10 Things in Tech: Low morale at Microsoft
Hello, readers. Hallam Bullock, an editor on Insider's audience team, here.
Before we take a look at today's tech stories, the tourist submersible that went missing on Sunday while carrying five people to the shipwreck of the Titanic was designed to be piloted with a video-game controller and fitted with "off-the-shelf" components.
It also had a water bottle for a toilet and previously got lost for more than two hours on a CBS TV segment.
The latest: The US Coast Guard says an airplane using sonar to scour the ocean for the submersible has detected noises underwater.
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1. Morale appears to be low at Microsoft. According to a poll conducted in May, 47% of employees said they would stay at the company if they got another offer. Rewind to November, and that figure was 70%. So, why has morale fallen so much?
- The latest poll came after CEO Satya Nadella notified employees that the company would not give out raises this year and would reduce bonus and stock awards.
- Later, an email from Microsoft's chief people officer, Kathleen Hogan, which was viewed by Insider, instructed managers to give fewer employees "exceptional rewards."
- According to internal messages, those changes were another blow to morale, after Microsoft announced it was laying off 10,000 staff in January.
"How are the leadership team planning on improving morale?" one employee asked in a recent meeting, according to screenshots viewed by Insider. "It really is rock bottom at the moment, and it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel."
In other news:
2. Founders and VCs are clamoring to get into a $68 million AI hacker house. AGI House, an 18,000 square foot Hillsborough mansion, serves as a hacker house and community hub for the Bay's exploding AI scene. Today, it houses between eight to 10 founders and researchers. Take a look.
3. ElevenLabs has raised $19 million in early-stage funding from Andreessen Horowitz and GitHub's former CEO. The hot startup uses artificial intelligence to generate realistic voice recordings of written text — opening up big potential in the publishing and audiobooks sector. Read more.
4. AI is cool, but it still needs humans to train it. Scientists have warned that, as more and more AI-generated content is published online, future AI will use this material to train itself. That means AI will be training AI, and experts say it will ultimately spiral into gibberish.
5. Workers are hiding their AI productivity hacks from bosses. That's according to a Wharton professor, who said companies should try to tempt employees to share how they're using AI to increase their personal productivity – rather than ban the tech and force them to hide it.
6. A lonely tech worker said that going back to the office "changed my life" — and it sparked a debate. Some workers said the return to in-person work helped them feel less isolated. Other workers pointed out that it's less ideal for workers with kids or long commutes. Read more.
7. Meet the new CEO of Alibaba. Eddie Wu, currently the chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, will take over as CEO from Daniel Zhang on September 10. Wu has thus far maintained a low media profile, but here's what we know about him.
8. Meta has announced a new generative AI model that can replicate the voices of loved ones. The company said the product, which is called Voicebox, can speak six languages. However, Meta said the technology was too risky to publicly release. More here.
Odds and ends:
9. A new report analyzed the top 451 podcasts in the US. About a quarter of those podcasts were about true crime, while 10% were about politics and government. Half of the top-ranked podcasts also had a video component. Check out the other key takeaways.
10. The 12 best websites for streaming movies online. These days, your monthly streaming bill can be as pricey as an old-fashioned cable subscription, or even worse. So take a look at the best streaming apps and services for watching movies for free, completely legally. See the list.
Curated by Hallam Bullock in London. (Feedback or tips? Email hbullock@insider.com or tweet @hallam_bullock). Edited by Shona Ghosh.