[German]Discussions about a bad working culture at Microsoft has begun since the layoffs in 2025 has begun. CEO Satya Nadella has now send a memo to the Microsoft employees and talks of an "enigma moment" for progress. The elephant in the room is Microsoft's transformation into an AI provider, which is leading to upheaval.
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The layoff of 9,000 employees at Microsoft in July 2025 (in sum we have 18.000 in 2025) has led to unrest and discussions among the enployees. CEO Satya Nadella felt obliged to make a statement to the staff.
Reassurances, explanations, goals
The latest job cuts were among the most difficult decisions to be made at Microsoft. The layoffs affect people with whom they have worked, learned and shared countless moments. It was colleagues, team colleagues and friends who were made redundant.
After thanking those who have been fired, Nadella writes that Microsoft is doing well by all objective standards. Turnover, strategic positioning and growth are all pointing upwards in terms of key figures. Microsoft is investing more than ever before. Total headcount is relatively unchanged and some of the talent and expertise in the industry and at Microsoft is being recognized and rewarded at an unprecedented level. And yet at the same time we have made redundancies.
Microsoft and many other technology companies are facing, according to Nadella, the challenge of adapting to AI development. Microsoft, after several rounds of layoffs (15,000 employees in 2025), is arguably struggling with employee dissatisfaction and internal questions about corporate culture. The memo is the Microsoft CEO's attempt to resolve the contradictions and explain the whole thing.
Nadella describes it as an enigma moment, despite good business figures. He wrote "We live in times of uncertainty and apparent incongruence. However, progress is not linear, but dynamic, sometimes contradictory and always challenging. But it is also a new opportunity for Microsoft to shape, lead and have more influence than ever before."
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The priority for Microsoft is to be able to survive in the age of AI. Strategic goals with new priorities for Microsoft in the future are security, quality and AI transformation, on which they are focusing. Significant progress has been made in these areas this year, confirmed Nadella. The Microsoft boss writes that they want to redesign every layer of the technical stack for AI and hopes to get the remaining employees on board.
Toxic corporate culture at Microsoft?
Overall, however, the mood among the workforce appears to be extremely poor. GeekWire picked up on it in this article. They quote James McCaffrey, a former Microsoft Senior Research Development Engineer who was with the company for a long time (July 1997 to June 2025). In his blog, he asks whether Microsoft will have a toxic culture in 2025. He was proud to say that he worked at Microsoft. Many of his friends still work at Microsoft, but they are unhappy with what they call a "culture of lies and discrimination".
No company is perfect, but according to his friends, Microsoft has gone from a good company to a shameful company with little to no internal integrity, writes James McCaffrey. He hasn't experienced these toxic patterns directly, but according to his friends who still work at Microsoft, it doesn't look good. This roughly mirrors the impression I have of Microsoft as an external observer. Product flops and one disaster after another, coupled with false promises and dodges. Not a provider you can trust – imho.
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