@sjvn The "enigma of success" gave it away. It was just the final declaration that Microsoft had indeed lost its way.

"Under the strain of trying to succeed in a battle of the AI titans, Microsoft has turned into a painfully close approximation of the Borg -- emotionless, efficient, driven by a desire to conquer, and -- yes -- lacking in empathy. I'm not eager to be assimilated."

@sjvn It has cluttered up my workflow. I was a diehard Microsoft user for ages, but now I find ways to avoid it. In some instances it has doubled or tripled the amount of time I take to do things using its tools.

@sjvn "[Customers] feel ignored or that they're being forced to use and pay for products and features they neither want nor need." 🎯

This also applies to most of the other mainline tech companies these days. They've all pretty much abandoned their core customers to chase the AI dragon. Good luck with all that.

@sjvn that’s just classical Microsoft, it was the same when cloud kicked in, the same when they finally discovered internet even before. Nothing should be surprising here. They will manage, both the company and the people who are let go. Microsoft never cares about people, it cares to develop them to serve the purpose and then when new purpose is defined it was always cheaper to it to hire new generation that are more flexible rather than victims of its own development plan from yesterday. Only people who are there longer than 10 years are brainless admins and brainwashed bureaucrats who continue climbing ladder and adapt to internal politics fast enough. Those who leave soon discover they are great asset to monetize on MSFT experience for 10+ years outside or find another corporate gig until it’s blown away. That is exactly what happened to me 15 years ago and I still benefit from it. But it was all about crying and blaming bad company when a wake up shock hit my face that I was not flexible enough to support google killing cloud revolution and defend and help internet explorer like it was my mother at the edge of a stroke and I still need her to feed me.