much more than a couple months back pay.

Didn’t Microsoft have an issue with VP Vance regarding layoffs and all the perm processing were stopped. So why is MS doing this which will bring more trouble.

Microsoft made $134B in net income in the last 4 quarters. It used to be if you worked for a company that was printing boat loads of money that you had job security.

Now, even if the company is crushing it, they'll still see employees more as a cost center instead of a revenue generator.

With these kinds of offers, they don't expect to get rid of 60,000. They expect to get rid of Y,000.

They make the offer to 60,000 (typically, an entire department gets this offer, including people they want to keep). Some X,000 will take the offer. If Y,000 > X,000, they they lay off the difference.

> Do you decline and hope you don't get hit with the layoff which hits if not enough people accept?

If they need your skills after restructuring, you will be offered your old job back and get to pocket the buyout money.

If they don't need your skills, you're going to get fired anyway.

At least that's how any rational company would handle it. Employees are supposedly hired because they contribute to the company, not to fill seats.

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