Steven Sinfosky, the former President of Microsoft’s Windows business shared the memo on Twitter on Tuesday.
His tweet says, “One of the most famous memos in all of Microsoft history was a first memo about cost-cutting which came about in 1993 (see early 90s recession).
“Mike Murray, leading HR, wrote the memo “Shrimp and Weenies“—before MS, Mike was at Apple, having led OG Mac marketing”, Steven Sinfosky’s tweet added.
“The company was going through challenges like much of the macroeconomy. Only we were worried “Maybe this is it? PCs are saturated”—MSFT paranoia. GDP was down. Sales were slowing. We were getting complacent. Still, the memo could have backfired. MS in 89 was a “Velvet Sweatshop”, his tweet added.
“Yet the memo had not only the intended effect but it was a (re-)turning point for the company. Mike wrote about 3 challenges—things we needed to change—featuring allegories we would never forget”, his tweet added.
“Shrimp and Weenies: “…we fly coach class; we stay in reasonably priced hotels; we don’t ride in limos; we don’t have executive dining rooms; our office furniture is of good quality, but reasonably priced; when dining at company expense, we order weenies not shrimp”, his tweet concluded.
4/ Shrimp and Weenies: “…we fly coach class; we stay in reasonably priced hotels; we don’t ride in limos; we don’t have executive dining rooms; our office furniture is of good quality, but reasonably priced; when dining at company expense, we order weenies not shrimp.” pic.twitter.com/m2yYkhG0E4
— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) April 4, 2023
Recently, Meta (formerly named Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg has written a letter to his employees explaining that this Year is a year of Efficiency.
On the other hand, Microsoft has conducted a third round of layoffs. The roles that have been impacted include the areas of the supply chain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). The reports suggest that the company has shut down its AI-powered automation effort Project Bonsai and laid off the team.
These layoffs are part of “10,000 job cuts” that were announced by the company to be conducted worldwide due to the global economic slowdown.
Earlier, Microsoft had planned to cut several engineering divisions. The company employs 220,000 full-time employees, including 122,000 in the United States and 97,000.
