microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleiman has uniquely strict internal expectations for how employees work in the office.
Mr. Suleiman requires his employees to work in the office beyond the company’s standards and generally favors open floor plans, a polarizing concept at Microsoft and in engineering generally.
“I’m a big believer in an in-person work culture,” Suleiman told Business Insider. “We have tried to de-fragment and focus our culture.”
Microsoft recently announced new return-to-office mandates that will require most employees to work in the office at least three days a week starting January 26th.
By contrast, Mr. Suleiman requires employees who live near his office to work at least four days a week, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider. All exceptions must be approved by executives reporting directly to Suleiman.
Suleiman told Business Insider he doesn’t like traditional offices with doors that employees can keep closed. One of his office environments, he said, has a “neighborhood area” with 20 to 30 open desks placed relatively close together.
“It’s much better for collaboration,” Suleiman said. “Everyone can see everyone else there. You can feel the vibrancy, like there’s a real heat in the place, and it creates a lot more, like informal collaboration. It’s so much better.”
AI executives also tend to hang out in Silicon Valley. Suleiman splits his time between Silicon Valley and Seattle, but said he is based at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters while most of his team is in Silicon Valley.
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“We have a very high talent density here,” he added. “That’s where it’s supposed to be.”
Microsoft leaves RTO and office layout decisions up to individual organizations or teams. For example, the company’s corporate, external and legal teams have been working in the office at least four days a week for about a year.
Other teams working on AI have less strict guidelines. Executive Scott Guthrie’s Cloud + AI organization does not have organization-specific return-to-office guidelines or considerations. Jay Parikh’s Core AI group plans to apply a three-day week policy to all offices except GitHub in February, according to a document seen by Business Insider.
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