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[Business Insider] Microsoft Still Hasn't Cleaned Up Its Toxic Culture Issues, Employees Worried About Activision Blizzard Acquisition

Nightengale

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Surprised there wasn't a thread on this: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-executive-misconduct-allegations-nadella-culture-2022-5

The headline of the full piece is pretty good and goes:

'THEY ARE UNTOUCHABLE': MICROSOFT EMPLOYEES SAY 'GOLDEN BOY' EXECUTIVES ARE STILL RUNNING WILD, 8 YEARS AFTER THE COMPANY VOWED TO CLEAN UP ITS TOXIC CULTURE.



Alex Kipman, head of mixed-reality, one of MS's most powerful executives and one of the 'golden boys' watching VR porn in office in front of women with no repercussion.
The Microsoft executive walked into the small, windowless room in Studio C at about 8 o'clock that evening. A half dozen staffers on the company's "mixed reality" team were working late, tinkering with prototypes of virtual-reality headsets. When the boss arrived, an employee murmured, "I've got the thing working."

The executive slipped on a pair of VR goggles and hit play. As the executive gazed into the VR headset, a nearby monitor — which mirrored everything on the headset's display — flickered to life. Everyone in the room could see what the boss had chosen for his virtual-reality experience.

In the video that filled the screen, several young women in skimpy clothing frolicked on a bed; an overtly sexualized pillow fight ensued. An employee who was present, speaking with Insider later, described the scene as "VR porn." The assembled staffers exchanged confused glances, and a couple of them walked out.

"It was in the office, in front of women," the person recalled. "Incredibly uncomfortable."

Perhaps most stunning, the executive wearing the headset was not some low-level manager gone rogue. He was Alex Kipman, one of Microsoft's most powerful executives and the leader of its mixed-reality business. With his shoulder-length hair, leather jacket, and fluctuating degrees of stubble, Kipman looks as much like the frontman of a rock band as he does a tech executive.
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Nadella's near-unlimited tolerance for 'talented jerks' and dislike of making hard decisions to resolve conflict regarding toxic behaviour
Yet interviews with dozens of current and former employees suggest theincident involving Kipman is part of a widespread pattern of executive misconduct — including verbal abuse and sexual harassment — that continues to persist at Microsoft. (The sources requested anonymity out of fear of retribution, but their identities are known to
Insider.) Despite Nadella's public stance against those he has called "talented jerks," many inside the company say Microsoft retains a nearly unlimited tolerance for bad behavior by its top rainmakers and developers. Late last year, a group of employees contributed to a report detailing a litany of complaints against Kipman, according to two people familiar with the matter. Yet the dozens of allegations of misconduct resulted in no apparent consequences for Kipman, one of the people said.

A former executive who brought similar concerns to Nadella characterized his approach as: _What's something we can do to make it go away without making hard decisions? _"He doesn't like conflict," the person said. Misconduct is "not something he wants to hear about," said another executive who worked directly with Nadella. "If he does, he wants someone else to go fix it."
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Employee outrage over Activision-Blizzard acquisition as MS themselves stayed silent on call to action to address internal sexual harassment and gender discrimination issues
Now, Nadella's carefully crafted narrative about a kinder, gentler Microsoft is in danger of unraveling. In November, shareholders pressured the company to stop concealing workplace misconduct, voting overwhelmingly to require the tech titan to report on the effectiveness of sexual-harassment policies and the results of investigations into executives. "The gilding on the reputation of the culture change has worn off," a woman who works directly with Nadella told Insider. "It's actually quite tarnished."

And in January, Microsoft sparked outrage among some employees when it announced it was acquiring Activision Blizzard, the scandal-ridden game developer being sued by the state of California over what the lawsuit describes as a "pervasive 'frat boy' workplace culture" that subjects female employees to sexual harassment and discrimination. In response to the announcement, one Microsoft employee called out Nadella on an internal message board for his "continuous silence" in the face of a years long effort by female employees to address sexual
harassment and gender discrimination.

"We can't even take care of our own house," one Microsoft employee told Insider. "And now we just bought one in worse condition."
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Fear that Activision's Blizzard's (even worse) toxic culture will fester and spread into Microsoft, whose toxic culture remains constant & pervasive
But some feel that Nadella hasn't gone far enough to address internal concerns over the way Activision Blizzard's culture might reflect on Microsoft. "I'm really disappointed that we didn't hear from Satya what his plans are to make sure that the awful culture that has taken root in Activision Blizzard won't fester and spread within Microsoft," one employee wrote in an internal message-board comment viewed by Insider shortly after the deal was announced. "I personally would never entertain the idea of working for/with Blizzard or Activision for my own safety and welfare as a female engineer. I hope we hear concrete steps to make sure we aren't introducing a dangerous and unwelcome culture."

Microsoft initially said the longtime Activision boss Bobby Kotick would continue to serve as CEO. Kotick has come under scrutiny after he reportedly failed to report to the board that employees had been accused of sexual assault, including rape. But a recent Activision Blizzard filing revealed that Kotick's employment at the company, after the acquisition, hadn't been finalized.

Some at Microsoft are skeptical that removing Kotick would make much of a difference. One former executive said Microsoft liked to excuse its cultural issues by "blaming the boogeyman" — pinning responsibility for misconduct on past CEOs like Gates and Ballmer. But over the years, not much has changed. "A talented jerk always adapts," another executive said. "A new CEO shows up and they just learn to play the same game in a different way."

Company insiders say a culture of executive misconduct has remained constant and pervasive at Microsoft, from Gates to the present day. "From experience, I know that toxic culture at Microsoft doesn't just disappear when a toxic person disappears," one employee said. "Toxic culture spreads. It's like cancer. Just because you cut it out doesn't mean it won't grow back."
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Honestly, this is a really good piece that's worth a read. Too bad it's behind a paywall.
 

Deleted member 93062

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Fuck Microsoft then, clean it up

Lmao, Alex has Bored Ape pfp.
hnJ36ma.png

 
Jade1962

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Unfortunately this seems to be all too typical for large corporations. I'm not surprised this wasn't posted though.
 
shadowsdarknes

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I think the prevailing sentiment was that MS was going to step in and clean things up.

In reality they'll probably just do more effective HR and Legal which really can just sweep this stuff under the rug.
 
Daebo

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In the article, were there any particular person mentioned in the Xbox division?

Also I'm old and dumb, what is bored ape?
 
vixolus

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Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
 
Neoxon

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Yikes, this doesn't give me hope for ActiBlizz getting cleaned up.

Fuck Microsoft, fix your shit internally.
 
CarterTax

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It's really not surprising at all that there wasn't a thread on this
 

thevid

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I don't know why anyone gives these corporations the benefit of the doubt.
 
tiebreaker

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I'm of the opinion that these huge companies all have their own dirt. Some are just better at covering them then the other.
 
SolidSnakeUS

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vixolus said:
Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
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Who knows, he could be in the know about these people as well and have yet to do anything? And if anything, it's the pot calling the kettle black (he's MS and doing thing to ABK).
 
Liquid

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vixolus said:
Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
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And what makes you think Spencer will not act as Nadella considering we have reports already of how hands-off they are with studios?
 
Bishop89

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A lot of focus has been on sonys PR blunders that people have forgotten about this.

Dare I say most large corps are like this
 
Diarrhea Day-Lewis

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Isnt the idea that the AB harassment issues will not improve or get worse under MS one of the main reasons Bernie and others wrote that letter to the FTC about the impact of the merger on workers?

I imagine there's no chance that affects the deal at all tho? All the console makers and big tech have huge issues with this. I wish we could hold them all more accountable
 
shadowsdarknes

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vixolus said:
Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
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Spencer likely has the ability to fire and replace people at Activision as he sees fit.

But I imagine HR complaints and issues are still handled by the broader Microsoft organization.
 
Big Boy

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vixolus said:
Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
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Not sure why you would be optimistic that someone who's been at MS for even longer than Nadella would automatically be the fix.
 

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bonesawisready5 said:
Isnt the idea that the AB harassment issues will not improve or get worse under MS one of the main reasons Bernie and others wrote that letter to the FTC about the impact of the merger on workers?

I imagine there's no chance that affects the deal at all tho? All the console makers and big tech have huge issues with this. I wish we could hold them all more accountable
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I'm not sure if the FTC has ever blocked a deal because of employee reasons tbh
 
RoKKeR

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Interesting article and extremely disappointing, particularly in the sense that they had seemingly created an effective image of the culture under Nadella. Clearly there's more going on there and we can only hope more attention/focus/pressure on leadership prompts change.
 
FEVER333

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All major corporations are bad and usually house a number of bad people in positions of power at the top. It's gross, but I'd be more surprised if a huge corporation like Microsoft (or Apple, Sony, Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc.) didn't make headlines for such vile behaviour. They're all shit.
 
Helix

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LMAO

I'm not even surprised. Every single big corp has some dirt on their hands and all will slowly come to light, it's just that this is particularly bad when they are currently attempting to buy and in the future fix ActiBlizz.
 
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Transistor

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Honestly, the fact that many of these large corporates are shitty toxic environments isn't surprising one bit, sadly.
 
Kyrios

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I remember reading an account from a woman who used to work at MS a few years ago saying she can't walk past the Microsoft building to her new job without having a panic attack.

I really don't think they are going to do much cleaning up in Activision as much as some people here expect.
 
elenarie

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There are many, many dinosaurs still at Microsoft that are from the Gates' era of egoistic bullshit mentality.
This is changing as new generations of employees are coming into the company, but the core will not be rooted out for a much longer time.

Microsoft's old guard was built upon a culture of internal competitions and brutal competitiveness.
 
00Quan[T]

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FEVER333 said:
All major corporations are bad and usually house a number of bad people in positions of power at the top. It's gross, but I'd be more surprised if a huge corporation like Microsoft (or Apple, Sony, Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc.) didn't make headlines for such vile behaviour. They're all shit.
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This really.
No one is safe and it's even worse in other industries.
 
vixolus

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SolidSnakeUS said:
Who knows, he could be in the know about these people as well and have yet to do anything? And if anything, it's the pot calling the kettle black (he's MS and doing thing to ABK).
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I don't know. The article is about Kipman, head of Mixed Reality and such. Completely different department. His last stint in Xbox was in 2014 for Kinect.

Liquid said:
And what makes you think Spencer will not act as Nadella considering we have reports already of how hands-off they are with studios?
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That's not really relevant? That's conflating creative hands-off with HR. Even from the Undead Labs Kotaku article what was described was when Microsoft HR was informed about the problems they pretty quickly stepped in to try and settle/resolve things. It was the studio HR head that was problematic by brushing things under the rug and she's gone. It doesn't make logical sense anyway. "Hands on" companies like Sony have just as bad problems, so there's no correlation.

shadowsdarknes said:
Spencer likely has the ability to fire and replace people at Activision as he sees fit.

But I imagine HR complaints and issues are still handled by the broader Microsoft organization.
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It would seem that way, yes, but he would still have the ability to fire someone just like how Nadella is being asked to fire top executives like Kipman here.

Chocolate & Vanilla said:
Not sure why you would be optimistic that someone who's been at MS for even longer than Nadella would automatically be the fix.
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Because of his newly minted role as CEO? This is within his domain. Tenure doesn't equate to being a shithead. I'm optimistic, not blindly believing everything will magically be solved.
 
christocolus

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elenarie said:
There are many, many dinosaurs still at Microsoft that are from the Gates' era of egoistic bullshit mentality.
This is changing as new generations of employees are coming into the company, but the core will not be rooted out for a much longer time.

Microsoft's old guard was built upon a culture of internal competitions and brutal competitiveness.
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very true.

fiendcode said:
So what is the culture like within Xbox specifically?
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I would like to know this too.
 
Anya7890

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vixolus said:
Not a good look for Nadella. Kipman seems like a pos that needs to go.

I'm optimistic that Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming means he will have full ability to make decisions regarding ABK and not have to resort to Nadella if Nadella is too spineless to do it himself.
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well, usually birds of a feather flock together. No ceo of any big corporations is cleaned, they wouldn't be ceo if they where.
 
00Quan[T]

00Quan[T]

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I guess this doesn't really affect Xbox directly, since Phil is the new CEO of gaming he has better control over the division.
The rest of MS is another matter though...
 
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