Microsoft

Microsoft   (Big Tech, Company)
Formation	1975
Founder	•  Bill Gates •  Paul Allen
Headquarters	Microsoft Redmond campus, Redmond, Washington, U.S.
Subgroups	List of Microsoft subsidiaries
Staff	118,584
Interests	Mass surveillance, computers, internet, Platformization
Interest of	BlackRock, Dominique Nora
Owner of	Bing
Member of	Atlantic Council/Corporate Members, Business for Inclusive Growth, Centre for European Policy Studies/Corporate Members, Council on Foreign Relations/Corporate Members, Friends of Europe, Highlands Forum, Transatlantic Policy Network, WEF/Strategic Partners
Sponsor of	Center for Global Development, Center for American Progress, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, European Forum Alpbach, University of Sydney/United States Studies Centre
Subpage	•Microsoft/CEO
Started in 1975 with Paul Allen, Bill Gates developed Microsoft from a operating system maker of computers into one of the most prolific companies of all time, valued over $1 trillion, 3rd most valuable in the world. MS has over a billion in fines from corruption, mass surveillance violations & tax evasion. MS has market shares in dozens of markets, leading in the Platformization-epidemic of the 2010s started by big tech. It was the first partner in the NSA-PRISM program.

Microsoft is a software company founded by WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow/1993 members Bill Gates and Paul Allen, which has dominated the personal computer market for decades. A ruling in an antitrust law case decided to break-up the company, which was overturned on appeal.

Windows

The Monopoly of Microsoft - 2015 - National Geographic

Microsoft's flagship product is the operating system Windows, which runs on the majority of personal computers worldwide. Since early versions of the Windows operating system, Microsoft was accused of making their product more computing intensive than necessary to match new Intel processors in a "process of perpetual upgrades", as a "way of rubbing Intel's back so that Intel will give Microsoft preferential treatment". Windows made Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, one of the richest persons alive. Microsoft grew into a multi-billion dollar payer of fines for questionable business policies. Gates was called a "Napoleon", "unethical" and a "drug trafficker" repeatedly caught as a result of telephone wiretaps by the court of Washington D.C in a anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft.

Windows 10

Full article: Windows

After the Edward Snowden Affair, Microsoft and other tech companies appear to have become more brazen about data collection. Windows 10 contains in its Terms & Conditions the admission that “Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage.”

Compaq legal battle

Microsoft threatened to cut off Compaq Computer's access to Windows 95 in 1997, because Compaq wanted to put the Netscape's browser icon on the desktop its Presario model rather than the Internet Explorer icon.

Mass surveillance

Full article: Mass surveillance

Windows has been suspected of cooperating with the deep state at least as far back as the August 1999 discovery of _NSAKey, although Microsoft denied it at the time, stating that "The key in question is a Microsoft key. It is maintained and safeguarded by Microsoft, and we have not shared this key with the NSA or any other party."

OpenAI

ChatGPT creator OpenAI, came under scrutiny in November 2023 when its board abruptly fired Sam Altman as CEO and re-hired him and a new board.

What is going on at Open AI and why was Sam Altman fired? Let's look at the timeline of events and possible theories about the leadership change. - Fireship

“Following Altman's ouster, Microsoft swooped in to hire him along with OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman — who quit OpenAI in protest over Altman's termination — to lead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft, and also offered to hire any other OpenAI employees who wanted to leave.

Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI as CEO after his ousting last week, and three board members that participated in his termination have been removed. At that point, Microsoft, already majority owner in OpenAI, was positioned to essentially "acquire" OpenAI by absorbing its talent, after nearly all the startup's 770 or so workers signed a letter saying they would take Microsoft up on the offer unless Altman was reinstated.

However, a deal was ultimately reached for Altman to return to OpenAI rather than allowing the $90 billion company to collapse, in what Fortune tech reporter David Meyer wrote is an outcome that "is pretty ideal for Microsoft."”
Breck Dumas (2023) 

In November 2024, Suchir Balaji, 26, a former OpenAI researcher known for whistleblowing on the company, was found dead inside his apartment. The medical examiner's office determined the manner of death to be suicide and police officials said there was "currently, no evidence of foul play." Balaji's death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing ChatGPT.

an OpenAI wistleblower

XBox

Microsoft contractors have admitted to listening to users of XBoxes they "said that recordings were sometimes triggered and recorded by mistake".

Censorship

Microsoft clandestinely installed the NewsGuard app into the mobile version of the Edge web browsers to help users in assessing the trustworthiness of news.

"Hate Speech"

On May 31, 2016, Microsoft agreed with Facebook, Google and Twitter to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours.

External links

• Coverage of the Microsoft antitrust trial up to April 2000 - The Register

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Sam Altman	“Both publicly and internally, leaders at Microsoft are cheering OpenAI's apparent return to normalcy following days of chaos. The ChatGPT creator, in which Microsoft has reportedly invested some $13 billion, has been on a roller-coaster ride that began Friday when its board abruptly fired Sam Altman as CEO and ended with his return and the appointment of a new board early Wednesday. Following Altman's ouster, Microsoft swooped in to hire him along with OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman — who quit OpenAI in protest over Altman's termination — to lead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft, and also offered to hire any other OpenAI employees who wanted to leave. Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI as CEO after his ousting last week, and three board members that participated in his termination have been removed. At that point, Microsoft, already majority owner in OpenAI, was positioned to essentially "acquire" OpenAI by absorbing its talent, after nearly all the startup's 770 or so workers signed a letter saying they would take Microsoft up on the offer unless Altman was reinstated. However, a deal was ultimately reached for Altman to return to OpenAI rather than allowing the $90 billion company to collapse, in what Fortune tech reporter David Meyer wrote is an outcome that "is pretty ideal for Microsoft."”	Fox News Sam Altman Breck Dumas	2023
Big Tech	“So one of the things that these five companies have done kind of masterfully is create these platforms that startups have to use to get to customers. So they all own these cloud-storage services. So Amazon is an example. If you want to store your media online - so, for example, all the movies that you watch on Netflix are actually stored on Amazon servers - so every time you use Netflix, Netflix is kind of paying Amazon for that kind of storage. Yeah. It's surprising, first of all, because they're such different companies. You wouldn't really know - you wouldn't really think that they would have that kind of connection. And then they're also competitors. Netflix makes original TV shows and so does Amazon. And so, you know, in this way, Netflix has this dependence on one of its competitors. There are lots of different examples of this though. There - you know, all app makers have to put their apps in the Apple app store or the Google app store. And when they sell in those apps, 30 percent of that money goes to Apple or Google. They all have to advertise on Facebook or Google to get customers because that's become the way to advertise on digital platforms. And so any new app - Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, all the other sort of smaller companies online - have to go through these five to get to their customers. And what ends up happening is that other companies succeed, but always these five benefit off of that success.”	Farhad Manjoo	26 October 2017
Elon Musk	“Despite having perhaps the greatest entrepreneurial streak of all the PayPal Mafia, Musk was purged from PayPal like some kind of toxin. Soon after the merger, Thiel resigned. Musk became CEO of the combined company and decided it was time for a technological overhaul. Specifically, he wanted to toss out Unix and put everything on a Microsoft (MSFT) platform. That may sound innocent enough to laypeople but not to Unix zealots like Levchin and his team. A holy war ensued. Musk lost. The board fired him and brought back Thiel while Musk was on a flight to Australia for his first vacation in years. “That’s the problem with vacations,” Musk deadpans. Musk still contends he didn’t deserve his fate, that his biggest flaw was being cut from different cloth. “Peter, Max, and I are not directly aligned philosophically,” he says. “Peter’s philosophy is pretty odd. It’s not normal. He’s a contrarian from an investing standpoint and thinks a lot about the singularity. I’m much less excited about that. I’m pro-human.””	Elon Musk Fortune	2007
Platformization	“So one of the things that these five companies have done kind of masterfully is create these platforms that startups have to use to get to customers. So they all own these cloud-storage services. So Amazon is an example. If you want to store your media online - so, for example, all the movies that you watch on Netflix are actually stored on Amazon servers - so every time you use Netflix, Netflix is kind of paying Amazon for that kind of storage. Yeah. It's surprising, first of all, because they're such different companies. You wouldn't really know - you wouldn't really think that they would have that kind of connection. And then they're also competitors. Netflix makes original TV shows and so does Amazon. And so, you know, in this way, Netflix has this dependence on one of its competitors. There are lots of different examples of this though. There - you know, all app makers have to put their apps in the Apple app store or the Google app store. And when they sell in those apps, 30 percent of that money goes to Apple or Google. They all have to advertise on Facebook or Google to get customers because that's become the way to advertise on digital platforms. And so any new app - Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, all the other sort of smaller companies online - have to go through these five to get to their customers. And what ends up happening is that other companies succeed, but always these five benefit off of that success.”	Farhad Manjoo	26 October 2017

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
Süreyya Ciliv	CEO of Microsoft Turkey	1997	2000	With Microsoft until 2007. Attended Bilderberg/2011
Julie Inman Grant	Federal Government Affairs Manager	November 1995	July 2000
Julie Inman Grant	Head of Corporate Affairs Australia and New Zealand	August 2000	December 2004
Julie Inman Grant	Director of Internet Safety and Security	January 2005	July 2009
Peter Lee (Bilderberger)	Corporate Vice President and head of Microsoft Research	September 2010		Attended Bilderberg/2024
Christopher Liddell	CFO	2005	December 2009
Craig Mundie	Executive	1992	2014	Bilderberg Steering committee
Kevin Scott	Chief technology officer	January 2017		Attended Bilderberg/2022
Aaron Weisburd	Director Threat Context	July 2022

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