What “Diversity and Inclusion” Means at Microsoft. How merit is undermined at one of the world's biggest companies

Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology ^ | October 11, 2022 | Jason Mansfield

[karpov]

From 2021 to 2022, I worked as a manager in Microsoft’s AI Platform division. I’ve been working in the software industry for over a decade, and while I’ve often encountered some combination of the words “diversity” and “inclusion,” how those words have been translated into culture and policy has varied dramatically over time and between companies. At Microsoft, I became concerned about diversity and inclusion policies that required me to sacrifice what I viewed as the best way to serve the company’s mission, particularly as it affected work prioritization, hiring, and promotions.

Large companies like Microsoft have a major impact on their billions of users. But they also influence other companies’ cultures and policies, since former employees move on to other firms and use what they learned, and some people view things being done at large successful corporations as “best practices.” How these cultural and policy issues manifest themselves at universities has received a lot of attention. My aim in writing this piece is to raise awareness of what’s going on inside one of the world’s most valuable companies.

I’m publishing this article pseudonymously because I fear I would be fired or many companies would in the future refuse to hire me for writing it.

Microsoft classifies its employees by race, gender, and other categories, and aims to increase the shares of employees in preferred groups. This is not a secret. Microsoft has publicly committed to racial equity, including an effort to “double the number of US Black and African American, and Hispanic and Latinx people managers, senior individual contributors, and senior leaders.” The company publishes an annual report on Diversity & Inclusion (hereafter shortened to “D&I”) in which it tracks its progress toward such goals.

[NWFree]

Their goofy OS updates every time I turn on the PC

It must be a complete POS to have so many bugs so constantly

[Vigilanteman]

One of the good things that Orin Hatch did during his U.S. Senate career was constantly try to expose the evils of Microsoft's monopolistic practices.

It is a damn shame that nobody would give him much support.

What motivated him was Microsoft's blatant destruction of Word Perfect and thousands of jobs based in his home state. Their former campus is now owned by Ancestry.Com

[Red6]

Good point.

I didn’t think of it like that.

Nothing new.

I suppose as some of these folks get old and think about their end and legacy, suddenly the scumbag they were isn’t what we want remembered by.

However, I worked for the late Ross Perot (3 years) and he surely was a human with his sins and failures, but that dude was the real deal!!! He tried hard to live his faith, he took care of his employees, helped his community, loved his country and the military. He often helped folks and they never knew that it was him helping. My point is that not everyone successful falls into that category.

There are real heros (Sullenberger), and there are true philanthropists (Ross Perot). In a world where we tear down great people while crap is lifted to the top (Bill Gates or Snoop Dogg) that goes unnoticed.

[EEGator]

Ross Perot used to call General Charles Krulak often.
He worked at MBNA America in Wilmington DE after retiring as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[Chode]

quotas???

White need not apply...

[BitWielder1]

It is wrong to not hire a qualified applicant because of his race.
It is also wrong to hire an unqualified applicant because of his race.

[daniel1212]

As wrong as it is, that is unlikely the reason that every version of Windows after XP has too a certain degree treated users as if they were in grade school, or using a mobile device. Rather than a nice start menu, as thru Open shell:

Windows defaults to some variant as this:

And this at best:

And instead of a nice taskbar with many options thru Explorer Patcher restores the Windows 11 taskbar to be exactly like Windows 10 , And then, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (all proven safe freeware, thank God) with stacked items,

then you have inefficient layout.

Praise God for options

[Qui is]

“Sullenberger and Ross Perot”

Oh, yes indeed. Don’t get me wrong. Those are both some fine men, and there are many, many more, too.

It’s just evil people like Gates go to great lengths to promote their good deeds and rehabilitate their reputations andthe media obliges them with puff pieces to help solidify it.

The good, decent and honest philanthropists don’t feel the need for publicity since they have nothing to be ashamed of.

[daniel1212]

dayglored; ShadowAce ping

[daniel1212]

ping