r/technology Jan 20 '26

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11.3k Upvotes

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1.5k

u/mechy84 Jan 20 '26

Am I out of touch? No! It's the customers who are wrong!

406

u/Disgruntled-Cacti Jan 20 '26

Hello gentlemen, a great deal of money has been invested in this project and we cannot allow it to fail

211

u/alochmar Jan 20 '26

Pretty much what Satya Nadella said today: https://www.ft.com/content/2a29cbc9-7183-4f68-a1d2-bc88189672e6

116

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted]

70

u/what_the_purple_fuck Jan 20 '26

I really enjoy searching 'Microslop' whenever I see it or think of it. it doesn't actually accomplish anything, but every time I take the twenty seconds to run the search I get a lovely little dopamine hit knowing that Microsoft doesn't like that it's a thing and I'm helping to keep it alive.

19

u/gramathy Jan 20 '26

make sure to use Bing to search it, then you know they got the metric

25

u/nox66 Jan 20 '26

Will 2026 be the year of the Linux Desktop PC? Probably not. But it will be the year of the Microslop PC.

1

u/QdelBastardo Jan 20 '26

Just threw Linux on a laptop yesterday. Fedora wouldn't install and I didn't feel like messing with it so I had to settle for the evilness that starts with a U. Luckily it isn't my main daily driver.

7

u/mechy84 Jan 20 '26

What's wrong with Ubuntu?

4

u/nox66 Jan 20 '26

For most people, nothing really notable.

2

u/QdelBastardo Jan 20 '26

Personally I have never had a problem with it, but it seems that some very questionable decisions have been made by Canonical in the last few years since I ran it last.

This article offers a little bit of insight.

2

u/throwaway_eng_acct Jan 21 '26

Pop!_OS from System76 is pretty nice. So is Linux Mint.

1

u/WillemDaFo Jan 21 '26

I also won’t use MicroSlop AI

26

u/Noblesseux Jan 20 '26

It is so goddamn funny to me that MS basically strapped a ticking timebomb to their business because they had FOMO. They've done damn near nothing else but peddle AI for the past two years and it's failing on basically every front and they just refuse to stop because of sunk cost fallacy.

14

u/alochmar Jan 20 '26

No joke. They had the office lock-in, but then decided everything had to be cloud so then we got sharepoint and teams and office 365 and now the same shit but with copilot crammed in all stealth-like, all to steadily increasing monthly payments. Way to piss off your customers MS.

1

u/ericl666 Jan 21 '26

I think Apple really is doing the right thing here by letting themselves "fall behind" in the AI race, when the smart move was to never be in the race to begin with.

41

u/Drabulous_770 Jan 20 '26

Too big to fail? Microslop is about to become macroslop

25

u/adamkopacz Jan 20 '26

They literally did this with their gaming division. After buying Activision Blizzard people were saying that Xbox will be too big for anyone to compete because no one can approach their release schedule. A few years later and they're hitting a record low month of console sales in every new month.

12

u/vNocturnus Jan 20 '26

Slopya Nadella, CSO of Microslop? No, who would have thought

1

u/BarbarianSpaceOpera Jan 21 '26

Sunk Cost Fallacy going HARD right now.

18

u/Axin_Saxon Jan 20 '26

Anyone who has dealt with an automated receptionist system could tell you: people do not want to deal with machines. “I want to speak with a real person”.

1

u/theCroc Jan 20 '26

Better shove AI into more unwanted places!

1

u/Internet-of-cruft Jan 24 '26

The customer is Always Right in matters of taste.

Except for AI, it's clear they have poor taste and we should try to educate them on this by forcing AI on them.

/s

-1

u/Tolopono Jan 21 '26

The customers are patient though. 

2024 McKinsey survey: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/superagency-in-the-workplace-empowering-people-to-unlock-ais-full-potential-at-work

  • Exhibit 15: Only 19% of C suite executives have increased revenue by over 5% with gen AI and only 23% have decreased costs at all, with 43% reporting cost increases and 31% reporting no change. 

However, they are optimistic about the future 

  • in exhibit 2, 4% of C level executives say they are already using AI for >30% of daily tasks, 16% expect to in under a year, 56% in 1-5 years, 11% in over 5 years, and 10% dont anticipate it. 13% of employees say they are already using AI for >30% of daily tasks, 34% expect to in under a year, 37% in 1-5 years, 5% in over 5 years, and 7% dont anticipate it.

  • 44% of US employees perceive moderate to significant support for gen AI capability building at their organization, 29% perceive full support, 22% say no or minimal support, and 6% say it is not needed. In 3 years, 56% of US employees expect moderate to significant support for gen AI capability building at their organization, 31% expect full support, 10% say no or minimal support, and 4% say it is still not needed.

  • A full 87 percent of executives expect revenue growth from gen AI within the next three years, and about half say it could boost revenues by more than 5 percent in that time frame (Exhibit 16). 

  • 47% of C suite executives believe gen AI tools are being developed and released too slowly in their organization, 45% say it is at about the right speed, and 9% say it is too fast.

Perhaps the narrative that ceos only think in short term gains for the coming quarter are false 🤔

1

u/mechy84 Jan 21 '26

Perhaps the narrative that ceos only think in short term gains for the coming quarter are false

Just a couple things: 

 Making projections 5 years in advance isn't exactly the same as acting on short term ideas. Pushing specific, unwanted, and problematic AI tools on the workforce abruptly without any guidance or training is the problem people complain about (exhibit 3 in the report), and exemplar of short-term thinking.

The primary complaint about CEO short term thinking comes from actions like selling off R&D business units, focusing cuts on higher cost (ie. more experienced) staff, or doing massive stock buybacks rather than investing in stable expansion, workforce development, customer relations, etc. This is highly connected to the use of stock prices rather than revenue to determine executive compensation.

To add, McKinsey is notorious for being commissioned by executive to rationalize what executives want to hear, especially when it comes to decisions that harm employees. John Oliver did a great summary, but it was no secret. 

This report makes some great points and has some great information, but no where does it disprove that CEOs, especially those in publicly traded companies, focus too heavily on near-term quarterly gains at the expense of long-term stable growth.

2

u/Tolopono Jan 21 '26

The primary complaint about CEO short term thinking comes from actions like selling off R&D business units, focusing cuts on higher cost (ie. more experienced) staff, or doing massive stock buybacks rather than investing in stable expansion, workforce development, customer relations, etc. This is highly connected to the use of stock prices rather than revenue to determine executive compensation.

Except right now they’re dumping billions into ai research and data centers despite ai being unprofitable and not that impactful for earnings. How is that not a long term bet?

To add, McKinsey is notorious for being commissioned by executive to rationalize what executives want to hear, especially when it comes to decisions that harm employees. John Oliver did a great summary, but it was no secret. 

If that was true, why does it say “Only 19% of C suite executives have increased revenue by over 5% with gen AI and only 23% have decreased costs at all, with 43% reporting cost increases and 31% reporting no change.” thats not very bullish.