Get your Backpacks Ready – But not for Back to School Season.

I was at an alumni event in Irvine, and someone I was in the trenches with was like, “Hey, nice backpack.” And then we both started laughing.

The best part about working at Microsoft (besides the constant legal settlement checks that arrive in the mail) was this one time when they gave out backpacks before cutting something like 10,000 people in layoffs. Sometimes I just laugh completely out loud like I’m watching an episode of the TV show The Office. If Michael Scott got everyone backpacks and then announced layoffs—you can’t write better comedy.

It’s not a surprise to me that Microsoft is a shell of what it once was, and exists more like a poorly operated holding company than something on the cutting edge of technology. Don’t believe me? Remember Nuance? Here’s the article on the $19.2B (yes, with a ‘B’) acquisition of a business that now a Raspberry Pi with an AI hat can do: https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-is-acquiring-nuance-communications-for-19-7b/

They have continued to cut staff aggressively—not because “of” AI—but because they are over-leveraged from being heavily invested in the “worst but first” AI platform (ChatGPT) that is now also allegedly asking the U.S. government for a bailout in the form of an “equity sale,” which would really benefit its investor: Microsoft.

Sam Altman’s first business artificially inflated user counts—he lied. He got a job at Y Combinator, but reports from his own employees, peers, and people who sit on his board, over and over again, claim stories of his incompetence. And it’s not a surprise that we see people like Leopold Aschenbrenner come flying out of the dark just to burn when the light switch gets flicked to “on.”

No one ever watches The Office and thinks, “Wow, Michael Scott! What a smart guy.” You aren’t supposed to. But it’s also a TV show. The hard part about real life is that we put trust in people that we ‘think’ are smart. And we could find out we’re wrong – But it’s happened before.

With some reports circulating now stating that some tech companies are holding “off-book debt” (read: Enron), we’re dangerously veering close to a cliff where being “over-leveraged” is about to become a household term.

You—yes, you—whoever you are reading this: Embrace your punk rock Mindset. Take your leather jacket out of the closet. Stop blindly trusting your boss, superiors, authority- Whoever – use your gut. And if you get a backpack for a holiday gift, keep your walking shoes handy.