By Michael Burkhardt
Publication Date: 2026-04-26 17:28:00
Microsoft recently announced something rather interesting – a voluntary employee buyout. In short, if your age and tenure at the company add up to 70 or greater, you’re able to voluntarily leave the company, retire early, and receive a (likely) hefty payout.
It’s a less hostile form of layoffs, and while I don’t think Apple would implement it for the same reasons as Microsoft, I think it could serve a unique purpose for transforming the company.
Why Apple should do it
In all likelihood, Microsoft’s buyout is purely a means for reducing headcount without having to look too bad. During covid, essentially every tech company rushed to hire loads of people because of the growth in the tech sector. Then, that growth slowed down, and we’ve now been in this post layoff environment for the past 3-4 years.
Apple largely avoided over-hiring, and they’ve for the most part avoided mass layoffs. Now, the flip side of that equation is the fact that…
