Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Bing chief Mikhail Parakhin is leaving the role and will report to Microsoft's CTO in the meantime.</li><li>Parakhin led the advertising businesses, in addition to his work on the search engine.</li></ul>Microsoft is again playing musical chairs as another reshuffle of its key teams gets underway.Days after Satya Nadella announced he was bringing Inflection AI's cofounder Mustafa Suleyman into the mix as its EVP and CEO of Microsoft AI, Mikhail Parakhin has "decided to explore new roles."<a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/25/24111931/microsoft-windows-surface-pavan-davuluri">The Verge</a> reported the news, citing an internal memo.Parakhin, who led the company's Bing search engine and advertising businesses, will report to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott.Pavan Davuluri, who ran its Surface and devices work, will be head of both Microsoft's Windows and Surface teams as part of the leadership rejig.Rajesh Jha, who leads Microsoft's experiences and devices team, said in the memo, "Satya and I are grateful for Mikhail's contributions and leadership and want to thank him for all he has done to help Microsoft lead in the new AI wave."Nadella announced that Suleyman had joined the ranks in a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-mustafa-suleyman-microsoft-memo-2024-3">memo sent to employees</a> last week. The Google DeepMind cofounder will lead its consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.Several Inflection AI team members, including cofounder Karén Simonyan, are also joining Microsoft. Simonyan will report to Suleyman as chief scientist, while he reports to Nadella.Microsoft has built AI into its Bing search engine and created other AI tools for Windows and Office under the Copilot brand over the last year.Nadella's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-microsoft-mustafa-suleyman-sam-altman-ai-2024-3">enlisting of Suleyman</a> demonstrated the Microsoft chief's uneasiness with the Windows and Web Experience team's progress, Bloomberg <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-26/microsoft-bing-chief-exiting-role-after-suleyman-named-ai-leader?sref=lAVQtUwz">reported</a>, citing two people with knowledge of his thoughts on the matter.Microsoft didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.

Microsoft's reshuffle continues as Bing chief plans to exit the role. It comes days after Satya Nadella poached Mustafa Suleyman.

<keyword id="19895282" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mumbai" source="keywords">Mumbai</keyword>, With a larger number of entities preferring to shift their work back to offices, there has been a decline in women workforce in senior management roles in companies, a report said on Thursday. This is the third consecutive year that the share of women in the senior management roles 'considered essential for promoting diversity at workplaces' continued to decline, the report by consultancy firm <keyword id="20034170" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="grant-thornton-bharat" source="keywords">Grant Thornton Bharat</keyword> said. The onset of the pandemic around four years ago triggered a move to working from home, which offered a lot of flexibility for all the workers. However, with things getting back to normal, there has been a shift to working from offices and many companies are also ending the hybrid work models which they had adopted as the pandemic waned. The report, which comes ahead of the International Women's Day on March 8, is based on the inputs from about 300 women in senior management roles from as many companies. The consultancy firm said 34 per cent of women in Indian mid-market businesses currently hold senior management positions, which is modestly down from 36 per cent in 2023 and 38 per cent in 2022. It, however, stressed that the current percentage is much higher when compared to the 12 per cent figure in 2004 and 14 per cent a decade ago in 2014. Businesses offering a hybrid model have decreased to 56.5 per cent in 2024 from 62.3 per cent last year, while those asking employees to return to the office have increased to 34.7 per cent in 2024 from 27.4 per cent in 2023. It said staff working out of their homes has also significantly dipped to 1.8 per cent in 2024 from 5.3 per cent in 2023. The consultancy firm's chief business officer <keyword id="20865785" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="satya-jha" source="keywords">Satya Jha</keyword> said the need of the hour is to allow employees to work flexibly. "Measuring the number of women who have moved into senior management positions is very important to understand whether, internally, women are being championed to progress and move up the ladder," <keyword id="20865786" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pallavi-bakhru" source="keywords">Pallavi Bakhru</keyword>, a partner at the consultancy firm, said.

Back to office led to decline in women in senior mgmt roles: Grant Thornton

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Wikimedia CommonsJavier Soltero is leaving Microsoft at the end of the year. He has been there since 2014.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Javier Soltero, one of Microsoft's rising stars, is leaving the company after four years, with the intention of "getting back to building new things." </li><li>He came to Microsoft after his startup, Acompli, was acquired in 2014 - a move that was seen as emblematic of then-new CEO Satya Nadella's revitalized corporate strategy.</li><li>Soltero had a reputation for challenging Microsoft's assumptions, and famously warned employees that they were on the brink of irrelevance without swift action. </li><li>Soltero rose from leading Outlook on smartphones, to leading Outlook overall, to eventually leading the Cortana digital assistant business. </li></ul>Javier Soltero, currently the head of Microsoft's Cortana digital assistant, is departing the tech titan at the end of the year amid a round of reorganization to the Microsoft Office business. The news was first reported by <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-cortana-boss-javier-soltero-is-leaving-the-company/">ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley</a>, and confirmed to Business Insider by the company. Soltero didn't immediately announce his next move, but tells Business Insider that he plans on "getting back to building new things." Soltero was something of a rising star. He first came to Microsoft in early 2014, following the acquisition of Acompli, a startup he had cofounded. In a matter of weeks, Acompli's email app had been rebranded to Outlook for iPhone and Android - a move that was seen as emblematic of then-new CEO Satya Nadella's embrace of rival operating systems. Outlook was, and is, a popular smartphone email client, particularly among corporate users. As the app gained traction, so too did Soltero's influence. He soon found himself leading Outlook across all platforms, and then, leading strategy for all of Microsoft Office.Soltero has a reputation at Microsoft for speaking truth to corporate power. In 2015, he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-javier-soltero-startup-culture-2016-12">delivered a sobering presentation</a> that warned employees that without swift action to modernize Microsoft Office and Outlook, the company could find itself as irrelevant as the competitors it had long since vanquished. He <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/look-whos-back-microsoft-rebooted-emerges-as-a-tech-leader-1481900876">told the Wall Street Journal</a> that this presentation actually earned him hate mail from employees, who accused him of being "disrespectful" the company's legacy. Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-javier-soltero-startup-culture-2016-12">A rising star at Microsoft says employees sent him hate mail for suggesting the company might be falling behind</a>In March of this year, Soltero took command of Cortana, Microsoft's rival to Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and the Google Assistant. He was given a mandate to find a niche for Cortana, which comes built into Windows 10, but has struggled to gain traction on smartphones and elsewhere. Soltero's departure comes as Microsoft continues an ongoing streamlining of the Cortana business.The general idea, as ZDNet's Foley notes, is that Microsoft is trying to reposition Cortana as a general helper within Office - sort of a smarter, more capable successor to its infamous Clippy. To that end, Microsoft is bringing Cortana closer to the Office business, putting it under the general umbrella of Microsoft Executive VP Rajesh Jha.Get the latest Microsoft stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/MSFT-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant-save-us-2017-5">There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

One of Microsoft's fastest-rising stars is leaving the company

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Former Bing chief Mikhail Parakhin appeared to subtly criticize Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.</li><li>Parakhin wrote it's "hard to disagree" when an X user said "we need you."</li></ul>Microsoft's former Bing chief appears to have thrown shade at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inflection-ai-mustafa-suleyman-tells-openai-staff-come-run-us-2023-11">Mustafa Suleyman</a>.Mikhail Parakhin, who stepped down from his role just days after Suleyman became CEO of Microsoft AI, commented under an X post about the DeepMind cofounder.An X user wrote "We need you ngl" (short for "not gonna lie") under a post summarizing Suleyman's TED Talk last week, which some critics have been ripping into.Parakhin responded in a <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/MParakhin/status/1782255776104685981">comment</a> that looked like a low-key dig at Suleyman: "Hard to disagree :-)."Some venture capitalists have been taking aim on X at Suleyman's AI remarks in his TED Talk.Martin Casado, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz's firm a16z, <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/martin_casado/status/1782216647820099969">said</a>: "Good god. Make it stop. Total fucking nonsense."John Chu, a VC firm Khosla Ventures partner, <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/heyjchu/status/1782224263032033779">wrote</a>: "This is what happens when you hire the business cofounder who doesn't really understand the tech."Pedro Domingos, a computer science professor at the University of Washington also <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/pmddomingos/status/1782238245864231334?s=46&amp;t=1yjpGXMHUjqcuPJ7NA-DCQ">chimed</a> in: "When you give a midwit a platform."Microsoft executive vice-president Rajesh Jha<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-mikhail-parakhin-microsoft-bing-chief-exits-2024-3"> announced in an internal memo</a> last month <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/25/24111931/microsoft-windows-surface-pavan-davuluri">obtained</a> by The Verge that Parakhin had "decided to explore new roles."Parakhin would have reported to Suleyman after <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-mustafa-suleyman-microsoft-memo-2024-3">Satya Nadella's reshuffle</a> in which he was tapped to lead its consumer AI products and research including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.Parakhin, who led the company's Bing search engine and advertising businesses, will now report to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott instead.Suleyman's first big move at Microsoft was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-ceo-mustafa-suleyman-london-hub-2024-4">announcing an AI hub</a> in London. He cofounded Inflection AI firm in 2022 alongside Karén Simonyan and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-mafia-members-elon-musk-peter-thiel-reid-hoffman-companies">"Paypal mafia"</a> member Reid Hoffman. Before that he cofounded DeepMind in 2010, which was acquired by Google in 2014.Microsoft didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

It looks like Microsoft's ex-Bing boss just threw shade at Mustafa Suleyman

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Satya Nadella is revamping Microsoft's structure by hiring Mustafa Suleyman.</li><li>Suleyman will oversee Microsoft's consumer AI products, Nadella said in a memo sent to staff.</li></ul><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-life-career-microsoft-ceo-computer-science-2024-1">Satya Nadella</a> is shaking up Microsoft's structure by tapping Mustafa Suleyman, a Google DeepMind cofounder, to lead its AI efforts.The Microsoft chief is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-microsoft-mustafa-suleyman-sam-altman-ai-2024-3?mrfhud=true&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T">bringing Suleyman</a> into the fold in what appears to be an attempt to fend off rivals like Google.In the memo, which also announced a reshuffle of a few other teams, Nadella said, "We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly."The British entrepreneur will report directly to Nadella as the CEO of Microsoft AI, he said in the memo sent to employees. He'll be leading all of Microsoft's consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.Suleyman left Google in 2022 to launch his own AI startup, Inflection AI, which he cofounded alongside Reid Hoffman and Karén Simonyan. Several Inflection AI team members, including Simonyan, are also joining Microsoft.Inflection reportedly raised more than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inflection-ai-mustafa-suleyman-tells-openai-staff-come-run-us-2023-11">$1 billion</a> last year at a $4 billion valuation, with backers including Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Nvidia.Nadella recently said on the Norges Bank Investment Management podcast <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNuLPWu38IU&amp;list=PLzYp5zh-CrBUX_4WnPCO1jj5v6jMuQjKe&amp;index=1">"In Good Company"</a> that Google <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-google-default-winner-ai-race-microsoft-2024-3">"should have been the default winner"</a> of Big Tech's AI race as it has "both the talent and the compute."Read the full memo that Nadella sent to staffers below:

Read the memo Satya Nadella sent to employees announcing Google DeepMind cofounder's move to Microsoft

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic with 4,329 deaths on Tuesday. </li><li>The grim milestone comes as the parts of the country were hit with the strongest cyclone on record. </li><li>Experts are worried the evacuation of thousands as a result of the storm will cause a rise in cases.</li></ul>A powerful cyclone that hit India is hampering efforts to slow down COVID-19 infections as the country surpassed 25 million cases on Tuesday, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-tally-coronavirus-infections-crosses-25-million-2021-05-18/">Reuters</a> reported. Cyclone Tauktae was the strongest storm on record to hit the west coast of the country and has forced tens of thousands of residents in western states like Gujarat and Maharashtra to evacuate, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/asia/cyclone-tauktae-india-covid-intl-hnk/index.html">CNN</a> reported. "You have to evacuate [people] in a certain way because you do not want COVID infections on your hands post-cyclone," India's disaster relief chief, Satya Pradhan, <a href="https://twitter.com/IndiaAheadNews/status/1394541488030195713">told local media</a>.So far the cyclone has killed 26 people as a result of drowning, houses collapsing, or lighting strikes. Gusts of wind reached up to 130 miles per hour, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997794616/cyclone-hits-india-on-deadliest-day-of-pandemic">NPR</a> reported. At least 177 workers have been rescued by Indian <a href="https://twitter.com/indiannavy/status/1394528717968314372"> navy helicopters</a> in "extremely challenging circumstances."While cyclones are more common on the eastern side of the country, forecasters have attributed changing climate patterns as the cause for the cyclone, which started in the Arabian sea.India's western states were also some of the worst-hit regions during this second wave of COVID-19. Patients in Mumbai hospitals have been evacuated and moved to other health facilities farther inland, NPR reported. The storm has caused over 2,435 villages to lose power. So far, power has only been restored to less than 500. Outages also impacted 100 of the 400 COVID-19 hospitals in Gujarat and has forced vaccination efforts to be suspended. "The big concern was that of COVID," Gujarat's chief minister, Vijay Rupani, told CNN. "The oxygen which we produce has been transported to our hospitals, but we also have to send oxygen to other states such as Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, etc."<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/asia/cyclone-tauktae-india-covid-intl-hnk/index.html"></a>India has been the epicenter of the pandemic for the past several weeks, recording record numbers of infection and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-first-country-to-record-400000-single-day-coronavirus-cases-2021-5">at one point tallied over 400,000 cases in a day</a>, a grim milestone. The country suffered its deadliest day of the pandemic on Tuesday with 4,329 deaths recorded over the past 24 hours. Only the United States has recorded a daily death toll higher, when 5,444 COVID-19 deaths were recorded on February 12. Hospitals are running out of oxygen and patients have been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-05-01-21/h_3485a084f1fa06acfc2aa0d1cd2046fd?tab=India">dying</a> at record rates. Experts told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-coronavirus-infections-cross-18-million-2021-04-29/">Reuters</a> the death toll could be as much as five to 10 times higher than what is being reported.The outbreak has been attributed to more infectious <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> variants, relaxed social distancing efforts, and a slow vaccine rollout. "It will get worse before it gets better," Ashish Jha, a physician and Dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, <a href="https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1388515141898182657">said</a> of India's outbreak on Twitter.

A cyclone in India's western states has complicated efforts to slow down the COVID-19 spread as cases surpass 25 million

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">MicrosoftMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella</div></div></div><ul><li>For the first time ever, Microsoft has topped $100 billion in revenue.</li><li>Wall street analysts have been swooning with delight, with at least one predicting the company will soon hit $1 trillion in market cap.</li><li>Still, Microsoft hasn't shown many signs of shoring up its obvious weaknesses. </li><li>CEO Satya Nadella has found a way to make those weaknesses a non-issue, by keeping Microsoft's most important customers - businesses - happy and locked in.</li></ul> For the first time ever, Microsoft has topped $100 billion in revenue.When Microsoft reported earnings on Thursday, it was a feast for the bulls, as it showed record-breaking annual revenue of $110.4 billion, a 21% jump in operating income of $35.1 billion, with total net profits of $16.6 billion. By Friday morning, analysts were swooning with delight.Instinet's Christopher Eberle wrote, "The underlying strength, led by cloud and intelligent edge adoption, is expected to continue throughout the year." Eberle noted that these were the best, company-wide profit margins since 2014 and concluded that there was "not a lot for the bears to sink their claws into."Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss went further, predicting the stock will soar to a $1 trillion market cap, "Solid 4Q18 results keep MSFT on track to $1 trillion," he wrote and raised his price target to $130.RBC's Ross MacMillan, who raised his target for the stock to $115, looked at Microsoft's commercial business - the products it sells to businesses - and wrote that it's "hard to see what stops the momentum."But buried in all this wonderfulness was this tidbit: the only part of Microsoft's business that shrunk was Windows licensing for consumer PCs. Microsoft reported that Windows "OEM non-Pro revenue declined 3%, slightly below the consumer PC market, driven by continued pressure in the entry-level price category."<h2>Windows is both sickly and strong</h2>A few years ago, right before Satya Nadella took over as CEO, Microsoft and its Windows phone operating systems were being totally surpassed by Apple iOS and Android. Missing the boat with smartphones seemed to hurt the Windows business catastrophically, perhaps even fatally. Ballmer tried to fix it - too much, too late - by buying its main Windows Phone supplier, Nokia. But when Nadella took the reigns not too long after, he did an about face.Instead of doubling down on protectionist strategies, he went high, all the way to the cloud. In 2015, he tucked consumer Windows into a business unit called "More Personal Computing," which includes Windows, plus other businesses like the Xbox console and its Surface PC business. It includes ad revenue from Bing, as well, which has risen alongside usage of Windows 10 itself. In this way, he sort of tucked the sickly Windows business out of view.And he capped it off just over a month ago, when the company announced that long-time Windows exec Terry Myerson was out. In his place is the leader of Microsoft Office, Rajesh Jha, who will control <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-terry-myerson-leaving-reorganization-2018-3">a new group encompassing both Windows and Office.</a>Fast forward to the end of Microsoft's fiscal 2018, and that shrinking Windows business doesn't matter, like a gnat in a windstorm. Windows products for business users have been selling well, including Windows Pro, <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="enterprise">enterprise</keyword> Windows licenses, and Surface PC. And selling Windows to business customers means Microsoft also gets to sell all kinds of extra, high-margin cloud services to businesses too, such as security, like Windows Defender, or Software Assurance, a support contract for businesses.<h2>Nadella goes high, to the cloud</h2>Microsoft has always used Windows as a way to sell other products. But under Nadella, Microsoft flipped this approach on its head. Instead of leading with Windows, it now leads with Office 365, which has become the sticky product that keeps people in Microsoft sphere. This, even though Office 365 is available for just about every device under the sun, <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/?wt.mc_id=build_hp">Microsoft</a></div></div></div>In fact, a year ago, Microsoft bundled Office 365, Windows and security products together for businesses in a package called Microsoft 365. That combination has become "a multi-billion-dollar business," Nadella told analysts <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4188569-microsoft-corporation-msft-ceo-satya-nadella-q4-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">on the quarterly conference call.</a>When enterprise IT departments use Office 365, their enterprise contracts also encourage them to try Microsoft Azure, Microsoft's cloud competitor to Amazon Web Services, where they rent capacity from Microsoft's data center to run their own apps. Azure is still the second-place cloud behind Amazon Web Services, but is doing well and growing."In FY18, we closed a record number of multi-million-dollar commercial cloud agreements and more than doubled the number of $10 million-plus Azure agreements," Nadella said.Microsoft still doesn't report Azure revenue in dollar amounts, so for whatever its worth, it said Azure revenues grew 89% over the year ago quarter. However, counting all things cloud sold to businesses, Microsoft brought in $23 billion in revenue , with gross margin expanding to 57%.And this is now the core of what Microsoft does.So instead of talking about Microsoft's continued absence in mobile, or its ongoing decline in consumer PCs, the company is soaring towards $1 trillion on the back of the cloud instead.Get the latest Microsoft stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/MSFT-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cigna-ceo-express-scripts-merger-and-problem-with-healthcare-2018-7">The CEO of one of the largest health insurers in the US explains the problem with healthcare in America</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's master plan is clearly working, and the company is soaring towards $1 trillion

It's been two years since Microsoft acquired business social network site Yammer for $1.2 billion and the cofounder of the company, David Sachs, <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/statuses/492383928745861120">announced on Twitter</a> on Thursday that he's leaving Microsoft.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Thank you to my current and former YamFamily for 6 great years and to Microsoft for the last two. I look forward to new adventures.
- David Sacks (@DavidSacks) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/statuses/492383928745861120">July 24, 2014</a></blockquote>
Yammer had been running as a fairly independent unit, even as its tech was integrated into various Microsoft products like SharePoint and Office 365 (the cloud version of Microsoft Office).
But now Microsoft is moving Yammer into the Office 365 and Outlook development teams, which are headed by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Rajesh Jha, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-moves-yammer-under-office-365-co-founder-david-sacks-is-out-7000031984/">reports Mary Jo Foley.</a>
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been warning that he is reorganizing the company to streamline it. So it's perhaps not surprising that Yammer is being folded into a bigger team and Sacks would leave.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right" style="width:320px"><div class="image">Owen Thomas, Business InsiderYammer CEO David Sacks</div></div>Yammer was part of former CEO Steve Ballmer's grand vision. Yammer was supposed to teach Microsoft about <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/live-microsoft-yammer-conference-call-2012-6">"viral adoption."</a> Ballmer even coined a term "Yammerization," which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-hasnt-adopted-yammers-model-2013-6">Microsoft told us,</a> "is about designing software for viral, voluntary adoption, but with enterprise-grade controls and reliability."
But a year after the acquisition, Microsoft changed its tune. Instead of creating more software for viral adoption, it viewed Yammer as "a freemium on-ramp to other Microsoft services," Yammer's other cofounder Adam Pisoni told us. 
As for Sack's departure, Pisoni <a href="https://twitter.com/yammeradam/status/492401207567065088">tweeted</a>, "We were an unlikely pair, but that's also probably what made us special. Thanks again @DavidSacks for the wild ride."
Before Yammer, Sacks was PayPal's chief operating officer.
Microsoft sent Foley the following comment about Sack's departure:
Yammer is an integral part of Office 365 and it is being used by more than 500,000 organizations to transform how they work every day. Since we acquired Yammer in 2012 we have been working together to bring the integrated benefits of <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword> social to all our Office 365 customers. As we've seen the Yammer experience extending throughout Office - giving people new ways to collaborate and work together - it's now time to bring the Yammer organization together with our Outlook and Office 365 Shared teams as the next logical step in delivering an integrated set of social, collaboration, and communication experiences that enable companies to work like a network.
We thank David for his commitment to Yammer and Microsoft and wish him the best in his future endeavors.Yammer has grown tremendously since the acquisition in 2012, and is now an integral part of Office 365 and used by more than 500,000 organizations. As part of our long term plan, David has played an instrumental role over the past two years in building a strong leadership team to set a solid direction for Yammer as part of Microsoft Office 365 and our vision for enterprise social."

Yammer Cofounder David Sacks Is Out At Microsoft 

US President Joe <keyword id="60973" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="biden" source="Orion">Biden</keyword> has appointed more than 130 Indian-Americans to key positions in his administration so far, the best representation from the community that makes up around one per cent of the American population. In doing so he has not only fulfilled his promise to the community that he had made as a presidential candidate in 2020, but also shattered the record of his predecessor Donald Trump who had appointed more than 80 Indian-Americans and his previous boss Barack Obama, who had appointed over 60 Indian-Americans to key positions during his eight years of presidency. More than 40 Indian-Americans has been elected at various state and federal levels including four in the US House of Representatives. Not to miss the more than 20 Indian-Americans leading top US companies. While the first-ever presidential appointment was done during the time of Ronald Regan, this time Biden has appointed Indian-Americans to almost all departments and agencies of his administration. "Indian-Americans have been imbued with the sense of seva (service) and this is reflected in their enthusiasm to pursue positions in public service instead of the private sector," Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, philanthropist and venture capitalist M R Rangaswami told PTI. "The Biden administration has now appointed or nominated the largest group to date and needless to say we are proud of our people and their accomplishments for the United States," Rangaswami said. Rangaswami is founder and head of <keyword id="1530020" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="indiaspora" source="Orion">Indiaspora</keyword>, a US-based global organization for Indian-origin leaders. Indiaspora keeps a track of Indian-origin leaders. Biden, who has maintained a close relationship with the community since his Senator days, often jokes around about his Indian relationship. He made history in 2020 by selecting Indian-origin Kamala Harris as his running mate. The list of Indian-Americans in the White House as compiled by Indiaspora reflects that there would be only a few meetings inside the White House or in Biden's Oval Office that would not have an Indian-American presence. His speech writer is <keyword id="600122" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="vinay-reddy" source="Orion">Vinay Reddy</keyword>, while his main advisor on COVID-19 is Dr Ashish Jha, his advisor on climate policy is <keyword id="35801" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="sonia-aggarwal" source="Orion">Sonia Aggarwal</keyword>, special assistant on criminal justice is Chiraag Bains, Kiran Ahuja heads the Office of Personnel Management, Neera Tanden is his senior advisor, and Rahul Gupta is his drug czar. Last week when India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, hosted a reception at India House on the occasion of Independence Day, Indian-Americans from his administration were representing almost all major branches of the US government. <keyword id="14795772" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="young-vedant-patel" source="Orion">Young Vedant Patel</keyword> is now the Deputy Spokesperson at the Department of State, while Garima Verma is the Digital Director in the Office of the First Lady. Biden has also nominated several Indian-Americans to key ambassadorial positions. According to the list prepared by Indiaspora, more than 40 Indian-Americans have been elected to various offices across the country. Four are in the House of Representatives -- Dr Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Pramila Jayapal. This includes four Mayors. Led by Indian-Americans Sunder Pichai of Google and <keyword id="276564" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="satya-nadella" source="Orion">Satya Nadella</keyword> of Microsoft, there are over two dozen Indian-Americans heading US companies. Among others include Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Vivek Lall of General Atomics, Punit Renjen of Deloitte, Raj Subramaniam of FedEx. SEE ALSO : <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/tiruppur-garment-industry-in-crisis-as-a-steep-rise-in-yarn-prices/articleshow/93743444.cms">Tiruppur garment industry in crisis as a steep rise in yarn prices</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/dreamfolks-services-ipo-opens-today-check-out-important-details-related-to-the-ipo/articleshow/93740178.cms">DreamFolks Services IPO opens today — Check out important details related to the IPO</a>

Over 130 Indian-Americans hold key positions in Biden administration, and it's a record

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AppleApple's Johny Srouji is the company's second-best paid executive.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>It's been six months and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/intel">Intel</a> still hasn't found a new CEO.</li><li>Intel has reportedly put <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apple">Apple</a> senior VP of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, on its wish list.</li><li>If Intel could convince Srouji to become its new CEO, it would be a big win for the company.</li><li>But that's a big if.</li></ul>If there's one sure-fire way for Intel to turn the fiasco of its six-month vacant CEO slot into a big win for the company, it's this: lure Apple senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, into becoming the new CEO.Axios's Ina Fried reports <a href="https://www.axios.com/apple-exec-on-intels-ceo-candidate-list-1547565241-0e48d7d0-8ce2-440e-9f13-a9c5788e0b31.html">that Srouji is on Intel's</a> short list for chief executive. This follows <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-14/in-ceo-search-intel-still-hasn-t-found-what-it-s-looking-for?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=sendto_newslettertest&amp;stream=top#_ga=2.198565991.97896580.1547569273-1195244403.1542556418">Bloomberg reporting Monday</a> that several talked-about candidates are no longer in the running, including former Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha and two former Intel executives, Anand Chandrasekher (who is currently a Qualcomm president) and Renee James. As we previously reported, James is now CEO of her own chip company, Ampere. She worked like mad to get her company off the ground and says she's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-intel-exec-renee-james-has-launched-a-new-chip-company-2018-2">incredibly happy working for herself </a>at the moment. Bloomberg reported that some of the candidates turned Intel down.Srouji would be a stroke of genius - and a stroke of luck - for Intel, if they could lure him away from Apple. That's a big if.Read: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-describes-two-new-types-of-business-software-2019-1">Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella describes 2 new kinds of software that will change everything for businesses</a>He leads Apple's in-house chip development, which has caused Apple to withdraw ever more of its business away from Intel. The latest industry scuttlebutt is that Apple is on track to ditch Intel chips <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17191986/apple-intel-cpu-processor-design-competition">for its Mac PCs by 2020.</a> In all fairness, though, similar rumors have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-intel-arm-2011-5">circulated annually for year</a>s about Apple ditching Intel completely.So nabbing Srouji could potentially help Intel shore up its relationship with one of its biggest customers. And even if Apple still left Intel, Srouji may be just the genius Intel needs to help it get through its endless manufacturing issues.Under former CEO Brian Krzanich, Intel suffered through one missed mass-production deadline after another, having difficulty retooling its production lines to crank out its latest, greatest, smallest chips. Apple, on the other hand, under Srouji seems to crank out its own new homegrown chips for its iPhones like clockwork. And Srouji also cut his teeth at Intel, working at its Israel facility from 1990 to 2005, Fried points out.But, if Srouji is Intel's dream hire, he may also be out of Intel's league, even for the CEO job.Apple recently gave Srouji a big raise to keep him sticking around. Srouji joined Apple in 2008, and when he was promoted to senior vice president of hardware technologies in 2015, Apple gave him $10 million of restricted stock that vested over four years. Right before the four years was up and all $10 million was free to land in his pocket, Apple doubled-up on him. Srouji made $24,162,392 in total compensation in 2017, including new stock packages on a vesting schedule. And he became, for the first time, a named officer at Apple, meaning that he's so important and so highly paid that Apple had to disclose his compensation in SEC filings.As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-johny-srouji-second-best-paid-executive-2017-12">we previously reported,</a> that handsome pay package made him the second highest-paid executive at the company after retail chief, Angela Ahrendts. She made a tad more at $24,216,072. CEO Tim Cook, in comparison, earned the least of Apple's executive exec team in 2017, at just under $13 million.So Intel would need to convince Srouji the challenge and prestige of being its next CEO would be worth giving up the challenge and prestige of developing Apple's chips and hardware. And they'd have to pay him handsomely to make the risk worth taking, too.Krzanich resigned from Intel in June after the company learned that he had an affair with an employee. He is now the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-former-intel-boss-brian-krzanich-to-lead-cdk-global-2018-11">CEO of </a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-former-intel-boss-brian-krzanich-to-lead-cdk-global-2018-11">CDK Global,</a> a car dealer software maker in the Chicago area. Intel's acting CEO is CFO Bob Swan, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intel-temporary-ceo-bob-swan-tells-employees-hes-not-pursing-job-report-2018-6">who says he does not want </a>the CEO role permanently.Get the latest Intel stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/intc-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ces-tech-product-launch-events-trade-show-2018-12">Apple forever changed the biggest tech event of the year by not showing up</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Apple's $24 million chip executive is reportedly on Intel's short list for new CEO, but it's not clear if he'd be willing to make that jump

Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive VP of Windows and a long-time leader at the company, will be leaving the company. The news comes as part of a big reshuffling of the company's executive leadership, announced on Thursday.Below, find the full email that CEO Satya Nadella send Microsoft employees on the changes.This story is developing...<h2>Satya Nadella's full email announcing the change:</h2>Team,Today, I'm announcing the formation of two new engineering teams to accelerate our innovation and better serve the needs of our customers and partners long into the future.Over the past year, we have shared our vision for how the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge will shape the next phase of innovation. First, computing is more powerful and ubiquitous from the cloud to the edge. Second, AI capabilities are rapidly advancing across perception and cognition fueled by data and knowledge of the world. Third, physical and virtual worlds are coming together to create richer experiences that understand the context surrounding people, the things they use, the places they go, and their activities and relationships.These technological changes represent a tremendous opportunity for our customers, our partners - everyone. With all this new technology and opportunity comes a responsibility to ensure technology's benefits reach people more broadly across society. It also requires that the technologies we create are trusted by the individuals and organizations that use them.Today's announcement enables us to step up to this opportunity and responsibility across all our Solution Areas.With change comes transition, and one transition we have been planning for is for Terry Myerson to pursue his next chapter outside Microsoft. Terry has been instrumental in helping me arrive at this new organizational structure, and I deeply appreciate his leadership and insight as we've worked through the opportunity that lies ahead. Over the past several years, Terry and the WDG team transformed Windows to create a secure, always up-to-date, modern OS. His strong contributions to Microsoft over 21 years from leading Exchange to leading Windows 10 leave a real legacy. I want to thank Terry for his leadership on my team and across Microsoft. He will work with me on the transition over the coming months.Moving forward, Rajesh Jha will expand his existing responsibilities to lead a new team focused on Experiences &amp; Devices. The purpose of this team is to instill a unifying product ethos across our end-user experiences and devices. Computing experiences are evolving to include multiple senses and are no longer bound to one device at a time but increasingly spanning many as we move from home to work and on the go. These modern needs, habits and expectations of our customers are motivating us to bring Windows, Office, and third-party applications and devices into a more cohesive Microsoft 365 experience. To further this vision, we are making the following leadership changes: <ul style="font-weight: 400;"><li>Devices: Panos Panay will now serve as our Chief Product Officer and will lead our devices vision and further our product ethos across hardware and software boundaries for our first-party devices, while creating new categories and opportunities for the entire ecosystem. He will be the key leader ensuring end-to-end devices business execution excellence.</li><li>Windows: Joe Belfiore will continue leading our Windows experiences and will drive Windows innovation in partnership with the PC and device ecosystem. The future of Windows is bright as we continue to innovate across new scenarios and device form factors, and more deeply connect to our Microsoft 365 offerings. Joe will share more about the Windows roadmap at Build.</li><li>New Experiences and Technology: Kudo Tsunoda will continue to lead this team to define how we engage users with high-value experiences to help them achieve more.</li><li><keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="enterprise">Enterprise</keyword> Mobility and Management: Brad Anderson will continue to lead our Windows Enterprise deployment and management efforts with even tighter alignment across Microsoft 365 and will partner closely with the EMS teams within Cloud + AI Platform.</li></ul> Second, Scott Guthrie will expand his existing responsibilities to lead a new team focused on Cloud + AI Platform. The purpose of this team is to drive platform coherence and compelling value across all layers of the tech stack starting with the distributed computing fabric (cloud and edge) to AI (infrastructure, runtimes, frameworks, tools and higher-level services around perception, knowledge and cognition). To facilitate these new capabilities, we are making the following leadership changes: <ul style="font-weight: 400;"><li>Azure: Jason Zander is being promoted to executive vice president, Azure, and will lead this team. The Windows platform team led by Harv Bhela, Henry Sanders and Michael Fortin will join Jason's team. Windows platform is already a core part of Azure across both the cloud and edge, and this shift will enable us to accelerate our efforts to build a unified distributed computing infrastructure and application model. Roanne Sones will continue to lead our technical engagement with OEMs, ODMs and silicon vendors, and her team will also join Jason's team.</li><li>Business AI: The Customer Service, Marketing and Sales Insights teams, previously led by Gurdeep Singh Pall, will join James Phillips' Business Applications Group. I am thankful for Gurdeep's leadership in building these new AI solutions that are going to help differentiate Microsoft in this area. This is a notable example of taking research breakthroughs to start new product efforts grounded in customer needs and then mainstreaming them.</li><li>Universal Store and Commerce Platform: Eric Lockard and his team will also join the Cloud + AI Platform team to both help with our own digital transformation and add new capabilities to our business application efforts.</li><li>AI Perception &amp; Mixed Reality (MR): Alex Kipman will lead this new team, which brings together all our speech, vision, MR and additional perception capabilities into one team. This team will continue to build first-party products and the core building block cloud services for third parties on Azure. XD Huang, Yu-Ting Kuo and their teams will join this group, as well as Gurdeep's Ambient Intelligence team. Alex and team will take guidance on all AI-related areas from Harry Shum and work very closely with AI + Research (AI+R).</li><li>AI Cognitive Services &amp; Platform: Eric Boyd will lead this new team and drive our AI Platform, AI Fundamentals, Azure ML, AI Tools and Cognitive Services. Joseph Sirosh and team will join this new group. Eric and team will take guidance on all AI-related areas from Harry Shum and work very closely with AI+R.</li></ul> Harry Shum will continue to lead our third engineering team, AI + Research, which is instrumental in the key technology advances required across all our product teams. When we established AI+R nearly two years ago, our primary goal was to accelerate the adoption of AI innovations from research into product, and the changes we are making today reflect our strong progress. In fact, just yesterday I spent time at TechFest and came away inspired by all the innovations and most importantly how quickly they were making their way into our products. We will continue to drive investments in AI+R across research and AI breakthroughs that are key to our long-term success. As we make technological progress we need to ensure that we are doing so responsibly. To this end, Harry and Brad Smith have established Microsoft's AI and Ethics in Engineering and Research (AETHER) Committee, bringing together senior leaders from across the company to focus on proactive formulation of internal policies and how to respond to specific issues in a responsible way. AETHER will ensure our AI platform and experience efforts are deeply grounded within Microsoft's core values and principles and benefit the broader society. Among other steps, we are investing in strategies and tools for detecting and addressing bias in AI systems and implementing new requirements established by the GDPR. While there is great opportunity, ensuring we always act responsibly for our customers and partners will continue to be a hallmark of our work. To truly get the best impact from our efforts, we will have to push ourselves to transcend <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%2527s_law&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1522420946146000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFLcXS2_hB6P1ejfflTGNRPmUsjEA">Conway's law</a>. Having a deep sense of customers' unmet and unarticulated needs must drive our innovation. We can't let any organizational boundaries get in the way of innovation for our customers. This is why a growth mindset culture matters. Each one of us needs to push on what technology can do for people and for our world. It will take courage to keep learning and growing together - encouraging one another's individual strengths, building more diversity and inclusion across our teams, and collaborating as One Microsoft. It's amazing what we have been able to accomplish together, and yet I still believe we are in the very early days of what is possible. We'll talk more about these changes at the Q&amp;A next week and the important work ahead. Satya Get the latest Microsoft stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/MSFT-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-tracks-people-not-on-site-ads-privacy-2016-6">Facebook can still track you even if you delete your account - here's how to stop it</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Microsoft's longtime Windows boss is leaving the company amid a huge executive reorganization

Viva Engage, Microsoft's slick message board designed to compete with Slack, is often touted as "Facebook for work." Microsoft says the tool "strengthens relationships" among remote and hybrid employees and "creates a sense of belonging and purpose." But since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Business Insider has learned, the Viva Engage platform that Microsoft maintains for its own employees has come to resemble Facebook without work: a site of roiling hostility and personal attacks.In October, according to internal messages viewed by BI, a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-employees-fume-promise-hire-openai-2023-11">Microsoft</a> employee shared a post praising child tax credits as a way to reduce poverty. The post made no mention of the war. But the person was using the Palestinian flag as his avatar — and that was enough to provoke an irate response."Have you noticed," another employee commented, "that your profile pic is similar to the flag used by a terrorist group that has just tortured and beheaded hundreds of children and civilians?"In a separate post, when another employee expressed concerns for civilians in Gaza, a colleague responded, "You are basically supporting the rape, killing, and kidnapping of women, kids, and grandparents.""Celebrating or supporting this 'nation' is no different than celebrating or supporting the mass shootings in Uvalde or Sandy Hook," another coworker chimed in.Employees with pro-Palestinian views have also used inflammatory language in their posts on Viva Engage. One decried Israel's actions in Gaza as "ethnic cleansing." Another accused a coworker who supported Israel of "allowing a genocide on Gaza."Microsoft, like many companies, has increasingly taken a stand on social and political issues. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020, the company pledged to double the number of Black employees in senior roles by 2025. "We are committed to take action to help address racial injustice and inequity, and unequivocally believe that Black lives matter," CEO <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-silicon-valley-openai-sam-altman-2023-11">Satya Nadella</a> wrote at the time. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Kathleen Hogan, the company's chief people officer, sent a companywide email, viewed by BI, calling it "a very difficult day for many of us, including me." After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the company issued several statements of support for Israel, offered to match employee donations to Israeli organizations, including the nonprofit Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and granted Microsoft's 3,000 Israeli employees a $3,000 stipend for "unexpected expenses because of the situation." But the debate raging on Microsoft's internal message board is testing that new openness to mixing business and politics — just as it has at elite institutions from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackman-harvard-letter-students-hamas-israel-wall-street-2023-10">Harvard</a> and Columbia to Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Internal Microsoft posts and emails reviewed by BI offer a window into the anger and vitriol that workplaces across America grapple with as the war escalates. What was once the province of the watercooler has migrated to company-sponsored forums such as Slack and Viva Engage, forcing employers to decide where to draw the line on discussing politics at work. Microsoft has actively attempted to regulate the internal debate over the war. It has advised managers to "avoid providing additional commentary on the war" beyond the company's official statements. It has cut off the comments to Viva Engage posts it considered too incendiary. And in at least one instance, a manager has reprimanded an employee for a post deemed inappropriate. But internally, Microsoft's moves have only served to further inflame tensions. Some employees accuse the company of moderating posts that expressed concern for Palestinians, while its executives have openly expressed support for Israel. "What I found particularly troubling is the double standard," said the reprimanded employee, who was ordered to stop posting political messages on Viva Engage after they shared news reports about civilian casualties in Gaza. "Because our leaders do talk about politics at work very regularly — as I believe they should. This is the most taboo topic I've ever seen."Other employees echoed that concern. "What is very disappointing about Microsoft," one said, "is we chose this company because of its values and mission statement to 'empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.' Our mission statement says 'every person,' but it feels like Palestinian employees don't exist."Microsoft insists that its role in the debate has been even-handed. "We have been explicit that our priority lies with our employees," the company said in a statement. "We are not taking a 'side.'" But some employees who support Israel seem to believe the company shares their views on the war — and feel emboldened to express hostility to coworkers they deem insufficiently pro-Israel, without fear of reprisal."Hopefully you know that the entire company is reading your comments," one employee posted in response to a discussion about ways to provide support to Palestinian civilians affected by the war."And hopefully those employees will find themselves out of this company," another employee added.Complicating Microsoft's role in the debate is the company's financial stake in Israel, where it has maintained offices since 1989. In 1991, the company opened its first research-and-development center outside the US in Haifa — "one of the first major tech companies to do so in Israel," Microsoft touts. Today, it has campuses in Herzliya, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Nazareth. In 2021, the company announced it would invest up to $1.5 billion to build a data center in Israel and expand its R&amp;D for chips. Israel, Nadella told Prime Minister <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netanyahu-cares-about-his-survival-more-than-gaza-idf-general-2023-11">Benjamin Netanyahu</a> at the time, "is a very important development center for Microsoft."Like many companies, Microsoft and its executives were quick to express its support for Israel after Hamas unleashed its assault on October 7 and took some 240 hostages. "Our hearts are with all of you as we witness the devastating attack on your country," Charlie Bell, the executive vice president of Microsoft security, emailed the company's Israeli employees on the day of the attack. "Your safety is the most important thing to all of us." "We stand with Israel," Scott Guthrie, the executive vice president of Microsoft cloud, wrote in an internal email to the cloud and artificial-intelligence team on October 9. "My thoughts are with our Israeli and Jewish colleagues and everyone impacted by these events, along with their friends and family around the world," Rajesh Jha, the leader of the experiences and devices team, wrote on Viva Engage on October 10. Jha's post sparked an immediate response on the message board. "Can we also offer thoughts, prayers and blessings to any and all of our Palestinian colleagues who may be afraid for their families and friends and in fear for themselves?" one employee wrote. "This conflict has two sides of humans who are impacted by the violence of politics."The response, in turn, infuriated another employee. "It's saddening to see terror supporters among my colleagues," they wrote. "Whoever suggests this massacre is part of some freedom fighting has lost all humanity."As Israel launched a counteroffensive on Gaza, fierce arguments began to erupt on Viva Engage. "Rest assured the IDF is doing all it can to avoid civilian casualties," one employee posted, "but the people of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/gaza">Gaza</a> elected Hamas, supported them and brought this on themselves.""How can you put innocent civilians in the same category as terrorist organizations?" another employee responded. "Killing innocent civilians from either side is never right, and feeling bad for everyone involved is just basic human decency.""I'm not and we are fighting to liberate Israelis and the people of Gaza from these terrorists," the original poster wrote. "Trying to create a symmetry or depict it as a conflict with 2 legitimate sides is either ignorant or immoral."In another post, one employee shared a message of concern for Microsoft employees who "have friends and family in Palestine," saying: "Those people are currently being wiped and having their livelihoods destroyed. They are forbidden from food, water, electricity, and basic medical supplies. They are not terrorists nor do they have an agenda against Israelis. Please stand on the same distance between both parties. That's the least you could do.""We're talking about terrorism here," another employee responded. "There's no justification for that."Another employee further fanned the flames: "We are not able to contain the evil inflicted on us on Saturday morning. That requires us to change the rules of the game. The Hamas infra in Gaza will be exterminated. The price on human life will be high since the cowards are hiding behind civilians.… This is a survival war for Israel. I can assure you we will win this one."As the infighting escalated, employees pressed the company to moderate the war of words. "Microsoft Leadership needs to get a very strong grip on the messaging around this," one employee posted. "They risk causing significant distress to many Palestinian, Arab, and Jewish employees when statements are crafted hastily and comment sections are left unmoderated.""Palestinian people like me received zero support from our leadership," another employee wrote. "They were very clearly biased and our colleagues in Israel acted racist and rude and didn't acknowledge or respect our pain. Let us all align and respect 'One Microsoft' to support one another. In such painful times there is opportunity to acknowledge some wrong behaviors that don't align with Microsoft values and culture."Another employee disagreed. "People that encourage terror acts and war crimes should get zero support," they posted. "Israel has the right to defend itself. The only bias I see here is yours, where you don't see Hamas responsible for what is happening right now in the Gaza strip."But when the company did step into the debate, it closed to comments many posts that expressed support for the people of Palestine and Gaza. In mid-October, one <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-shut-down-employee-chat-israel-hamas-war-2023-10">employee posted</a> that they felt a "strong sense of disillusionment with our work and the company" over what they viewed as "one-sided statements" by Microsoft's senior leaders. "It saddens me to witness a company that so strongly promotes Diversity and Inclusion show such strong discrimination and marginalization," the employee wrote. "It appears to me that the company is oblivious to the overwhelming and disproportionate suffering of the Palestinian people." Microsoft closed the post to comments after 600 reactions and 60 comments. The company also closed several other posts to comments. One read, simply: "We demand a #CeasefireNow Microsoft!!" Another was addressed to the "over 10,000 men, women, and children in Gaza who have been needlessly killed." Another said, "It feels very hard to witness what can only be described as ethnic cleansing, which is not only backed up by most of the Western media but also ignored by the senior leadership of the company I work for every day." Each of the closed posts was appended with the same note from the community manager, which reminded employees to "practice compassion and kindness to each other."Microsoft, for its part, insists that inflammatory comments about the war represent what Letty Cherry, a company spokesperson, called "a very small portion of the conversation" on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-microsoft-employee-engagement-revenue-growth-2023-8">Viva Engage</a>. "Since these events first unfolded," Cherry said in a statement, "we have continued to reiterate through our messaging, actions and philanthropic efforts that our focus is on the safety of our employees — that includes our nearly 3,000 employees directly impacted in Israel as well as our Palestinian, Jewish, and Muslim employees around the globe. We have a process in place to moderate employee comments as well as take action on behavior that goes against our company policy or values."Other organizations have also found themselves struggling to navigate the debate raging over the war in Gaza. Harvard and other elite universities have faced public backlash from major donors enraged by student statements they view as anti-Israel. Davis Polk &amp; Wardwell, one of the world's largest law firms, has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/3-harvard-columbia-law-students-lost-job-offers-israel-statements-2023-10">rescinded job offers</a> to students from Ivy League schools who criticized Israel's role in the conflict. Google, The New York Times reported, "has sunk into a morass of hostility and intolerance" for both Muslim and Jewish employees. And Apple, BI has learned, has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-paused-jewish-and-muslim-employee-message-boards-messages-show-2023-11#:~:text=Apple%20paused%20dedicated%20internal%20Slack,Microsoft%20also%20did%20so%20recently.">indefinitely suspended</a> its Slack channels for Jewish and Muslim employees. (The company has 2,000 employees in Israel, where it maintains an R&amp;D center north of Tel Aviv.) "We're taking this action," an Apple employee responsible for the Muslim Slack channel said, "to ensure a respectful environment for our communities during a painful and tragic time." At Microsoft, the attempt to moderate the internal debate finally made it all the way to the top. On November 8, after more than 1,000 employees signed a letter on Viva Engage urging the company to support a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hamas-releases-17-hostages-israel-cease-fire-agreement-2023-11">ceasefire</a>, Nadella posted a message of his own. In it, the CEO made a point of expressing concern for both Israeli and Palestinian employees."It's important to recognize the pain and suffering of so many people, including our colleagues, as the events in Israel, Gaza, and the surrounding region continue to unfold," Nadella wrote. "I am extending my deepest sympathy and support to our Israeli and Palestinian employees globally who are consumed with grief and concern for their loved ones, as well as our Jewish and Muslim colleagues who are facing a terrifying increase in antisemitism and Islamophobia."Nadella also urged employees to moderate the tone of their messages. "There is absolutely no place in our company for hate and intolerance of any kind," he wrote. "We must continue to commit ourselves to inclusion and acceptance, and stand together against hate and intolerance wherever we see it."Nadella's message did not allow comments.Nor did it stem the barrage of rancor among employees. On November 16, barely a week after Nadella issued his plea for civility and respect, Microsoft blocked employees from posting in the "All Company" channel on Viva Engage, which circulates messages to all 220,000 employees. To maintain order, Microsoft had effectively been forced to shut down a key function of one of its most touted products. The company, which said the change had been "in development for some time," told employees it was limiting the channel to "announcements and information that everyone should know." In the midst of a divisive war, it would seem, the last thing a workplace needs is a "Facebook for work."<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ashley-stewart">Ashley Stewart</a> is a chief technology correspondent at Business Insider. She reports on enterprise technology companies including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services from Seattle.

You Searched For "satya jha" and got 12 results

Microsoft's reshuffle continues as Bing chief plans to exit the role. It comes days after Satya Nadella poached Mustafa Suleyman.

Jyoti Mann

Back to office led to decline in women in senior mgmt roles: Grant Thornton

PTI

One of Microsoft's fastest-rising stars is leaving the company

Matt Weinberger

It looks like Microsoft's ex-Bing boss just threw shade at Mustafa Suleyman

Jyoti Mann

Read the memo Satya Nadella sent to employees announcing Google DeepMind cofounder's move to Microsoft

Jyoti Mann

A cyclone in India's western states has complicated efforts to slow down the COVID-19 spread as cases surpass 25 million

Sarah Al-Arshani

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's master plan is clearly working, and the company is soaring towards $1 trillion

Julie Bort

Yammer Cofounder David Sacks Is Out At Microsoft

Julie Bort

Over 130 Indian-Americans hold key positions in Biden administration, and it's a record

PTI

Apple's $24 million chip executive is reportedly on Intel's short list for new CEO, but it's not clear if he'd be willing to make that jump

Julie Bort

Microsoft's longtime Windows boss is leaving the company amid a huge executive reorganization

Matt Weinberger

'The most taboo topic I've ever seen': Inside Microsoft's war over the war in Gaza

Ashley Stewart

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides