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☆ Microsoft is cancelling experimental products like its Surface headphones to focus on investing in AI, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Microsoft introduced new Surface laptops on Thursday. Missing from the lineup were new editions of other familiar products, like the Surface Headphones. When Microsoft introduced new Surface laptops on Thursday , some new editions of familiar products were missing. That's because the company has canceled products, including the next generation of the Surface headphones, to focus on investment in artificial intelligence, insiders say, rather than the more experimental devices the company funded in flush times. The Surface Headphones were originally launched in 2018, and an improved version launched in 2020.

Organizations: Microsoft

☆ Robinhood is cutting jobs, reorganizing teams, and focusing on credit cards to solve a shrinking user base, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Robinhood is laying off more employees and reorganizing teams as part of a new focus on credit cards as the company tries to mitigate a shrinking user base, insiders say. In June, Robinhood announced plans to acquire no-fee credit card startup X1 for $95 million. Credit cards are much higher-margin products than stock-trading and generally less exposed to volatile markets. X1 and Robinhood's future in credit cards were the focus of the company's last all-employee meeting, the person said. The layoff was widely reported, but audio of an all-hands meeting reviewed by Insider recently showed ongoing cuts have been deeper .

Persons: Robinhood, we've, Vlad Tenev, Tenev Organizations: Robinhood, JPMorgan, Menlo, Say Technologies, TechCrunch Locations: , California

☆ Microsoft Windows boss Panos Panay left for Amazon after cuts and canceled products in his unit, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay is leaving for Amazon after the company made budget and staff cuts, canceled products in his division, and amid discussions about a reorganization in his unit, insiders say. Microsoft, Panay, and Amazon did not comment. During nearly 20 years at Microsoft, Panay was notably in charge of the team that developed the Surface hardware business. Windows licensing and the unit's hardware underperformed relative to the company's financial projections, insiders say, and Microsoft responded by dramatically scaling back Panay's division. At Microsoft, insiders say Panay was known as a demanding leader and expected "white glove service" on everything, meaning a premium experience with extra care and attention to detail.

Persons: Panos Panay, Dave Limp, Alexa, Kristy Schmidt, Charlie Bell, Rajesh Jha, Satya Nadella, Microsoft's Organizations: Microsoft, Amazon, Bloomberg, Reuters Locations: Panay, New York

☆ Salesforce is hiring over 3,000 people, despite axing 10% of staff in brutal job cuts earlier in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce will look to hire around 3,000 new employees, CEO Marc Benioff told Bloomberg this week. The company announced plans to lay off 10% of its staff earlier this year in a major cost-cutting effort. Benioff is now urging former staff who joined other firms to return to the company. Millham told Bloomberg: "We have some very successful parts of our business right now, and we want a surge in those areas." Benioff told Bloomberg that he is hoping to attract significant numbers of "boomerangs" — employees who previously worked at Salesforce and moved to other firms — to return to the company in the new hiring drive.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Brian Millham, Millham, Ashley Stewart, Benioff Organizations: Bloomberg, Service, Bloomberg News, Employees Locations: Wall, Silicon, San Francisco, Salesforce

☆ Microsoft's Employee Review System Is Still a Bit Like Stack Ranking, Sources Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some have compared the adjustment process to the controversial practice of "stack ranking," in which managers ranked employees on a forced curve. Some employees feel that the essence of stack ranking has returned with the company's instructions to managers on how to handle this year's employee reviews. This year, Microsoft managers scored employees on a scale from 0 to 200, as they've done previously. The ratings are "Lower Impact Than Expected (LITE)," "Slightly Lower Impact Than Expected (SLITE)," "Successful Impact," and "Exceptional Impact." "If the employee delivered slightly lower impact than expected, their rewards will align below the middle of the opportunity range."

Persons: Steve Ballmer, Satya Nadella, Kathleen Hogan, Hogan Organizations: Microsoft, Insider

☆ Under Microsoft's new employee performance ratings, exceeding expectations can still land staff below 'exceptional,' document shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Under Microsoft's new performance ratings, employees can exceed some expectations and still fall below an "exceptional" rating, internal documents viewed by Insider show. In a rubric explaining the new ratings, "successful impact" is defined as when an employee consistently delivered against all expectations, likely exceeding some expectations as well. This results in having high performance expectations for our employees." Successful impact is different than exceptional impact because the latter means "demonstrating sustained, meaningfully higher impact relative to all core priorities," the document states. A Microsoft spokesperson said "successful" is still a high rating, and Microsoft has always had high performance expectations.

Persons: Kathleen Hogan, Hogan Organizations: Microsoft

☆ Leaked Microsoft documents reveal a new employee rating system only visible to managers
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft introduced a new rating system for employees in performance reviews, documents show. Microsoft introduced a new rating system for employees in performance reviews that are visible only to managers, documents viewed by Insider show. The ratings are used to determine employees' "rewards," Microsoft's term for pay and bonuses. The guide states that if an employee does not meet all of these conditions, they are delivering slightly lower impact than expected or lower impact than expected. The new rating system comes after Microsoft froze salaries and cut budgets for bonuses and stock awards this year.

Organizations: Microsoft

☆ Amazon confirms plans to discontinue its Honeycode app-building service
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Eugene Kim | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon is discontinuing its Honeycode app-building cloud service. The announcement confirms Insider's earlier report that Amazon was phasing out the service. Users will no longer be able to use Honeycode or any of the apps they created on it in February. Amazon announced plans to discontinue its Honeycode app-building cloud service, confirming Insider's earlier report that the company was phasing out the service. "To our valued customers: After careful consideration, we have made the decision to end the Amazon Honeycode beta service, effective February 29, 2024," Amazon's Honeycode Community page states.

Persons: Insider's, Honeycode, Adam Bosworth, Bosworth, Adam Seligman, Seligman, Eugene Kim, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Amazon, Google, Microsoft Locations: Honeycode, Amazon

☆ Leaked Microsoft memo warns managers not to discuss its salary freeze during employee reviews, but to tie 'rewards' to an employee's own 'impact'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Notably, the company froze salaries this year and cut its budget for bonuses and stock awards. An internal guide tells managers how to answer when employees ask how those changes impact pay. And now a guide for managers conducting performance reviews, viewed by Insider, instructs managers on how to answer when employees ask how these budget cuts impact an individual's pay. Managers should not use the budget cuts as an "explanation" for compensation decisions for individual employees and instead should emphasize that the employee's own "impact" determines "rewards." "Using budgets or factors besides the employee's impact as an explanation for an employee's rewards will erode trust and confidence within your team," the guide continues.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Kathleen Hogan, Hogan, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Insider

☆ Zoom execs claim its new workplace product is winning sales away from Microsoft's 'clunky' competitor in leaked video
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Zoom execs told employees Workvivo wins 80% of sales versus Microsoft's "clunky" competitor, Viva. Zoom earlier this year acquired the Irish employee engagement platform Workvivo founded in 2017. Microsoft introduced its own, similarly named Viva employee engagement platform in 2021 and earlier this year updated it to include its employee message board Yammer, now called Viva Engage. Workvivo Head of Sales DJ Cahill told employees that when Zoom's product is competing with Microsoft Viva, Workvivo wins 70% to 80% of those sales. Employee engagement software is a relatively young market that combines workplace chat tools with areas for corporate news, employee goal tracking, employee directories and the like.

Persons: Zoom execs, Workvivo, DJ Cahill, Cahill, Eric Yuan, execs, —, Yuan, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Viva Engage, Microsoft Viva

☆ Zoom CEO told employees culture is the company's No. 1 problem and gave his blessing to anyone who wants to leave
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

He told employees that company culture was Zoom's top issue. He asked employees to "care about our business" as Zoom looks for new ways to jumpstart growth. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told employees during a recent all-hands meeting that culture is the company's No. 1 problem and wished all the best to anyone who wants to leave, according to a recording viewed by Insider. 1 problem we are facing is company culture," Yuan said, noting many big and successful companies have similar problems.

Persons: Eric Yuan, Yuan, Morgan Stanley's Meta Marshall

☆ Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Earlier this month, Zoom told employees it would send some workers back to the office regularly. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said remote work didn't allow people to build as much trust or be as innovative. Zoom, one of the main enablers and beneficiaries of remote work, told employees living within 50 miles of a Zoom office that they must work there at least two days a week. "Over the past several years, we've hired so many new 'Zoomies' that it's really hard to build trust." Meta this week told employees some might lose their jobs if they didn't show up at least three days a week.

Persons: Zoom, Eric Yuan, Yuan, we've, Zoom's Organizations: Amazon

☆ Amazon wants to make RTO exceptions extremely rare, and workers are considering drastic hacks to comply
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The company wants RTO policy exceptions to be extremely rare. Amazon is leaning in hard on its plan to get employees back to the office by making exceptions to the policy extremely rare. Amazon managers told Insider they've been directed to only give exceptions in extremely rare cases. One idea: Use a family member's address near an Amazon office and fly in when necessary. For those who choose to relocate, Amazon is giving up to a few months to find a new place.

Persons: they've, Amazon's, Eugene Kim Organizations: Employees, Workers, Amazon Locations: Amazon's Seattle, Texas, Seattle, San Francisco

☆ Salesforce is trotting out Matthew McConaughey amid cost cuts and employees aren't happy, leaked messages show
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce reportedly paid Matthew McConaughey $10 million a year during layoffs. McConaughey's voice appeared in Salesforce's "AI Day" event in June and Salesforce recently announced McConaughey as a speaker at the company's annual Dreamforce conference in September. But some employees are not happy about it because the McConaughey deal was made public just a month after Salesforce announced it would be conducting widespread layoffs this year. Some employees complained about the company's relationship with McConaughey in an internal Slack channel called "airing of grievances," according to messages viewed by Insider. "I was denied a promotion this cycle because of 'lack of budget' but we can throw $10mil a year at this guy?"

Persons: Salesforce, Matthew McConaughey, McConaughey's, McConaughey Organizations: Wall Street Locations: Salesforce

☆ The remote work revolution is officially dead: Zoom just told employees to return to the office.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-05 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The move is surprising given how much the company benefitted from remote work. The remote work revolution is officially dead. Zoom, one of the main enablers and beneficiaries of remote work, just asked its employees to head back to the office. Those who live within 50 miles of a Zoom office must now work there at least two days a week, the company confirmed. Many companies have started to require office work this year, but Zoom's change of heart is surprising given the role its technology plays in remote work.

Persons: Zoom, they'd, We'll, Ashley Stewart

☆ Salesforce chief people officer Brent Hyder is leaving, internal message shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce Chief People Officer Brent Hyder is leaving the company. His exit was announced in an internal Slack message viewed by Insider. Salesforce Chief People Officer Brent Hyder is leaving the company, according to an internal message viewed by Insider. "It's with mixed emotions that I share Brent Hyder has decided to leave Salesforce to pursue a new opportunity," Chief Operating Officer Brian Millham wrote in an internal Slack message. I'm proud of all that we've accomplished together — within the company and within our communities," Hyder wrote in an internal message.

Persons: Brent Hyder, Hyder, Salesforce, Brian Millham, Brent, Nathalie Scardino, I've, —, It's, Slack, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Salesforce

☆ Salesforce quietly terminated the employment of a popular diversity executive
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce quietly released diversity executive Jacalyn Chapman in May, sources tell Insider. The company told some employees Chapman's role was being eliminated, one of the people said. Salesforce is facing a discrimination lawsuit from another diversity executive. Salesforce terminated the employment of a popular diversity, equity, and inclusion executive in May, people familiar with the matter told Insider. Although the circumstances of her termination are unclear, one person said some employees were told her role was being eliminated.

Persons: Salesforce, Jacalyn Chapman, Marc Benioff, Brent Hyder, Chapman, Ebony Beckwith, Bain, Slack Organizations: Equality, Bain & Company Locations: Salesforce

☆ Leaked Microsoft polls show employees feel much worse about culture and leadership than at the beginning of the year
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft workers feel worse about workplace culture and leader effectiveness, internal polls show. Microsoft employees feel significantly worse about the company's workplace culture and the effectiveness of leaders than they did at the start of the year, internal polls viewed by Insider show. Insider viewed screenshots of graphs of daily responses to each question since January. Angry employees recently roasted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella after he thanked the company's workforce for a "landmark" fiscal year. "Here employees take pay cuts as our company and leadership make record profits," one employee wrote in response to Nadella.

Persons: Satya Nadella, It's, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Daily Signals

M12, Microsoft's venture firm, is offloading some of its portfolio on secondary exchanges, sources say. The fund's shares in startups are taking haircuts of between 30% and 70%, three people said. Microsoft's corporate venture capital fund, M12, has been offloading some of its $1 billion portfolio on secondary exchanges, five people familiar with the matter told Insider. One of the people familiar with the sales said M12 sold one large position this month at a 50% discount. A secondary sales boomSecondary sales are becoming more common in the market in general.

Persons: there's, PitchBook, Ashley Stewart, Ben Bergman, bbergman, Darius Rafieyan Organizations: Microsoft, Vertical Aerospace, Google, Investors, Tiger Global

☆ OpenAI admits GPT-4 may be worse on some tasks after users complained the model is 'lazier' and 'dumber'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Users of OpenAI's new GPT-4 model have been complaining in recent weeks about degraded performance. OpenAI admitted that GPT-4 performance may be worse on some tasks. "There may be some tasks where the performance gets worse," OpenAI stated in a blog post. OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, said that GPT-4's performance may be worse on some tasks as users have complained that the model is "lazier" and "dumber" compared to previous iterations. Users of OpenAI's GPT-4 have been complaining in recent weeks about degraded performance compared to its previous reasoning capabilities.

Persons: OpenAI, OpenAI's, Ashley Stewart

☆ Leaked audio reveals deeper cuts at Robinhood as its engineering boss exits
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Robinhood's head of engineering Surabhi Gupta is leaving the company, Insider has learned. Robinhood last month laid off 150 full-time employees but leaked meeting audio reveals wider cuts. The company has also made cuts through "reorgs," among teams like recruiting, engineering, and data science. Robinhood's head of engineering is leaving the company, Insider has learned, the latest tech leader to depart amid deeper-than-reported cuts to its workforce, according to internal memos and audio of an all-hands meeting. The layoff was widely reported, but audio of an all-hands meeting reviewed by Insider show ongoing cuts have been deeper.

Persons: Gupta, Robinhood, Surabhi Gupta, Jesper Johansson, Johansson, Surabhi, Jason Warnick, Warnick Organizations: LinkedIn

☆ Amazon is reorganizing some cloud-computing services, like EC2 and Lambda, into a new team, leaked email shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon Web Services created an "AWS Compute Services" team, an email viewed by Insider shows. It combined services such as EC2 and serverless products like Lambda into a single organization. Amazon Web Services created a new "AWS Compute Services" team, according to an internal email viewed by Insider, combining services such as its Elastic Compute Cloud and container and serverless products including Lambda into a single organization. Deepak Singh, the vice president who previously ran AWS containers and serverless products, is leading the new AI organization. Barry Cooks, the vice president who runs the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, now reports to Brown.

Persons: Deepak Singh, David Brown, EC2, Holly Mesrobian, Brown, Nick Coult, Ajay Nair, Spencer Dillard, Ahmed Usman Khalid, Barry Cooks, Jody Gibney, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Amazon Web Services, Insider, Lambda, AWS, Web Services, Compute Services, Service, Registry

☆ Microsoft's latest layoffs hit more than 1,000 employees and bring big changes to sales and customer service teams, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft cut more than 1,000 employees over the past week, insiders say. Microsoft laid off more than 1,000 employees over the past week, primarily in customer service and sales roles, people familiar with the changes told Insider. The cuts go beyond the 10,000 layoffs Microsoft indicated it was planning earlier this year, according to these people. As part of these moves, Microsoft shut its "Digital Sales and Success" group, a sales and customer service team that at one point had thousands of employees. "The focus is more to accelerate consumption than it is to help customers," one person familiar with the changes told Insider.

Persons: Judson Althoff, GeekWire, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Microsoft, Digital, Daily Signals Locations: Washington

☆ The future of Amazon's Honeycode cloud service is not looking so sweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( Eugene Kim | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon's AWS Honeycode app-building software is being phased out. It's business application team has struggled. Another Amazon business application is struggling. This time it's AWS Honeycode, a cloud-based app-building service. Besides Honeycode, Amazon has axed the Halo health band, the Scout delivery robot, and a number of long-term projects from its Grand Challenge moonshot lab.

Persons: Honeycode, they're, hasn't, Slack, Sriram Devanathan, Adam Bosworth, Adam Seligman, Seligman Organizations: AWS, Amazon, Service, Amazon Connect, SAP, Google, Microsoft

☆ Amazon Web Services has launched a new AI team as it scrambles to compete with rivals like OpenAI, leaked email and transcript shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon is internally scrambling to take advantage of the generative AI boom. AWS just created a new org focused on getting customers to use generative AI to build on its cloud. Amazon Web Services has created a new organization focused on helping customers use generative AI tech on its cloud as the company scrambles to respond to the AI boom, an internal email viewed by Insider shows. "Across AWS (and Amazon), teams are experimenting with generative Al tools to improve builder productivity," DeSantis wrote. "Generative AI will also make it easier to enable a broader group of builders to develop applications on AWS," DeSantis wrote.

Persons: Peter DeSantis, DeSantis, Deepak Singh, Swami Sivasubramanian, I've, Jeff Bezos, Doug Seven, Jonathan Weiss, Harry Mower, Adam Seligman, Adam Selipsky, Selipsky, Ashley Stewart, Eugene Kim Organizations: Services, Insider, Amazon, AWS, Integrated Development, Singh, Web Services

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