• When our first child was born, we decided I would stay home, caring for our baby.
• I had a thriving career, but my pay was low, and childcare was expensive.
• I love being a mom, but staying at home made me miserable.

When I became pregnant with my first child, my husband and I made the difficult yet practical decision for me to stay home.

Even though I had a thriving career in higher ed, my income was low, childcare was expensive, and travel (a requirement of my job) wouldn't be feasible anymore — or at least for years to come.

With a few cuts to our household budget, it just made sense for me to stay home. Besides, motherhood would be the most rewarding experience of my life, right?

I was lonelier than ever

When our first baby was born, I was so in love with him and elated to finally have what I wanted most: to be a mom. In those first weeks, I felt strongly that I would love my new role as a stay-at-home mom and couldn't imagine going back to work. However, after my husband's paternity leave ended and he returned to work, I was home alone with the baby, and reality set in.

I was sleep deprived, exhausted from exclusively nursing, and lonelier than I had ever been. I was jealous of my friends who were still working and could get away to do something other than care for a baby. Desperate for connection, I joined several baby and me classes through my local parks and rec, hoping to make a few friends navigating the same challenges.

The moms I met were kind, but our conversations revolved around our children's sleeping and eating schedules and how we were dealing with our toddlers' tantrums. Somewhere along the way, my interests and identity faded away. I needed more intellectual stimulation, I wanted to do more to connect with the community, and I wanted to use my talents outside of the home.

Staying home wasn't for me

As months turned into years, I felt increasingly isolated. I hired a babysitter once a week in the afternoon so I could escape the monotony of child rearing. One of these afternoons, I remember going to the movies alone and sobbing through "La La Land," not because of the storyline but because it reminded me of what it felt like to be alive and have a sense of self outside motherhood.

When I finally summoned the courage to talk to my stay-at-home-mom friends about my feelings, it felt as if I was violating an unspoken rule. Shouldn't I be grateful for this opportunity to bond with my child without the stress of a career? Wasn't it a privilege to be there for all of my child's milestones?

In fact, I knew how blessed I was to be able to stay home with my children, but I still felt so depressed. Five years of staying home and two babies later, it wasn't until I returned to work with a purpose outside the home that I truly felt like myself again.

I truly love being a mom, but I recognize that staying at home is not my strength. Working outside of the home in the community makes me a better mom, more present, patient, and fulfilled.

Stay-at-home motherhood isn't for everyone, and that's OK. We need to allow mothers to speak honestly about the complexities of raising children, including the very real feelings of isolation, loss of identity, and emotional debility that often come with motherhood.

• BYD sold more electric cars than Tesla in Europe for the first time in April.
• Sales of the Chinese brand jumped as Tesla grapples with backlash over Elon Musk's politics.
• Tesla's European sales have collapsed this year, despite Musk insisting it doesn't have a demand problem.

BYD just scored a major win against Tesla in one of its biggest markets.

The Chinese electric vehicle giant outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time last month, as Elon Musk's automaker saw its sales collapse amid furious backlash over its CEO's politics.

BYD sold 7,230 battery-electric vehicles in April, compared to 7,165 for Tesla, according to JATO Dynamics data.

It's a major milestone for the Chinese brand, and suggests BYD has taken advantage of Tesla's alarming decline in Europe.

ƒNew Tesla registrations dropped nearly 50% in April compared to the same month last year, while BYD sales surged 169% over the same period, per JATO Dynamics data.

BYD outsold Tesla without even taking hybrid sales into account. The Chinese carmaker sold 12,525 vehicles last month, meaning its total sales comfortably outstripped Tesla, which only sells battery-powered EVs.

Tesla has taken a battering this year in Europe, its third-largest market after the US and China. The automaker's European sales were down 30% in the first three months of 2025, according to JATO Dynamics, despite EV sales rising overall.

The automaker has faced a wave of backlash over CEO Musk's role in the Trump administration and endorsement of German far-right party AfD.

In an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk denied Tesla was facing a sales slump. That was despite Tesla reporting its weakest quarter for deliveries since 2022 last month as it retooled factories for the launch of its updated Model Y.

"Europe is our weakest market. We're strong everywhere else. Sales are doing well at this point, we don't anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall," said Musk.

By contrast, BYD is racing to launch new models as it seeks to capitalize on its explosive growth in Europe.

The Chinese brand unveiled the Dolphin Surf, the European version of its cheap Seagull EV, on Wednesday.

The compact hatchback will go on sale in 15 European markets in June, with prices starting at 23,000 euros ($26,000) — about $19,000 less than Tesla's cheapest model.

Having crushed Tesla in China, BYD is eyeing aggressive expansion overseas. The EV giant sold 79,000 vehicles outside China last month, nearly double the total in April 2024.

• The nation's disaster response agency has been hit by staffing cuts and leadership changes.
• The new acting chief, David Richardson, told staffers FEMA is ready for hurricane season.
• Several employees told BI that morale is low, as evidenced by some of the reactions to Richardson's town hall.

A week into his appointment, FEMA's new acting chief, David Richardson, held his first town hall for the agency's employees.

His May 15 remarks outlined a planned overhaul of the nation's disaster response operations dubbed "FEMA 2.0," tried to reassure staff that the agency is "to a great degree ready" for the 2025 "disaster season," and made clear he plans to carry out President Donald Trump's agenda.

His speech and answers to employee questions also included several folksy talking points: He used fruits as an example to describe how the agency's responsibilities are structured, made reference to his girlfriend's big red hair, and said he hadn't realized how big Texas is.

If his presentation, which was livestreamed and played on televisions at the embattled agency's headquarters, was meant to improve morale and boost confidence among the rank and file, it may have fallen short.

Two veteran staffers told Business Insider that they saw at least a dozen employees openly mocking Richardson — laughing while he was talking, jeering at the screen, and later circulating memes about him.

Like other federal employees, FEMA workers have been rattled by the Trump administration's staff cutbacks. Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have called for the agency's eventual elimination.

At the beginning of May, FEMA's acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, lost his job after telling Congress that he thought the agency should continue. His departure paved the way for Richardson to bounce over from Homeland Security's Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office to run the agency.

An emergency agency in flux

These big changes come during a critical period for FEMA. Tornadoes in Kentucky and Missouri left 28 people dead last week. Hurricane season on the Atlantic coast, a six-month sprint of emergencies for the agency, begins in June.

Several FEMA employees who are tasked with helping states prepare for and respond to emergencies ranging from earthquakes to wildfires and beyond told Business Insider they're worried about whether they'll have the resources and support to provide life-saving aid to states when crisis strikes.

The agency is pushing back on criticism.

"Under Secretary Noem and Acting Administrator Richardson, FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens," a spokesperson for FEMA told Business Insider. "The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades."

Oranges, plantains, and fruit bowl memes

Richardson, a Marine veteran who attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, introduced himself to some of his staff a day after his appointment with bold words, saying he would not tolerate those who resist reforms — a group he estimated would be about 20% of employees based on his past experience.

"Obfuscation, delay, undermining. If you're one of those 20% of people and you think those tactics and techniques are going to help you, they will not, because I will run right over you," Richardson said at the May 9 meeting, according to Reuters. "Don't get in my way... I know all the tricks."

The town hall for all employees came almost a week later. According to a transcript based on leaked audio published by the independent news outlet Drop Site News, Richardson focused largely on conducting a "mission analysis" of FEMA's operations and aligning with Trump. (Two current FEMA staffers confirmed to Business Insider that the Drop Site News transcription of the meeting was accurate.)

In his introduction, before taking questions from staff, Richardson said that FEMA has between 150 and 175 statutorily obligated tasks to conduct, and each one of those specified tasks "can be binned into categories," he said.

"And by bin them, I mean some of those, some of those tasks will be kind of orange-like tasks — and by orange, I mean the fruit orange, but they might be tangerines, they might be blood oranges, it just might be maybe a little bit of grapefruit," Richardson said. "All those will go in one bin."

A FEMA staff member told Business Insider that some staffers watching the livestream began laughing during the remarks about fruit.

Shortly after the meeting concluded, a meme of Richardson's face, looking surprised, and with a basket of fruit on his head, began circulating among FEMA employees. The meme, shared with Business Insider by a staffer, was styled to look like the "Shrek 2" movie poster, with the title "FEMA 2" in green letters with ogre ears. Another meme seen by Business Insider, which was styled as a bingo card for people listening to Richardson's remarks, included a bowl of fruit as one of its spaces.

'Texas is huge!'

During the Q-and-A part of the session, a staff member asked about the plan for this hurricane season, whether the agency is appropriately staffed for emergency response, and the timeline for training staff to respond. Richardson said the agency is in a "transition period."

The process, he said, is "not going to look entirely different of how we did in 2024, but it's not necessarily going to look like how we're going to do it in 2026."

He added that FEMA would begin creating a road map for states to do the bulk of their own emergency response going forward, sharing as much as 50% of costs with the federal government.

A FEMA spokesperson declined to comment on what costs individual states would be responsible for in an emergency and what support the federal government could be expected to provide.

Richardson said he hoped to model future responses after states with good emergency preparedness, using Texas and Florida as examples.

"Some states are pretty good at this," Richardson said, referring to emergency response. "The other day I was chatting with my girlfriend — she's from Texas, she's got like, huge red hair, like she's from Texas."

He continued: "I said, how come it takes so long to drive 10 hours from Galveston to Amarillo? And she said, 'Well, you know, Texas is bigger than Spain.' I didn't know that. So I looked at the map. Texas is huge! I mean, if you put it in the middle of Europe, it takes up most of Europe up. However, they do disaster recovery very, very well, and so does Florida."

One FEMA employee told Business Insider that by the time Richardson mentioned his girlfriend, more than a dozen members of the livestream audience watching from their office had begun jeering loudly at the screen. Some staff members began walking around the office waving pencils in the air, referencing the way Richardson had fidgeted with a writing utensil while speaking, the employee said.

"I've never seen people so mocking of an agency head," the employee said.

It's unclear exactly how much of FEMA's staff has been cut since Trump took office; the most recent estimates from CNN put the total reduction of force at about 20% of FEMA's permanent full-time staff, or about 1,000 workers.

The US Government Accountability Office reported in 2023 that FEMA had an overall staffing gap of approximately 35%, equating to 6,200 employees, which had "affected its ability to achieve its mission."

A FEMA spokesperson told Business Insider that, "under Secretary Noem's leadership, and the efforts of Acting Administrator Richardson, FEMA is fully activated in preparation for Hurricane Season."

The Trump administration has not made a public statement about a permanent nominee to lead FEMA.

The spokesperson added that "complaints about morale, training, and planning come from the same internal class that resisted accountability for decades. This is just another example of a long line of internal leaks from people who clearly couldn't care less about Americans facing disaster and prefer to manufacture petty drama for their own self-aggrandizement."

In the town hall meeting, Richardson said his plan for the agency is to follow "the president's intent," which he described as limiting FEMA's activities to its "mission essential tasks."

"Those of us still remaining were either too committed to go anywhere, not eligible to take the resignation options, or so committed to the mission we do not care what he does," one FEMA staff member said.

• Target said reactions to its DEI moves adversely impacted first-quarter sales.
• Protesters say they're not satisfied with the company's response so far.
• Additional protests are planned for May 25, the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

Target is having little success in convincing shoppers of its stance on DEI.

CEO Brian Cornell said Wednesday that public response to changes to its DEI programs — now known as "Belonging" — adversely impacted first-quarter sales, although an exact amount was not quantifiable.

"We faced several additional headwinds this quarter, including five consecutive months of declining consumer confidence, uncertainty regarding the impact of potential tariffs, and the reaction to the updates we shared on Belonging in January," he said.

The financial results follow weeks of declining foot traffic and sales, punctuated by seasonal holiday bumps during the period. But shifting positions on DEI issues don't appear to doing Target any favors, Global Data retail analyst Neil Saunders said in a note.

"The extent of this should not be overstated as many other factors are driving down Target's sales numbers, but the move has certainly not been helpful," he said.

A Target spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider that the company is "absolutely dedicated to fostering inclusivity for everyone — our team members, our guests and our supply partners."

"To do that, we're focusing on what we do best: providing the best retail experience for the more than 2,000 communities we're proud to serve," the spokesperson said.

While some supporters of DEI have claimed partial victory in their pressure campaign, leaders including pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant say they're not yet satisfied with the company's response.

Bryant said his church would hold a protest in front of an Atlanta-area Target on Sunday, May 25, to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd in Target's hometown of Minneapolis.

"We're gonna do it for nine minutes and 40 seconds as the same amount of time they applied pressure to George Floyd that led to his death," Bryant said in a video inviting other churches to join.

Target expanded several diversity initiatives in the immediate aftermath of Floyd's murder, and CEO Brian Cornell said the incident highlighted that more work was needed.

"It happened only blocks from our headquarters," Cornell told the Economic Club of Chicago a year after Floyd's death. "My first reaction watching on TV was that could have been one of my Target team members."

At the time, Target committed to spending more than $2 billion on Black-owned businesses by 2025 by purchasing goods from more than 500 Black-owned businesses and contracting with Black-owned services from marketing to construction.

"As CEOs we have to be the company's head of diversity and inclusion," Cornell told the Economic Club of Chicago. "We've got to make sure that we represent our company principles, our values, our company purpose on the issues that are important to our teams."

Four years later, Target's message on DEI is less clear.

In January, the company said it was rolling back several diversity initiatives, renaming others, and not renewing the spending and sourcing goals it set in 2021.

(Target's spokesperson told BI the announcement did not affect existing brand or supplier relationships, and that the company still recruits from a range of schools, including HBCUs.)

Target also for the first time donated $1 million to President Donald Trump's inauguration fund, filings showed, even as Trump was gearing up executive orders to strip DEI programs from federal agencies and contractors. Tech giants Google, Meta, and Uber also each donated the same amount.

In addition, the company has drastically shrunk its annual LGBTQ Pride collection in recent years, and now offers a small fraction of what it showcased a two years ago.

In a note to employees earlier this month, Cornell acknowledged that "silence from us has created uncertainty," and the executive has reportedly met with Bryant and Reverend Al Sharpton to discuss a path forward.

Beyond the protests, Saunders said Target continues to face a myriad of other challenges, including still-high tariffs on imports, growing competitive pressures from rivals, and a host of other operational difficulties.

"This year will be another soft one and Target enters it in a relatively weak position," he said.

• Kate Collins has worked on an all-female nonprofit team since starting a new job in 2024.
• In the past, she's worked in male-dominated media workplaces with rigid, then lenient, boundaries.
• Collins says that an all-female team brings both a supportive culture and blurred work-life lines.

When I walked into work last year on my birthday, there was an envelope with my name written in cursive on my desk. I was less than three months into a new job and hadn't announced my birthday. Being an introvert, a slight discomfort rose as I opened the envelope.

The discomfort dissipated as I read the personalized messages written by my colleagues. I was grateful for the simple gesture; this was the first time I received a birthday card at work. A few months later, I returned from my honeymoon to find another thoughtful card and a wedding-decorated desk.

My colleagues' acknowledgment of these milestones is proof that after a midlife pivot, I've landed somewhere good. The all-female leadership and team where I work prioritize the organization's mission by fostering a kind, encouraging atmosphere for clients and employees.

While I see the perks, I've also experienced some downsides to an all-female workplace.

I started my career in offices with boundaries

I entered the workforce during an era when professionalism stressed a clear delineation between work and personal lives. In the offices of the media companies where I worked as a photojournalist and reporter, employees refrained from divulging details of their outside lives. I welcomed these boundaries.

By the mid-2010s, successive rounds of layoffs in my industry resulted in a less diverse workplace. Management became mostly men who I remember using sports analogies, mansplaining, and all-caps emails — controlling tactics that diminished my sense of worth.

A decade later, bias issues forced the last media company I worked for to adopt policies stressing safe, inclusive workplaces. The personal became political, and the movement to normalize almost everything took hold. Before long, a workplace culture emerged where revealing intimate personal information was commonplace.

Yet there still wasn't a shift away from the male-dominated culture. Many of my female colleagues who survived layoffs exited the industry. Before long, I was planning my own exit strategy.

It was difficult to separate myself from a profession I once loved

For a few years, I worked on reinventing myself by expanding my skill set through classes and freelance work. I was eventually offered an environmental communications position. While the job didn't last, it launched me into the nonprofit sector.

I live in a region with many nonprofits. The local nonprofits I'm most familiar with are primarily led and staffed by smart women passionate about helping others. This isn't surprising, as studies concerning the differences in personality traits have found that women are more nurturing, tender-minded, and altruistic more often and to a greater extent than men — traits necessary to do lower-paid, sometimes emotionally taxing work.

When I started nonprofit work, I felt acknowledged and supported

I started my current communications manager position in early 2024. Since transitioning to nonprofit work, I've experienced how an all-female team can promote a kinder, more collaborative workplace. Have an idea for something not in your job title? Share it. Need help with a project? There are always offers to assist, even for projects requiring time outside normal schedules.

There's also the celebration of achievements. Our leader frequently shares our team and individual accomplishments publicly. She gifted us with bright yellow smiley face bells to ring when we complete a difficult project. After years without recognition of my professional achievements, it feels good to have my contributions acknowledged.

The professional respect ingrained in our office culture extends beyond job tasks. If we come in late or leave early for an appointment or emergency, we can do so without advance approval. Leadership even encourages us to take personal days when we're feeling stressed.

This kind, empathic leadership style trickles down. Recently one of my coworkers was out for a few days with the flu. Knowing she lives alone, we reached out with "get well soon" texts and offered to pick up her prescription and deliver it to her home.

There are also challenges

While working in an all-female office has been a positive change, certain aspects can be trying. There's inherent pressure to participate in optional group activities such as weekly team lunches and afternoon walks, which can be stressful for someone who cherishes alone time like me.

Recently, a mandatory retreat escalated into a cold plunge. Voiced statements about not liking cold water were countered with emails about "team building." Days before, a colleague said that she couldn't partake due to a medical issue.

In the end, a few of us watched the cold plunge through the window of a warm house. I was already nervous about an overnight cabin retreat. I wasn't fond of the planned kayaking and swimming, but I also didn't want to hurt the feelings of my colleagues planning it.

The blurring of lines between work and play can also result in unexpected workplace tension. When a new colleague joined our team recently, she misinterpreted the relaxed atmosphere as "any topic goes." While I appreciate an informal office, some of the topics she discussed made me uncomfortable. I eventually spoke up about my new colleague's crudeness, and the issue was addressed.

I question whether the easing of professional manners has veered too far off-track

I wonder if a single-sex environment contributes to this. I wonder if my colleague would've acted differently around male colleagues and if a male would've been terminated for similar behavior around female coworkers.

I'm not looking to leave my job. If I ever return to a workplace with both men and women, I'll bring what I'm learning about collaboration, kindness, and celebrating achievements with me.

Kate Collins is a writer and nonprofit communications professional. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband, stepson, and two foster dogs.

• Private equity reps are asking to meet with college seniors headed for jobs on Wall Street.
• These "coffee chats" often lead to interviews for jobs that won't start for two years.
• The May start has soon-to-be bankers on edge at a time when they should be celebrating.

Graduation season is supposed to be filled with commencement speeches, family dinners, and tearful goodbyes. Newly minted graduates headed to Wall Street, however, are finding themselves trading libations for leveraged buyout models.

Soon-to-be junior bankers told Business Insider that they have been summoned in recent weeks to introductory meetings with buyout firms and headhunters for associate jobs that won't start for two years — when their investment banking analyst programs end.

The communications reviewed by BI were for introductory meetings, often referred to as "coffee chats," and informational webinars. They came from employees and headhunters representing firms like Apollo; Hellman & Friedman; KKR; General Atlantic; Clayton, Dubilier & Rice as well as recruiting firms like Ratio Advisors, Gold Coast, CPI, and Amity. Spokespeople for these firms either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

Students said the coffee chat requests, which often precipitate more formal interviews, are taking place earlier than expected — putting them on edge about the industry's infamous recruiting frenzy, known as on-cycle recruiting.

For some, the feeling that official interviews could kick off at any moment has cast a pall over graduation season. Rather than occupying themselves with photo shoots in their caps and gowns, some finance grads are stressing over when interviews could break out.

"It's constantly monitoring your email," said an incoming first-year investment banker about the recent onslaught of meeting requests. She said she and her friends have their notifications on — "calls, texts, everything" — in order not to miss out.

The student, who hopped off the phone with BI just as her own graduation ceremony was commencing, said coffee chat meetings started hitting her inbox in early May, about four to six weeks earlier than classmates who received similar overtures last year.

"It's awful," said the student, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her future employment. "You never get a break."

On-cycle could kick off sooner than ever

Matt Ting, the founder of Peak Frameworks, which helps students prepare for Wall Street job interviews, said he's seen demand for his courses spike in the last two weeks as students gear up for on-cycle to kick off any day now.

"A lot of college grads go on a grad trip around now, which muddies things," said Ting, adding: "Some are still in school. Many firms had issues last year since it kicked off while many grads were backpacking somewhere in Asia."

The problem with the industry's on-cycle recruiting process is that no one knows when the hurricane will hit. And once it makes landfall, aspiring private-equity dealmakers are expected to drop everything to participate.

A second-year investment banker recalled getting an email around 10 p.m. when he participated in on-cycle recruiting last June. The firm's representatives asked him to interview the next morning at 8 a.m. Fortunately, he was within driving distance of the company's office. Some of his friends weren't so lucky.

"I personally felt it was too rushed, like I was taking the opportunity just because it presented itself, not because I was very calculated about it," he told BI about the experience.

The second-year banker said there is a clear distinction between coffee chats and official interviews that would signify the start of on-cycle. On-cycle recruiting, he said, only starts when a headhunter uses the word "interview" in their communication with candidates.

"The coffee chats are just an interview to get an interview," he said.

The process used to start after investment bankers got some job experience under their belts, but has been moving progressively earlier every year. Last year, the process kicked off on June 24, before many graduates had even started their jobs. The year before, it took place in July, prompting some investment banking analysts to skip out on training.

The sudden rush of coffee chat requests has students bracing for on-cycle to kick off earlier than ever this year. A college student running a college finance club said he'd heard on-cycle could begin after Harvard's graduation on May 29. An industry recruiter predicted that on-cycle recruiting might not get underway till late June, in keeping with 2024's cycle. They asked to remain anonymous to protect their relationships with prospective employers and private-equity clients.

Inside the coffee chat

Coffee chats, the step before PE firms proceed with formal interviews, may sound casual on the surface. In fact, they're a high-stakes way for recruiters to pre-screen candidates for official interviews, students told BI, so a lot is on the line.

"My advice has always been, no matter what, every coffee chat is an interview, implicitly or directly," said the second-year investment banker who participated in last year's on-cycle process.

These jobs, of which there are a coveted few, can vault early-20s professionals into the highest tier of American earners. Many tout comp prospects of more than $300,000, inclusive of salary and bonus, so the pressure for rookie masters of the universe to leave a good impression on recruiters is palpable.

A recent graduate about to start an investment banking job at a bulge bracket firm agreed. "I've had a firm tell me that I'm shortlisted," he said of his coffee chats, adding, "I've had headhunters follow up with me and say, 'Hey, by the way, this firm had great feedback on you. Let's stay close here,'" he added.

He said he moved to New York City immediately after graduation, motivated in part by the sense that he should be in a position for an early on-cycle recruiting process.

"I don't even have a couch," he confessed, so he spent his first few nights in the big city sleeping on a mattress on the floor. "Now I've got a bed frame."

"But if you want one of these jobs, you've got to play the game," he said. "And I'm just playing the game."

• Microsoft hired ex-Facebook global head of engineering Jay Parikh to lead a new AI unit called CoreAI.
• Internal memos Parikh has sent to employees reveal the unit's early ambitions and accomplishments.
• Parikh's initiatives focus on cultural shifts, operational improvements, and customer focus.

Microsoft envisions an "age of AI agents," and CEO Satya Nadella recently tapped one of Mark Zuckerberg's former top lieutenants to bring it to reality.

In January, Nadella put Jay Parikh in charge of a new AI unit called CoreAI, central to Microsoft's ambition to help developers build digital personal assistants capable of taking over tasks from human workers.

Amid Parikh's first Microsoft Build developer conference in this new role, internal memos reveal his goals for the unit, its early accomplishments, and his advice to address what he sees as problems within the company. Microsoft declined to comment.

A fresh perspective for the 'next phase of Microsoft'

Behind the scenes at Microsoft, Nadella prides himself on hiring outside talent from other big technology companies to add fresh perspective and giving them wide latitude to change how things are done, several people close to the CEO told BI.

Those reports include Charlie Bell, who helped build Amazon's cloud from its earliest days before defecting to Microsoft to become its security boss, and AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, an ex-Google executive who joined the company from AI startup Inflection.

Parikh joined their ranks in October after running cloud security company Laceworks, acquired in 2024. He previously was vice president and global head of engineering for Meta. Zuckerberg has publicly credited Parikh for many technological achievements during his 11-year tenure at the company.

When Nadella announced Parikh's hiring in an email to employees, he wrote that the "next phase of Microsoft" would require "adding exceptional talent" from outside the company.

In January, when Microsoft reorganized to create a new organization under Parikh. The group, called CoreAI, combined teams from Parikh's new direct reports like Eric Boyd, a corporate vice president of AI platform; Jason Taylor, a deputy CTO for AI infrastructure; Julia Liuson, president of the developer division; and Tim Bozarth, a corporate vice president of developer infrastructure.

Nadella said at the time that Parikh would also work closely with the cloud-and-AI chief Scott Guthrie; the experiences-and-devices leader Rajesh Jha; Bell, the security boss; Suleyman, Microsoft's AI CEO; and Kevin Scott, the company's CTO.

A copy of Parikh's latest org chart viewed by Business Insider shows he has nearly 10,000 reports, most of whom (about 7,000) are in the developer division under Liuson.

Parikh's 'agent factory' vision

Four months in, Parikh has started to make his mark on Microsoft with a vision to create an AI "agent factory." In the early days of Microsoft, cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen had ambitions to create the world's first "software factory," a company full of programmers who would build everything from applications to operating systems.

Parikh said he met with Gates and discussed his own concept, a production line for AI agents and applications.

"Building our vision demands this type of culture — one where Al is embedded in how we think, design, and deliver," Parikh wrote in an April 14 email to his team. "The Agent Factory reflects this shift — not just in what we build, but in how we build it together. If we want every developer (and everyone) to shape the future, we have to get there first."

The memos reveal some of the developments at CoreAI since Parikh's arrival.

Since January, Foundry — Microsoft's AI platform for developers — has "delivered $337 million of favorable COGS (cost of goods sold) impact year-to-date, with a projected $606 million on an annualized basis," according to one of Parikh's memos.

Microsoft won new customers for its AI programming tool GitHub Copilot, deploying "5,000+ Copilot Business seats" for Fidelity with 5,000 more expected, another memo stated. Copilot Business sells for $19 per user per month, which would make the deal worth as much as $2.28 million annually at full price, though customers often get discounts for large deals. Fidelity declined to comment.

Startup Harvey AI, meanwhile, has agreed to a two-year $150 million commitment to consume Azure cloud services, according to one of Parikh's memos. Harvey AI declined to comment.

Making Microsoft think macro

The memos viewed by BI show how Parikh appears to be taking seriously his mandate to introduce a new perspective to the company and fix procedural problems that Microsoft may not be able to see that it has.

In a May 10 email to his team, Parikh said shifting the company's culture is "essential" to its future, and outlined progress toward priorities like accelerating the pace at which employees work, breaking down siloes to work better as one team, and making products more reliable and secure.

"One of my early observations coming into Microsoft is that we sometimes treat symptoms rather than systems," Parikh wrote in a May 5 email. "We often focus too much on the micro, which results in band-aids and bolt-ons vs taking a broader system view (which may mean thinking beyond what one team directly owns). This often leads to more complexity and operational burden. We'll help each other get better at this."

Parikh's plan to get Microsoft to focus on the macro is to create a "learning loop" with a debrief after every product launch, incident, customer meeting, internal meeting, or decision. He's started new processes to make this happen, according to the memos.

Parikh has an "Ops Review" series, going team by team to make specific improvements but also to "find common patterns of engineering pain that need broader improvements," he wrote. The reviews, he explained, focus on longer-term operational metrics to help with strategy. "We are zooming out and taking a more end-to-end view of a team's operational setup, creating space for an open discussion around what's working and what's not." The reviews began in April with the App Services team.

Also among Parikh's mandates: more customer focus. His organization is required to conduct reviews of major incidents, like outages, that could impact customers, and chart how quickly the teams identified the problem and deployed a fix.

He also started "get well plans" for unhappy customers after he "encountered a couple of fairly unhappy customers" in recent meetings, according to an April 26 email. His solution? Weekly reviews to "understand where we went off track, identify solutions, and execute the recovery plan," tracking progress until the accounts "get well again."

What Parikh thinks Microsoft should change so far

In the May 5 email, Parikh shared "several recurring themes and insights" within Microsoft that he believes the company should seek to change or simplify.

First, he encouraged his organization to engage engineers from outside their direct team because "different perspectives help."

In his view, Microsoft also takes too long and the process is too hard to deprecate, or discourage use of, old versions of software. "Supporting too many versions is unattainable," Parikh wrote. "We are following up with C+Al (the Cloud + AI organization, under Scott Guthrie) to brainstorm how we can modernize and streamline this."

Incident reviews are overloaded with metrics that don't have enough value, Parikh wrote, and Microsoft sends out too many alerts, which creates noise. "It's important to periodically zoom out and audit how your monitoring is running and to simplify if you are overloaded on alerts and metrics. Use Al to help triage complex alerting situations," he urged.

Parikh encouraged his teams to "see the forest for the trees on scalability," and to organize brainstorming sessions when faced with a traffic load they can't support to see what it would take to support five or 10 times as much traffic. "You may be stuck in a local maxima with incremental improvements, and it might be time to brainstorm how you can get a step function more scale," he wrote.

He also recommended employees seek to address classes of problems, not just one-offs. "Quick fixes lead to complexity," Parikh wrote. "Instead of band-aids, we should aim for broader system improvements that solve whole categories of issues and boost long-term efficiency."

"We're building muscle in spotting patterns, not just patching symptoms," Parikh wrote. "And that's a big deal."

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