Inside Microsoft’s wave of executive departures

It feels like not a week has gone by this year without a senior Microsoft executive leaving the company. Some departures have triggered sweeping shakeups of Microsoft’s biggest businesses, while others have seen fresh faces replace veteran employees. Executive departures at Microsoft are nothing new, but the pace feels notable this early in the year.

The timing points to a Microsoft that is struggling to retain talent in a market where competition is high and the stock price is low. Investors have been hammering Microsoft’s stock price in recent weeks, and at one point last month it had dropped by more than 30 percent compared to six months ago. High-demand employees don’t stick around when their compensation is lowering or they think a company is headed in the wrong direction.

The departures have impacted every part of Microsoft, including CoreAI, Windows, Office, and GitHub. With previously unreported changes at Amazon weighing on employees’ minds, and GitHub growing increasingly less independent, Microsoft is now changing up its annual rewards and performance programs to respond to the departures.

The wave of significant changes started in January, when Manik Gupta, former corporate vice president of Microsoft Teams, left the company. Microsoft hired Gupta in 2021, in a bid to lead a new consumer apps effort with Microsoft Teams consumer, Skype, and GroupMe. Microsoft has since shut down Skype in favor of Microsoft Teams, and GroupMe remains an excellent app that not enough people have even heard of.

I was surprised to see Gupta leave. His experience running various teams at Uber was supposed to help Microsoft build “world-class consumer experiences.” But trying to get consumers to care about Microsoft Teams post-pandemic was probably a tall ask, especially given Microsoft’s decade-long struggle to get consumers to use its products.

Just weeks after Gupta’s departure, Hayete Gallot returned to Microsoft to become executive vice president of security, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella. This pushed former security chief Charlie Bell out of the role, in a move that many employees inside the company view as a response to Microsoft’s struggles with security in recent years.

As the dust settled on the security changes at Microsoft we saw an even bigger departure. Former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer announced he was retiring after nearly 40 years at the software giant. Spencer’s retirement wasn’t too surprising, but many considered former Xbox president Sarah Bond to be the heir apparent. Instead, Microsoft picked former CoreAI executive Asha Sharma to lead Xbox, leaving Bond to resign from the company. Sharma is now promising “the return of Xbox,” as Microsoft has come to the sudden realization that Xbox is the last relevant consumer brand it has left.

We haven’t seen a shakeup of the Xbox org just yet, but Lori Wright, former CVP of partners and business development at Xbox, announced her resignation shortly after the news of Spencer and Bond leaving. Microsoft veteran Kiki Wolfkill, former head of film and TV at Xbox, also announced her resignation from Microsoft this week. Wolfkill had spent 28 years at the company, and helped produce the Halo TV series with Paramount.

Another significant departure happened in March, when Rajesh Jha, former executive vice president of Microsoft’s experiences and devices group, announced he is retiring after more than 35 years at Microsoft. Jha had been overseeing Windows, Office, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and much more, and his departure triggered a flattening of Microsoft’s upper management. This has allowed the leaders of Windows, Office, and other products to report directly to Nadella. Much like Spencer, Jha’s retirement wasn’t too surprising given it had been rumored internally for months, but it was significant enough to trigger even more executive shuffling.

Microsoft appointed a new Copilot boss shortly after Jha’s retirement news, with Jacob Andreou now leading the Copilot experience across both consumer and commercial. Different teams had been leading the various parts of Copilot on the consumer and commercial sides for years, so this should hopefully lead to a more cohesive Copilot for businesses and consumers.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman lost responsibility for consumer Copilot during this reshuffle, in a move that Microsoft is positioning as allowing him to focus on building the company’s own AI models. I think it’s more of an admission that consumer Copilot has failed to compete with Gemini and ChatGPT, and that Suleyman’s time would be better spent on competing with Anthropic and OpenAI, where it matters.

The executive shakeup at Microsoft continued last month with the departure of Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, former diversity chief at Microsoft, triggering HR changes as the company tries to chase AI demand. Then earlier this month, Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft’s developer division (DevDiv), announced she was resigning after 34 years at Microsoft. It’s not clear who is replacing Liuson, if anyone, and sources I’ve talked to at Microsoft are nervous about the inevitable organizational changes that are bound to happen in DevDiv and Microsoft’s broader CoreAI division after Liuson’s departure in June.

Coupled with these changes, Amazon — one of Microsoft’s biggest competitors — recently announced internal changes that turn its software developers into “Builders” that are expected to use AI agents daily. Software management roles at Amazon are now “Builders Leads,” who will help supervise AI agents and software developers. Microsoft employees I’ve spoken to fear that the company will introduce something similar to Amazon, in a bid to get even more software built by AI agents. Google is also undertaking similar efforts, with 75 percent of all of its new code now AI-generated and approved by engineers.

I’m also expecting to see more GitHub changes as part of Microsoft’s continued AI push. Liuson was also responsible for overseeing GitHub revenue, engineering, and support after former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke resigned last year. Microsoft never replaced Dohmke, and with the rest of GitHub’s leadership team now reporting directly to Microsoft’s CoreAI team, GitHub is increasingly becoming less independent.

Elizabeth Pemmerl, GitHub’s chief revenue officer, also announced her resignation last week, according to sources at GitHub. “After eleven years on this amazing journey, I have decided it’s the right time for the next chapter,” said Pemmerl in a message to GitHub employees, seen by Notepad. Microsoft has appointed Dan Stein, former head of software and digital platforms for Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS), as the new chief revenue officer for GitHub. It’s the latest sign of Microsoft’s ownership influence on GitHub.

“There’s basically no more GitHub at all anymore,” one GitHub employee tells me. “It’s all Microsoft, and the company is collapsing, both in outages that are reallllly bad and have torched the company reputation… and in an exodus of leadership.”

Some of the recent Microsoft executive departures have also meant the company has lost key talent to competitors. Vishnu Nath, former VP and general manager of the Office product group, left Microsoft last month after nearly 16 years to join Google, leading product for Google Chat. Eric Boyd, former president of AI platform at Microsoft, is now head of infrastructure at Anthropic, having spent nearly 17 years at Microsoft. Bobby Hollis, former VP of energy at Microsoft, also left a few weeks ago. Hollis was responsible for Microsoft’s global energy procurement and carbon removal efforts. He hasn’t shared where he’s heading next, but he was previously head of energy at both Facebook and Apple, so it’s another loss of talent for Microsoft.

Veteran designer and engineer Haiyan Zhang also left Microsoft recently to join Netflix as head of generative AI for Netflix’s games organization. After more than 28 years at Microsoft, Joy Chik is also leaving in July. Chik had been the president of identity and network access at Microsoft, and she’s now launching a new podcast and focusing more on company board work and helping startup founders.

There’s no clear line that connects all these departures, as people leave a company for a variety of reasons — especially high-impact employees and veterans that helped build Microsoft into what it is today.

For the former, Microsoft is changing how it rewards employees with performance-related bonuses and stock. Microsoft is “moving away from [stock] being directly tied to bonus,” says HR chief Amy Coleman in a memo seen by The Verge, to allow managers to “have more flexibility to meaningfully recognize high performance.” Microsoft is also encouraging early retirement through what Coleman calls a “a one-time Voluntary Retirement Program for a small percentage of our long-serving US employees.”

I expect we’ll see even more long-serving employees depart in the coming months, especially as we head into Microsoft’s new financial year in July when the company normally rolls out larger organizational shifts.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets a price cut but loses new Call of Duty games. I exclusively revealed last week that Xbox chief Asha Sharma thought Game Pass had become “too expensive for players,” and Microsoft has now decided to drop Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass pricing. It doesn’t fully reverse the 50 percent hike, but Game Pass Ultimate drops to $22.99 instead of $29.99. The catch is that future Call of Duty titles will no longer join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. They’ll be added about a year later instead. It’s rare to see subscription prices drop, but Microsoft’s giant Game Pass Ultimate price hike has clearly hit renewals enough to force the company to respond.Microsoft Teams is trying to fix accidental hand-raising. In June, you will no longer accidentally hit the raise-hand button in a meeting with hundreds of your colleagues. Microsoft is redesigning Teams “to reduce mis-clicks” of the raise-hand button. This should prevent Teams users from embarrassingly activating the raise-hand feature, when all they wanted to do was send an emoji reaction.Xbox mode is nearly here for all PCs. Microsoft just added its Xbox mode to the Release Preview version of Windows 11. That means the Xbox mode, which adds a full-screen interface to the Xbox PC app, is just days away from being available on all PCs. Microsoft did promise last month that it would roll out the Xbox mode to all PCs in April, and it looks like it’s arriving on time.Microsoft is planning Surface Laptop with an OLED display. Microsoft is preparing to launch new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models in the coming months, according to Windows Central. The refreshed models will include both Intel and Qualcomm variants, with Microsoft opting for an OLED display option for the Surface Laptop this year. The Surface Laptop OLED display will reportedly only be available on high-end models, with IPS panels used on the entry-level configurations. Some Surface Laptop models will also include a higher resolution screen, too. I’d expect we’ll hear more about this in May or June, when Microsoft typically refreshes its Surface devices.Microsoft says the “idea” of an Xbox mobile store “is not dead.” Remember the Xbox mobile store that was supposed to launch almost two years ago? Well, it looks like Microsoft has now put the project on hold. The store URL has disappeared recently, but Xbox chief Asha Sharma says “the idea of an Xbox mobile store is not dead.” The launch of the store has been complicated by strict app store rules that Microsoft was hoping would be defeated by regulators or courts by now.Microsoft launches “vibe working” in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft first unveiled its “vibe working” Agent Mode for Excel and Word last year, and it’s now launching it fully in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint this week. “As models become more capable, we’re bringing that power to where real work happens, right in the canvas,” says Satya Nadella. Agent Mode lets Copilot use multistep actions directly in documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Microsoft is rolling out these new Copilot features as the default experience for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers.Microsoft must face a $2.8 billion UK lawsuit over cloud computing licences. Microsoft has been accused of overcharging thousands of British businesses to use Windows Server software on competing cloud services. The Competition Appeal Tribunal has certified a mass lawsuit against Microsoft, and if the case succeeds then the damages could be significant.Surface fans are now 3D‑printing the hardware Microsoft won’t build. A Surface owner has created a 3D-printable design for a Surface Pro keyboard dock. The dock has a slot for the Surface Pen and makes it easier to use a Surface Pro on your lap, but you’ll need a ThinkPad Trackpoint II Bluetooth keyboard to make the most of this 3D-printed design. The bonus is you’ll get the TrackPoint nib that’s built into Lenovo’s keyboard, as well as some good old lapability.Ookla is powering Windows 11’s speedtest from the taskbar. Microsoft has added a new speedtest to the Windows 11 taskbar, which takes you to Bing to perform the test. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it doesn’t force you to open Edge if you have another default browser, and the speedtest is actually built into Bing so you don’t even need to visit Ookla’s speedtest website.Microsoft has some very colorful Forza Horizon 6 accessories. It’s nearly time to race around Japan in Forza Horizon 6, and Microsoft is launching a new controller, headset, and charging dock with designs inspired by the game. This is “one of the most vibrant controllers Xbox has ever released,” according to Microsoft. The design has certainly split opinion, but it does match the menus and colors used in the game.You can use an Xbox Series S / X expansion card as PC storage. Reddit users have discovered that you can purchase a PCIe card that lets you use Microsoft’s Xbox expansion cards as storage. The PCIe CFExpress card readers are available on Amazon for around $15, and the storage speed is good enough for storing games or files, if you have a spare PCIe slot that you’re not using.Microsoft teases mysterious Discord and Xbox Game Pass partnership. A day after lowering prices of its Game Pass Ultimate subscription, Microsoft is now teasing some type of Game Pass partnership with Discord. I suspect this will involve a bundle of Nitro, which Microsoft only offers as a one-month perk, currently. I reported earlier this year that Microsoft is looking at ways to bundle third-party services with Game Pass subscriptions, and the company has “kicked around ideas” for partnering with Netflix, too.

I’m always keen to hear from readers, so please drop a comment here, or you can reach me at notepad@theverge.com if you want to discuss anything else. If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s secret projects, you can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com or speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d prefer to chat there.

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