 "Satya Nadella says he’s ‘haunted' by AI threat after staff asks why Microsoft feels ‘colder, more rigid’")
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has expressed concern that the tech giant might not be able to survive the era of artificial intelligence, saying that he is “haunted” by such a possibility.
Addressing an internal town hall meeting, Nadella exposed his personal fears about Microsoft’s future as he responded to a question on the company’s changing culture. According to a report by The Verge, Nadella said, “Some of the biggest businesses we’ve built might not be as relevant going forward.”
He used Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) as a cautionary example of a once-dominant tech company that vanished due to its inability to embrace new technologies, such as the Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture.
“Our industry is full of case studies of companies that were great once, that just disappeared. I’m haunted by one particular one called DEC,” he said, recalling how the company became irrelevant in the face of competition from IBM and others.
He was responding to a question posed by a UK-based employee who described the company’s atmosphere as “markedly different, colder, more rigid, and lacking in the empathy we have come to value.”
The Microsoft CEO recently told employees that the company must “do better” in restoring trust with its workforce, acknowledging a perceived lack of empathy within its culture.
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More ShortsMicrosoft makes flurry of policy changes
In an attempt to cut down the competition amid threats from tech giants like OpenAI, Alphabet and Meta, undermine its authority, Microsoft has been updating its company policies.
The company has told its employees to return office for at least three days a week or risk promotions, essentially ending the flexible remote work policy. The tech giant is shifting away from its pandemic-era practice, with implementations set to begin in February 2026.
Microsoft has been cracking down on poor performance by laying off hundreds of employees deemed underperformers.
Amid this, the new policy suggests that ignoring the new work-from-office mandate would affect their career growth during evaluations.
Microsoft layoffs
Earlier this year, in February, Microsoft announced plans to cut its workforce by 3 per cent, affecting about 6,000 employees in a layoff drive that will be imposed across all teams and levels.
In a statement to CNBC, Microsoft said, “We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.”
The layoffs took place despite Microsoft reporting better-than-expected quarterly net income of $25.8 billion.
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