Thanks to an explosive new report from Insider (formerly Business Insider), Microsoft is in the spotlight. In the article, current and former Microsoft executives are accused of misconduct, adding “verbal abuse and sexual harassment. “And while CEO Satya Nadella, who himself made a very public mistake about women’s pay a few years ago, has made improvements, the article claims that there are still “golden guys” who escape any serious repercussions of their behavior.
According to Insider’s report, which is a paywall, Alex Kipman, who invented Microsoft’s real HoloLens combo headphones and is lately overseeing the company’s metaverse efforts, bears the brunt of the criticism. Headphones that were also reflected on a nearby monitor, where everyone in the room could see what I was looking for. The content was not very safe for work, and this made many of the women in the room “feel very uncomfortable. “
According to the Insider report: “In the video that filled the screen, several young women dressed in tight clothes frolicked on a bed; a blatantly sexualized pillow war ensued. One worker who was present, speaking to Insider later, described the scene as “VR Porn. “The assembled staff members exchanged glances, and two of them came out.
Kipman then accused of fostering “a culture that diminishes women’s contributions. “
In some other case, Kipman rubbed a worker’s shoulders when she looked “deeply uncomfortable” and did not rule out even after the worker “shrugged, seeking arrest. “
Perhaps even more overwhelming, the managers went out of their way not to leave the women near Kipman. There’s even an allegation that Kipman will have to have HR “escorts” in meetings (Microsoft has denied the practice). And last year, more than 25 workers contributed to a report on Kipman’s misplaced behavior, no action was taken.
In fact, a blessing disguised as the pandemic, as it meant no one had to paint with Kipman in person, according to a former executive who painted with him.
The internal report lashes out at the former executives, adding Terry Myerson, who oversaw Windows, and Tom Keane, vice president of the company’s Azure cloud computing business.
Myerson’s case is the ultimate appeal because he (and suddenly) made the decision to leave Microsoft in 2018. There has never been a formal explanation of the reasons for its departure, and rumors have circulated about Windows Phone crashes, problems with Windows 10 and other unconfirmed causes.
However, Insider claims that Myerson had a “collapse” of scenes from a Microsoft event a while before he left, where he publicly criticized “everyone” in a screaming attack. It was such a challenge that it would have caught Nadella’s attention, and 3 other people familiar with the challenge claim that his habit played a vital role in his departure.
Keane is also accused of similar actions, adding that he made a staff member cry in the middle of a public meeting. Other workers noticed that Keane ran things like a dictator, so staff members called him “King Tom” for his demands for obedience. .
In January of this year, after an inexplicable 30-day hiatus, Keane was reassigned to Microsoft, still supervising many employees.
It shouldn’t be too unexpected that a company the size of Microsoft takes years to fix those problems, but it can be a bit shocking that things are still so bad for many employees.
As Nadella speaks, there is still a lot to be done, especially around the “talented morons” who are still running there. Even in that 2014 public blunder about discussions about women and raises, Maria Klawe, who is a board member, asked to resign from following the incident (she did so later the following year).
But if there’s anything to be taken from Insider’s ongoing reporting, Alex Kipman’s time at the company could be short-lived, and if not, it would be. This is rarely the first damaging report on him, as Insider also recently exposed his leadership at HoloLens, with the department called the “shit show. “
Daniel Rubino is editor-in-chief, editor-in-chief, podcast co-host, and Analyst at Windows Central. He’s been covering Microsoft here since 2007, when that site was called WMExperts (and then Windows Phone Central). His interests come with Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-generation computing, and talking to other people on the Internet.
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