I work at MSFT. Everything the author says is 100% true not only at MSFT but probably at every Mag-7 company.
It’s also the same reason why MSFT doesn’t have a blockbuster AI product.
1. At work or for personal use, I use GPT-5 or Claude Code. I am forced to use Copilot because that has access to internal company data but it’s nowhere close to GPT-5 or Claude.
2. MSFT open sourced VS code but on its own couldn’t engineer products like Cursor or Windsurf. Lets leave aside the economics of these products for now.
The regular down in the trenches engineer like myself is so busy thinking about how I can advance my career by playing political games, currying favour with my manager or manager’s manager that little time gets spent on product building.
Good thing MSFT has all the cash in the world to invest in companies like OAI, GitHub etc because the bureaucracy is stifling at MSFT.
It’s also the same reason why MSFT doesn’t have a blockbuster AI product.
1. At work or for personal use, I use GPT-5 or Claude Code. I am forced to use Copilot because that has access to internal company data but it’s nowhere close to GPT-5 or Claude.
2. MSFT open sourced VS code but on its own couldn’t engineer products like Cursor or Windsurf. Lets leave aside the economics of these products for now.
The regular down in the trenches engineer like myself is so busy thinking about how I can advance my career by playing political games, currying favour with my manager or manager’s manager that little time gets spent on product building.
Good thing MSFT has all the cash in the world to invest in companies like OAI, GitHub etc because the bureaucracy is stifling at MSFT.