On Tuesday, we published an article about an internal Microsoft strategy document that explained the company wanted to \u201cmake people addicted\u201d to its new AI assistant, Scout. Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told staff that he was \u201cnot sure what this document is or who is writing and leaking this nonsense,\u201d according to a message obtained by The Information.\u00a0The document we reported on was not some random document. As we wrote at the time, the strategy document was written by Microsoft executives Omar Shahine, Jakob Werner, and some sort of AI writing tool. This information is in our original article and is readily available to Nadella. We wrote: \u201cThe document seen by 404 Media lists Shahine and another executive, Jakob Werner, as its authors. The document itself, however, notes that it was \u2018co-created turn-by-turn with AI. Human verified every sentence.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Shahine is the leader of Microsoft\u2019s Scout project, as he has written numerous times on his own blog, on his LinkedIn, and on Microsoft\u2019s own announcement of the software. In attempting to distance himself from his own company\u2019s executives and strategy documents, Nadella has revealed that he either does not know how to read or does not know what is happening with some of the company\u2019s highest-profile products.\u00a0Phase one of the company\u2019s launch plan for Scout, which was previously called ClawPilot internally, was to \u201cmake people addicted. Continue shipping the standalone ClawPilot experience. Pilot the UX, grow the user base, and build the skill and tool ecosystem that makes people depend on it daily. This is already happening organically.\u201dIn Nadella\u2019s message to staff reported by The Information Thursday, he wrote \u201cthis is absolutely a non goal! If anything we are doing the exact opposite. We want to make sure AI empowers and adds real value to human endeavor and broad economic growth! We should make sure that our teams are clear about this. Not sure what this document is or who is writing and leaking this nonsense! They may want to go work elsewhere\u2026..\u201d Nadella then linked to an aggregation of our article published by Futurism.As mentioned, the document was written by Shahine. Shahine is not some random Microsoft employee, he is the person who imagined, pitched, and brought Scout to fruition, as he has tirelessly documented over and over and over again in many, many LinkedIn posts and on his personal blog. His job title is \u201cCorporate Vice President of Microsoft Scout,\u201d and he is the person who announced the product on Microsoft\u2019s official blog. His biography on Microsoft\u2019s website is \u201cOmar Shahine is a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft where he leads Microsoft Scout.\u201d Again, Shahine\u2019s name is listed as the author at the top of the document we reported on.Nadella\u2019s message and a statement given by Microsoft to The Information by a spokesperson\u00a0 are instructive in showing in the ways that big tech deals with journalists who deign to write articles that the companies would rather not exist. A Microsoft spokesperson told The Information Scout is for \u201chelping people accomplish tasks more effectively\u2014not encouraging dependency. Our goal isn\u2019t more screen time. It\u2019s more time back.\u201d Microsoft did not say this to us; Microsoft said nothing to us.Before we published this article, as we do with almost every article that mentions any company, we reached out to Microsoft for comment. We specifically said that we were writing an article about the \u201cmake people addicted\u201d language and asked for comment, context, and more information about that language. Microsoft did not answer our questions, ignored the fact that we asked about \u201caddiction,\u201d and simply sent us a link to its public announcement for Scout. The company then attacked our report internally and externally to another media outlet.\u00a0If Nadella is Looking For the Guy Who Did This, maybe he should read the documents his own company produces, or ask the guy who made it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"