Very new ex-MSFT here. I couldn’t relate more with your friend. That’s exactly what happened. I left Microsoft about 5 weeks ago and it’s been really hard to detox from that culture.

AI pushed down everywhere. Sometimes shitty-AI that needed to be proved at all cost because it should live up to the hype.

I was in one of such AI-orgs and even there several teams felt the pressure from SLT and a culture drift to a dysfunctional environment.

Such pressure to use AI at all costs, as other fellows from Google mentioned, has been a secret ingredient to a bitter burnout. I’m going to therapy and under medication now to recover from it.