Microsoft employees slam $480M HoloLens military contract, refuse to create tech for ‘warfare and oppression’
A group of Microsoft employees is demanding that the company not produce weapons for the U.S. Army. (Microsoft)
More than 150 Microsoft employees signed a letter demanding the tech giant cancel a $480 million contract to build a HoloLens for the Pentagon, saying they “refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression.”
“We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the U.S. military, helping one country’s government ‘increase lethality’ using tools we built. We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” the letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith, which was posted to Twitter, states.
The employees represent the latest big tech backlash, coming from within Silicon Valley itself, as workers demand more of a say over how tech products are used and how a range of groups are treated internally.
Before I joined the Navy I was building houses, not widgets for the military. Had I taken this attitude with the boss, the answer would have been swift and final- pick up my last paycheck, and don’t come back.
Read the rest of the article and try to keep a straight face, here: Fox News
Category: "Teh Stoopid", SJW Idiocy
Apple might be hiring.
Word.
Of course, it’s probably just a manufacturing job in China, with pay and working conditions that are, to put it nicely, less than ideal.
Perfect for this 150 people.
Micrisoft = XBox.
XBox Games:
https://www.lifewire.com/best-xbox-one-war-games-4045964
“The 8 Best Xbox One War Games to Buy in 2019”
Those 150 employees who said they speak on the behalf of workers at Microsoft? Let them continue to live in their alternate reality world and replace them with folks that want/need employment.
Next thing you know, we may have McDonald’s employees trying to get rid of beef…sarc
Let’s hope Mickey Dees does so, then their competitors could bring back that classic “Where’s the beef?” commercial.
😅😂🤣!!!
👍👍👏👏
Clara Peller did an interview with Kathy Lee Gifford back in the day.
I watched it and damn near died laughing.
Clara Peller is deaf as a stone !!!
But such a sweetie.
My favorite is the last one…..
Clara driving…..
Seriously, SPEW ALERT !!!!!
Hypocrisy knows no limits.
Don’t laugh. How long will it be before certain McDonald’s stop serving bacon and sausage because it’s not halal?
And don’t forget that they already stopped making fries in beef tallow grease for cultural reasons as well.
In Seattle, two things proliferate. Starbucks shops and ex-Microsoft employees.
I imagine it would be tough to get hired elsewhere after getting canned from Microsoft in someplace like Seattle.
“workers demand more of a say over how tech products are used”… Um, if you don’t like how the products are used then find another job dickheads..There needs to be no more weeping for the future as it is already here folks…
They could go work for Boeing.
Oh, wait.
Major Kong went to work for them…..
Well, sort of….
I been to one World’s Fair, a picnic, an’ a rodeo, an’ that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set o’ earphones!
Don’t know what the Air Force stock number would be exactly, but in the Army it would be:
FSN 1680-973-1863 Survival Kit, Individual, Over Water/smile
“Have you ever been tortured, Mandrake?”
“Er, yes Jack. I, uh, was tortured by the Japanese.”
“And did you talk?”
“Well, you know, Jack, I don’t think they really wanted me to. I think it was more their way of having a bit of fun, the SWINES. Odd thing is they make such damn good cameras…”
Well…bye.
They really do need their own planet. Let’s call it the Good Ship Lollipop. It’s a short trip to the candy shop….
Good grief. Do these twinks have any idea how many GOOD things came out of experiments with nuclear energy, besides bombs? No? Sounds like a personal problem to me.
Door, ass etc.
DEMANDING a say in how your work is used?
“SECURITY, we need someone for desk cleanout and and an escort off the premises…”
‘BYE, FELICIA!!!!
“Don’t let the door hit ya, where the Good Lord split ya… SNOWFLAKE!”
Business is not a democracy. Don’t like what the bosses are doing, find another job. Simple.
Ayuh
Will cardboard boxes be supplied or should they supply their own? I recall the air traffic controllers during the Reagan Presidency. That didn’t turn out well for them.
Give up a job as secure as they have with Microsoft? I’m thinking not so much. If I were Microsoft, I would be more concerned with sabotage.
Sabotage came to my mind too. Prehaps these people need to go.
That was the first thing I thought, too. Send them the contents of their desk and a deposit confirmation for their final paychecks.
“We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used…”
Our work? OUR WORK???? Last I checked, intellectual property developed for the company you worked for DID NOT BELONG TO YOU!
I wonder how the stockholders feel about this. I’d be concerned with industrial espionage and/or giving away confidential information to an adversarial country which I’m sure would be interested in seeing who these asshats are.
They should fire these fucks immediately and without warning! Cocksuckers. If I told my previous employer I’m not doing a particular task, I’d be removed for cause and my reputation ruined.
Fucking snowflakes.
Yep fire them
Ron,
I hear what you are saying.
I agree with the sense of it.
I am a physician employee, and if my employer was thinking about bidding for a contract at a facility that performs abortions, I would tell them that I would not participate.
Even if it meant losing the best job I have ever had.
“Even if it meant losing the best job I have ever had.”
The other option, Doc, is for a person to quit their job and find emoloyment somewhere else if they do not agree with what their employer is doing.
Exactly my point Doc. Don’t like the conditions of employment? You’re free to leave for better opportunities because “this is what our business model going forward will be”.
As a healthcare provider, your employer can make you get certain vaccinations/flu shots that you may disagree with as a term of employment. Well that’s a tough call, but ultimately it will be your decision to accept those terms or find an employer that doesn’t impose those terms on you.
Respectfully
Dear Microsoft employees:
How about focusing on making Windows not suck? How’s that for exercising control over how your work is used? As long as windows continues to slow down, freeze up, and CTD because it gave me a pop-up notice about random bullshit I don’t care about, please shut the hell up.
I gave up on Windows, TOW. I finally bought an Apple and am happy.
Had Win 10 pushed to all govvie computers in my AO. It went exactly as well as you may imagine.
I was working on my own private laptop with Win 8.1 for six weeks until they unfucked themselves.
Win 10 now does work pretty well, but the deployment was unnecessarily painful.
Where I work, we roll out the new stuff to IT first, and when it doesn’t suck, we roll it out to a group of volunteer employees.
When -they- say it is OK, then we roll it out to all hands.
Things seem to go much better for us that way.
Same theory as I approach Flight Test. A good Lab Test gives me confidence to put the S/W on the bird for Ground Test. Only when that looks good will I proceed to Flight Test.
Check out what these Microsoft employees protested last year:
“Microsoft Employees Protest Work With ICE, as Tech Industry Mobilizes Over Immigration”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/technology/tech-companies-immigration-border.html
” In an open letter posted to Microsoft’s internal message board on Tuesday, more than 100 employees protested the software maker’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked the company to stop working with the agency, which has been separating migrant parents and their children at the border with Mexico….”
Any money on whether this is pretty much the same group of (should-be-ex) employees?
Fire them. Tell them “learn to code”. 🤣
They can always land a job withe Amazon in their Queens NY location. Oh, wait…
Or They Can fly on a Boeing 767 From Miami to Houston?
I can tell you 150 people are going to be looking for work elsewhere. Microsoft may not fire them, but being pulled from the tech side of the business into the copy room, mail room, help desk for folks who can’t find the Start icon, etc. will be a big incentive.
Maybe the up and coming Green Deal needs tools that are too touchy-feely to do their jobs.
“Proud to have it… shame of how they got it!” to paraphrase Hela from the MCU.
Let’s count the ways:
Microsoft’s OS was used in Land Warrior for a decade and a half until the switch to Android.
The US Navy used Windows NT for their AEGIS warships – famously, a crash involving Windows stranded a Navy warship.
Many, many computers are loaded with Windows and then bought by the DOD.
“Microsoft has had a presence in China for more than 20 years, entering the market in 1992. Our founder, Bill Gates, had the foresight to establish an office in Beijing, accurately predicting the country’s transition to the booming economy we see today.”
source https://news.microsoft.com/about-microsofts-presence-in-china/
“Microsoft Dubai provides career opportunities in many competitive and industry-leading roles —primarily within sales and services—and the offices are in a prime area known as Internet City, housing over 1,600 businesses. ”
Source https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/l-dubai
So they are glad to take DOD monies on the downlow, willing to do business with the PLA, the ChiComs and the UAE (where they have data centers.
You can google the crimes of the Chinese communist party and the repressive, hateful anti-western, anti-gay and anti-woman regime that runs Dubai and the rest of the UAW.
But one department makes something for the American Servicemember? OUTRAGE!
Chockblock- Hope I didn’t hit “report” by mistake.
Sounds as though you’ve hit on a mutually agreeable solution here. All those who’re unhappy with what Microshaft is doin’ can accept an immediate transfer to China. I’m sure they’ll also be in a hurry to demonstrate in front of the offices of China’s EPA if they don’t like all the smog. Why, I’ll bet they’ll find a Starbucks on every corner, won’t they? Is there a Chinese translation for “gluten-free, organic, free-range” on the menu for Westerners? Will they be able to come up with a cure for the bwue screen of death over there?
Sounds like a win-win answer to me.
You know what would be funny? If the DOD suddenly yanked the rug out from under MS by choosing a different OS for all of their computers. Do you have any idea how many MS computers are operated by the DOD? How much money the DOD spends for licenses for MS products? Not just the Windows OS either – MSSQL, Project, Sharepoint, Office, you name it. The DOD runs on Microsoft. If that money suddenly disappeared, I dare say the MS stockholders would NOT be happy.
Not saying that a precipitous move to another software provider wouldn’t cripple the DOD entirely, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Friday Morning at work: Boss to employee, “You got that new software patch built yet?”
Monday morning at work: Boss to employee, “Cleanup on Aisle 6!”
Find a way to can several of the most vocal. Cut it off at the head and watch the body squirm. If union rules don’t allow it, transfer them to shitty jobs, put them on the night shift or otherwise make their work environment hell. No way Microsoft can kowtow to blackmail. It would set a terrible precedent not only for Microsoft but for other companies.
First and foremost, Microsoft owes the US military big time for the countless hours and expense wasted due to PowerPoint.
Are you SURE you want to trust MS with any military weapons system? I’m not sure I would.
Anybody who has read Accidental Empires might remember Robert X. Cringely’s observation that tech companies are usually made up of a curious mix of talent. For example, it’s fairly normal for 90 percent of critical software to be generated by a 10 percent group of brilliant coders. The rest of the programming, such bug fixes or whatever, is mostly routine to the point that the other 90 percent of engineers are as interchangeable as tires on a truck.
A problem with the Fox News story is that we have no way of knowing who signed the anti-DOD petition, and therefore how much of a hit Microsoft will take if they all decide to check out. It’s probably also relevant to consider that the company has 135,000 total employees worldwide which likely makes 150 unhappy drama queens a rounding error in the overall scheme of things.
Something else to consider is that HoloLens already exists; the engineering heavy lifting has apparently already been done. Even if all 150 petition signers were working on HoloLens, it’s not like they can take it back. That horse has already left the barn.
For a half billion dollar contract I’m sure that Microsoft can find someone to fill their shoes relatively quickly.
Yeah. Here’s the thing: if you can force a Christian baker to bake a cake contrary to his beliefs, then you can be forced to make programs for the gov, contrary to your beliefs. You don’t like it? Find another job.
Reagan fired the Aircraft Controllers.
I know that government versus private is a little different, but the same principles apply.
Go work at Starbucks, Bitches…
Just tell them on their way out that McDonald’s is ALWAYS HIRING!!
And they wonder why China is so busy.
Come on, a few people ‘demand’ that MicroSloth not produce something. I’d say take the $480M out of their paychecks, and not produce it in CA.
Next move to another state, open a new plant and hire AMERICANS to work there and do their assigned jobs.
Sniveling like those CA employees are doing, believe me they’d be walking down the dusty road if they worked for me.
The COMPANY that prints their checks is the rule, not the exception, just fire the people, they did sign a petition, using it to come right down the line. Michael Dell would do that, he’d drop you in a heartbeat, and maybe the entire dpt, and re-staff it with new people, while you are on the street scratching your head and ass wondering what happened.
The thing is did Microsoft win the contract based on technology or price? If it was price, I am sure DA has no qualms reassigning the contract (and future ones) to a mainstream defense contractor for a few more bucks.
Not a Silicon Valley speak interpreter but, Redmond speak is pretty easy to interpret. If you read their
statement at the very end of the news article, things are in motion or will be @ 0800hrs (PT) today for those temp employees. Full time employees @ Microsoft are way up the ladder. Too many shareholders, Gates will have directed Smith replace those unwilling to work on a project, for-with.
Fuck the little snowflakes! If you don’t want to make really cool shit to kill people, then go kick rocks and go work at Starbucks! Suck my asshole you little sniveling bitches! The King of THE WOT has spoken!!
So let it be written! So let it be done!
*Genuflecting
Sorry, doesn’t work like that. As an employee of a company you are directed to work on a project, you work on it. If you don’t want to work on it, transfer to another business unit. You have NO SAY in what the company does. If you are good at your job, you can move around. You DO NOT tell the company what they can and cannot do. PERIOD.
I am sure that these 150 employees have been called in for “Counselling”. Probably with the words, if you don’t like it here, I am sure that you can find employment elsewhere. Microsoft is a Great Gig and not one to be thrown away. My friend and his wife both work for them and love it.
I worked for a Financial Services company and some protestors were saying we were helping some country do Human Rights violation, Blah, Blah, Blah. A few employees agreed and joined the protests. When they tried to come back in the building their badges didn’t work, their personal effects were handed to them by security and were told that they were terminated. Get Woke, Go Broke. Hope your Ethics can pay the mortgage.
Shut up, do your job or find another one. As I was once told, you engineers are a dime a dozen, now get back to work. Words to live by
Might want to check them and see how many trade secret items related to this project they’ve conveyed to China……..
One of the problems with the attitude of these employees is that it’s unrealistic to think the rest of the world is sitting around trying to decide how to get us all to hold hands and sing Kumbaya….
With some of my old school Latin still firmly embedded in my memory I am reminded of this famous phrase: Si vis pacem, para bellum
Or, if you want peace prepare for war.
There’s a popular quote going round these days that also hits the right message;
“You teach me fighting and tactics yet you talk of peace. How do you reconcile this divergence?”
“It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in war”
ironic, i just finished up playing 2 different war games (COD & PUBG) on an X-Box before coming here to see what was new. i wonder if it will go as far as demanding that they only make games where unicorns shoot rainbows out of their butts and you have to catch them, I am sure Sony & Nintendo would be very happy if they did…
I guess the point that our enemies are only kept in check and our people can only be kept safe by developing military technology is lost on these employees.
I’d wager the schools they went to are the ones that stopped making the study of history mandatory.
Fire them and then hire employees that will do what the boss told them to do. Wifey and I bought components for Apache Helicopters. She did not like buying military parts but she did what the boss told her to do. Worked there for 16 years and then went to another company that did the same thing.