Microsoft just offered 60,000 employees money to leave. 🫠 That's 27% of the company. And nobody is getting fired. It's called a Voluntary Exit Offer. Take the payout and walk out on 31st December. Or stay. Employees in the US, UK, Canada and India have until early December to decide. Why would a company pay people to leave? Because AI needs every dollar it can find: → data centers → chips → electricity As of May, Microsoft had committed around $190 billion to capital spending this fiscal year. For a software company, people are usually the biggest cost. Firing 60,000 people means ugly headlines, angry employees and lawsuits. A buyout means they choose to leave. That's the new version of layoffs. The part that surprised me: this goes all the way up to level 70. Directors. General managers. Even some VP titles. And it isn't round one. In April they ran a voluntary retirement program for US staff, and more than 30% of eligible people took it. Microsoft says this doesn't mean it needs fewer people. Nobody knows how many will take the deal. But look at where the money is going. It's moving from human capital to AI infrastructure. Companies used to invest in people. Now they pay people to leave so they can buy more machines. I expect a lot more of this.