The main value of this team was likely internal, as a sort of gauze bandage on the conscience of the progressives (like myself) that MSFT has tried to court.
There was a time, not too long ago, where working at the new, 'refreshed' Microsoft meant ingesting an endless stream of news releases highlighting zero-carbon this, compostable cutlery that, and, of course, ethical AI. When Tegru was let go from GOOG we hosted a talk by her. That sort of thing. The point was to make you feel like you were one of the good guys -- your TC in effect included the intangible bonus of sleeping soundly at night, knowing that the Aethyr Council or whatever was doing all the handwringing for you. So, you know, no need to worry about social impact, just keep coding.
What this really means is, "the market is so bad right now for SWE that we no longer have to worry about the qualms of our staff, if you don't like us, the door is over this way"
The main value of this team was likely internal, as a sort of gauze bandage on the conscience of the progressives (like myself) that MSFT has tried to court.
There was a time, not too long ago, where working at the new, 'refreshed' Microsoft meant ingesting an endless stream of news releases highlighting zero-carbon this, compostable cutlery that, and, of course, ethical AI. When Tegru was let go from GOOG we hosted a talk by her. That sort of thing. The point was to make you feel like you were one of the good guys -- your TC in effect included the intangible bonus of sleeping soundly at night, knowing that the Aethyr Council or whatever was doing all the handwringing for you. So, you know, no need to worry about social impact, just keep coding.
What this really means is, "the market is so bad right now for SWE that we no longer have to worry about the qualms of our staff, if you don't like us, the door is over this way"