Microsoft fired Nadella to face Nadella at its 50th anniversary meeting; who is Vaniya Agrawal?
Microsoft has fired two employees, including Indian-American Vaniya Agrawal, to disrupt events celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary.
Ibtihal Aboussad called on Microsoft to stop working with the Israeli government on Friday, interrupting a speech by Mustafa Suleyman, the company’s AI head. Vaniya Agrawal later had a Q&A session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
Following the incident, two employees were asked to leave their Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Agrawal resigns Microsoft as “digital weapons maker”
Shortly after the protest, Agrawal sent an email to the company-wide resignation, resigning from April 11.
She noted that there were reports that Microsoft Azure and AI technologies were used in Israel’s military operations and surveillance, adding: “Our work is exacerbating this genocide.”
Agrawal called Microsoft a “digital weapon maker” and accused the company of violating its human rights commitments. “Microsoft leaders must evacuate from Israel and stop selling deadly technology to power segregation and genocide,” she wrote.
She summed up her resignation letter, encouraging colleagues to use their positions to challenge Microsoft’s policies: “If you have to continue working at Microsoft, I urge you to use your position, power and privileges to hold Microsoft accountable for its own values and tasks.”
Microsoft accepts resignation, “effective immediately”
But, Microsoft told her on Monday that it immediately accepted her resignation.
Meanwhile, according to an email reviewed by Bloomberg, the company told Aboussad that her work had been terminated for “misconduct” due to “misconduct.”
The company did not comment immediately.
Who is Vaniya Agrawal?
According to her LinkedIn profile, Agrawal received a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering from Arizona State University in 2016-19 and graduated with honors.
She is one of only 35 students to receive the Grace Hopper Scholarship at ASU, which allowed her to attend the 2017 Grace Hopper Conference.
Before starting her career in the field of software engineering, she worked as a TEA consultant and social media manager at Adagio Teas in 2015. From March 2016 to December 2017, she also worked as a medical assistant and receptionist at True Health Medical Center.
How did two employees protest at the event?
“Mustafa is ashamed of you,” Absad told Suleiman in some way. “You claim that you care about using AI forever, but Microsoft sold AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people died.”
Suleiman replied: “Thank you for your protest. I hear you.”
Microsoft told Aboussad in its termination notice that the allegations were “hostile, unreasonable and highly inappropriate.”
They told Bloomberg last week that both employees worked as software engineers. They are affiliated with apartheid Azure, a group that protests Microsoft’s sale of the Israeli military to the Israeli military during the Gaza War. They said the pair lost access to their company email and chat accounts shortly after Friday’s protests.
