I’m in pre sales My leadership is telling us that if this deal falls through they are still moving forward with the planned reorg and layoffs… how are we allowing HT and Broadcom to create this reorganization and layoff and now saying we will move forward it? Is it because they spent their precious hours working on the lists and they are too lazy to rethink and redo what’s right ? Or is it like F U gesture to us showing whos in charge? It’s unacceptable we will strike good luck steering a tanking ship anyways….
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Regarding the timing of the layoffs - if the deal is called off on 26th. Nov then layoffs could happen in Jan. They will give notice in Jan with final termination date in March. Reason being that they have given retention RSU to thousands of folks that vest on 01 March. So far they have not been stingy so my guess is that layoffs will happen in such a way that March 01 RSU will vest.
If the deal gets extended then I don’t think they will do any layoffs during that timeframe.
Mom, Hock made me fire them, what could I do?
No matter what happens, employees get fücked and Dell and Durban the dirtbag get rich.
Whatever happens, we will be the last to know.
Duh?! He wants the Christmas ham. Don’t underthink this, please
"Surely VMW is not going to layoff people during the holidays?"
What difference does it make when it happens? For everyone who was waiting for their VMW severance windfall, well now you get your wish. January may be better for tax reasons, but otherwise just focus on the upside -- you'll be free to search and start over.
"Surely VMW is not going to layoff people during the holidays?"
Dell has done that in prior years. I anticipate Michael Dell will guide the VMW board of directors to do what is in his best interest, while he and Silver Lake consider a backup plan to unload VMware on another buyer, or group of buyers for specific BUs in 2024.
They already lined up EUC for the spin-off and possibly other BUs. So this is in motion.
Either way, if the deal does go through or not, the damage is done.
Layoffs will happen with or without Broadcom. VMWare leadership got to taste how efficiency looks like. They didn’t get the full MBA, but a weekend-like edition if they paid attention and took notes.
Broadcom wins with or without VMWare.
So the $1.5B breakup fee would cover about how much severance??
Quick napkin math is
10,000 staff day 0. Avg tenure 5 years. Avg salary 200K. That's 2 months notice + 5 months of severance so:
200/12=16.7K
- 7K*7 months = 117K per employee
= 1.17B
Leaves another 300M to break leases and get out from existing fixed expenses early 23.
"Saves" MD & Silverlake $2.0-2.5B of annual costs which is cash in hand for them to make the books look good for a buyer or take more "special dividends"...
So when are these layoffs going to happen? Surely VMW is not going to layoff people during the holidays??
I am guessing sometime mid Jan?
It is given that layoffs will happen if the deal doesn’t go through. It has to happen if this company wants to survive. Big question is that will it happen the way BC planned it? I highly doubt it. Reason being our current leadership is incapable of thinking strategically and taking hard decisions. They are all selfish and like frogs living in a well. They just think about themselves and they defend inefficiency like their life depends on it. If the leaders remain same then they will make cuts but overall inefficiency will still remain. Same process, products and systems garbage will be there. Nobody has guts to clean up this garbage because it will mean they are fired first. I have had opportunity to see them work up close. It made me cringe when they were so surprised to learn about our cr-ppy products, processes and systems. And they have no ideas how to fix them apart from making excuses and blaming others. Today we cannot know who we sold to, how much and what they used. If the customers cheat then we cannot do anything. That is a failure at a very fundamental level for any company.
A meaningful layoff will be the one that happens after bulk of Sr leadership is changed. That will have lasting effect and it should change the way we do business. This company is bloated and broken from inside. Anyone who disagrees to that is living in EPIC fantasy land. It can be only fixed by starting to remove bloat at the top which created this mess. Not sure if MDell is actually interested in meaningful cleanup. He probably just needs a leaner company that can be immediately be sold again whole or in parts. But the layoff is happening for sure.
Rumors circulating that Jan 16 is the new date, anyone here about this?
Current leadership team can’t run a bath, let alone a business. Will be another cluster fu-k disguised as a strategy. Shameful.
So, this has been one extended, strategic consulting gig outlining steps to reorganize the company with or without BC? Now that’s some 4 dimensional checkers. Magoo is a genius!
BC plan is a straw man. They were never serious. The strategy is naive. Cut cloud and move to onprem? This is just the silliest nonsense anyone heard in cloud space in decades.
This deal will be in limbo for months until HT and MD have a serious talk.
It will be interesting to see what happens...
I know that decisions were made regarding layoffs at levels where they people deciding don't really know what it is that IC's were working on. Basically as has been said elsewhere, management by spreadsheet. I suspect that while a largish set of layoffs are on the way, it won't be exactly those who were on the block when the acquisition was in progress. As an example, BC was planning to lay off VMW employees who were doing the same jobs that are already done by BC employees. At least some of that will have to be re-thought.
Why on earth we let Broadcom dictate all of these changes before the close is mind boggling.
"Free playbook by HT. " Now Let's implement it -MD. ROFL
I am Chat-CCP.
MD didn't do anything for 5 years? Now he will implement HT plan? What cr-p!
Sadly,
They spent weeks working with consultants and HT and BC to develop this new org. If the BC deal falls apart, this new org is slim and will look good to future buyers, the board and the big shareholders.
I am in leadership in a specialty BU. 80% of our leadership and 50% of my team and 65% of our specialists sellers have not received letters. I have been busy helping my team to brush up resumes and get interviews. I have told all of them if they get a new job to keep it to themselves until after they have Severance letters in hand.
I have been here almost 20 years. It is sad to see VMW go down so hard. It is a shame, really.
Will fail. No layoffs as planned. Too many BC trolls here. Asinine. Who exactly would sell if everyone is laid off as planned? Stick isn’t going anywhere but up on a failure. Gutting of an American Icon company is Carl Icahn stuff.
It's probably an "F U" but more so because they all lost out on the deal's big payout payday for them. ;)
Seriously though, I agree that there would still be many layoffs regardless, although I think not likely as many as BC was planning, in great part because they have been given license to do so now. Having said that, the current executive leadership team might not have to do much to shrink the workforce seeing I suspect that there would be a total lack of confidence left in the existing VMware leadership team should they remain after things are resolved, resulting in a mass exodus by current employees. Since the deal was announced, I have observed the total VMware workforce shrink (net) by a 1,000 employees, but that does not count the people that left and were replaced, which I have seen happen, so likely far more people have left than that given Betsy's own comments many months ago about the attrition having stabilized after having previously stated a few months prior that it was averaging 16% with some BUs seeing a much higher rate than that. I suspect that it will increase dramatically over the coming weeks and months as people look for opportunities to leave. Sad really.
BCOM is in too deep at this point and will not let this deal fall through - even if they
miss the deadline and have to fork out $1.5B.
When the contractual agreement expired, Broadcom will pull a Costanza and just continue as if the contract didn't expire?
Are these the big brain thoughts of vmware employees?
Reality would be harsh at times. If the deal doesn't close the VMW stock would crash and board will have to make announcements and adjustments. For 3 years when the market conditions were not that great, VMW did not fire much. Assuming 10% for each of that year cumulatively roughly 10K has to leave in the next few months. So the list has already been identified. This will sort of restore faith in market.
VMW can also think of divestiture of few independent products.
Who will own the BC plan if the deal doesn't go through? BC plan is only good if BC pays for it and takes the risk. It appears that no one at vmw was involved in the BC plan.
I think nothing will happen and they will keep the limbo for a couple of years.
It is because Hock showed that VMware's future for profitability should only be focused on our top accounts to turn out massive profits for shareholders. Leadership has basically been given a free blueprint for how to do that, and all they need to do is execute it. They also probably figured anyone who was not given an offer letter, knows they were at the bottom of the list. How motivated and loyal are those people going to be?
BCOM is in too deep at this point and will not let this deal fall through - even if they miss the deadline and have to fork out $1.5B. They know our business way too much to pass on us at this point. With that being said, they will absolutely move forward with what they planned. It would probably just be at a later date (Q1 Feb 1st or something)