Skype Fires Senior Execs Before Microsoft Deal Closes, Reducing Payouts

This is a GOOD thing?

Any of you people who are Skype users...WAKE UP to what this means.

Skype (without its SUCCESSFUL EXECS) just became Microsoft. The service will be S>>H>>I>>T within a year.

Hey, nice screw job.

Watch your backs, survivors.

Bad karma is ripening.

It would mortify me to work for an employer who goes from lean years with massive hours and stress to mega buyout and screws everyone out of any money the owners get on the deal. I've seen marginally profitable companies squeeze employers for free time, multiple jobs and then cut them loose as dead wood if they want some more compensation during profitable year.

Yeah all of us rank and file employees got screwed at ONI and the exec's made out like bandits back in 2000-2002.
First they did a second stock offering after a successful IPO blacking out all the employee's from selling any stock for an additional 6 months. Of course the stock tanked by then. The only ones that made out were the exec's and Goldman Sachs.
Then after repeatedly saying they we're not going to sell out. They sold out to Ciena in 2002.
6-9 months later not a signal employee was left.
The buildings that were built in 2001 are still empty in south San Jose.

why is it good to pay out huge packages to managers who were fired for hosing the company, but people who are let go to split the pie into bigger slices is all well and good. we have become some strange bizarro world, where greed justifies anything.

Disheartening that 8.5 + billion dollars will not cover everyone. Just another "trickle down" myth and another example of "hoarding".

Was easy for the Congress wiseguys over the years to blow up the economy just to redistribute the wealth to the few at the top....... Now the middle class will have to go back where they started at the bottom of the food CHAIN with no job, no benefits,, Isn't the american dream wonderful now

Skype will be sued for breach of contract. Skype cannot fire employees to prevent them from receiving the benefit of the bargain. Lawsuits will be filed against Skype and its owners and managers, who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of fired executives.

The contract does not allow Skype to fire employees without their pay one day before payday.

Maybe I read this story wrong, but it seems to me that an executive that joined at a lower salary with the expectation of payout at acquisition time is being unfairly victimized. Yes, often the rank and file has limited benefit from an acquisition, but they don't stand to gain anything more from this kind of lowlife action. The story indicated that the "owners" and "other managers" (I suspect this is code for venture capitalists or investors) are the ONLY ones to benefit from this.

This serves to throw even more cold water on any remaining motivation to innovate in this country.

Ah, the execs are finally treated like the non-execs and fall victim to capitalistic greed.

This is the way Wall Street has been operating since 1998. Wake up people. By investing in stocks, you are supporting this avarice.

Having been a Skype developer, I can say that I think that this is an opportunity to grow a great American brand. My experience working as a developer with them really wasn't up to par with companies like Microsoft or Apple.. this may improve this situation, and on the other side of it, Microsoft gets a foothold in the global telephony market.

As for the dismissals: In my opinion

Ultimately there may be no savings due to litigation costs.. but
some "lawyers" for Skype are probably now secure with their jobs.

Kickbacks are the real story of American greed.

You gotta watch em. We were to get a weeks pay for every year if we were let go not due to our own fault..23. A week before it happened they told one supervisor to personally clean the restroom because his crew left it dirty. F you I ain't doing that.OK you're fired. He would have had $36,000 in one more week.

firing execs to reduce pay out is in my opinion not ethical behavior. Courts will probably need to decide if dismissal with the main reason avoiding fulfilling contractual agreements is legal.

When Microsoft is involved in a deal ... someone gets screwed. That's the way Microsoft has been since its beginning.

Stupid Microsoft to purchase Skype... it will be fail again...

People...we need another revolution! The first revolution was over excessive taxes on tea without representation...CORPORATE GREED is legion in America...nothing but revolution will change this fact. I for one have my stash of weapons - my favorite being my Mini 14 223 calibre. The first to be liquidated during the revolution will be the Bankers and then the Corporate Chief Executives followed by all the criminals currently incarcerated. Who's with me? The revolution needs to start NOW!!!

nice

wow... what a screw job! just when you think the greed and nastiness can't get any worse...

Say goodby to the decent Skype you have known. Microsoft will manage to ruin it for sure.
Buy a Mac and use FaceTime.