During a recent company-wide town hall meeting, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has spoken out about the company’s recent large-scale layoffs, explaining the rationale behind the decision to cut approximately 6,000 jobs — roughly 3 percent of its total global workforce.
Nadella addressed the recent layoffs, clarifying that the decision was not based on individual job performance. “This is a structural change, not a reflection of how people were performing,” Nadella explained. He emphasized that Microsoft is shifting its strategic focus, with a renewed emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), which the company views as a key driver of its long-term vision and growth.
At the same event, Microsoft Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada spoke directly to developers and addressed the broader conversation around computer science education. She expressed strong opposition to the idea that learning to code is no longer relevant, stating that she “completely disagrees” with the belief that coding is obsolete or that studying computer science lacks value.
The technology giant has revealed its intention to invest close to $80 billion this fiscal year in building out its artificial intelligence infrastructure. Alongside this, the company is rapidly expanding the deployment of its Copilot AI assistants across a wide range of customer groups.
The recent wave of layoffs, which saw around 6,000 jobs cut worldwide, hit product development and engineering teams particularly hard—underscoring the profound transformation even foundational tech roles are undergoing in the age of AI.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has terminated the employment of Joe Lopez, a firmware engineer who previously worked in the Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) division, following a disruption during CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote at the Microsoft Build 2025 conference last week.
