„Let him sit in the middle of this stupid office.” Microsoft CEO wants everyone to work in open space, not remotely

The CEO of AI at Microsoft is Mustafa Suleyman, and he's a big fan of working in the office because he believes it really helps build strong connections between team members. Therefore, he requires much more frequent in-person attendance compared to other departments at Microsoft. His opinion is not popular among people, who consider his view to be counterproductive.

Microsoft's CEO under fire for his opinion on working in open space

According to Business Insider, Mustafa Suleyman wants people to be in the office more often than what's usual at Microsoft: four days a week in person. If someone wants to work remotely more than that, they need to get approval from someone directly under the CEO. Suleyman believes this positively impacts the company's work:

Suleyman's solutions are so extreme that employees don't even sit at standard, partially enclosed workstations. Instead, they have open desks set up close to each other to create the mentioned buzz.

This approach to work organization and atmosphere is, according to internet users, the opposite of fostering effective collaboration. Besides some harsh words telling Suleyman to sit in the middle of his open space himself, there were also points made about why working in an office often doesn't make much sense:

Microsoft is getting their employees back to the office, which the company announced some time ago. However, the policies offer more flexibility than Mustafa Suleyman suggests. We'll see if the CEO's strategies are working once we check out how AI development is going at Microsoft. Recently, when Copilot was introduced to Excel, it turned out that the bot struggled with functions essential for spreadsheets.

• Microsoft
• tech