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• Some Microsoft workers are questioning results of recent employee sentiment surveys.
• Microsoft survey results omitted key questions, these employees said.
• The debate reflects broader tensions inside a company undergoing rapid change.

After Microsoft released findings from its latest employee surveys, some workers took to an internal message board to question the results, according to comments viewed by Business Insider.

These employees wondered whether the surveyed had been watered-down, especially when it comes to issues around compensation at the software giant.

For years, one question in particular served as a barometer for employee sentiment. It asked whether employees felt they were getting a “good deal at Microsoft (i.e. there is a reasonable balance between what I contribute to Microsoft and what I get in return).”

In previous years, after low and declining responses to this question Microsoft announced significant pay raises to address growing dissatisfaction with compensation and stop employees from leaving to competitors including Amazon.

Since then, there’s been a sea change across the tech industry, with big job cuts and more pressure on employees to perform. Microsoft has embraced this new approach, too, and froze salaries the year after the raises.

When Microsoft released the results of its latest employee surveys recently, the question about getting a good deal at Microsoft was excluded, according to a copy of the results viewed by Business Insider.

Some employees took to the company’s internal message board to ask what was up.

“Can you please provide clarity on whether or not the question has been removed and why,” one Microsoft employee wrote in a comment with more than 200 “thumbs up” reactions.

“I don’t think they value getting an answer to a question they already know the answer to,” another employee commented, with a meme of the famous line from the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Other employees queried the apparent omission of another question about whether staff have confidence in company leadership.

A person whose title is “Head of Employee Listening” responded that the company received questions about where to find those specific survey questions and said, “Those questions are still being asked and acted on; they just show up in different surveys based on how our listening programs are designed.”

The good deal question, for example, was included but sent only to a subset of employees “so we can cover more topics without increasing survey length for employees,” this person added. Microsoft confirmed this person’s response and did not provide further comment.

The debate over Microsoft’s survey results reflects broader tensions inside a company undergoing rapid change. Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and data centers while simultaneously tightening employee performance expectations and cutting costs.

Another employee questioned the results overall, which they said didn’t seem to track with employee sentiment in other forums like “Ask Me Anything” meetings with executives.

“Really confusing results,” the employee wrote in a comment with more than 70 “thumbs up” reactions. “It seems like employees essentially have zero concerns about the company, but in every single public forum, AMA, petition, etc., thousands of employees are raising concerns about Microsoft’s contracts with the Israeli military, ICE, US military, and so on, with ethical questions being by far the most upvoted discussion topics.”

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• I’ve been a freelancer for nearly 10 years, and my career is stable.
• However, I always feel a low-grade uncertainty.
• I make sure I’m constantly adapting along with my industry and looking for new opportunities.

When I became a freelance writer nearly a decade ago, I assumed the uncertainty would eventually fade. I imagined there would come a point where I’d built enough relationships, landed enough recurring clients, and published enough work that I’d finally feel secure.

But that moment never really came.

Today, I make a stable living as a freelance health and fitness writer. I write for major publications, have long-term editorial relationships, and often have more work than I can realistically take on. On paper, my career looks stable.

And yet, I still approach my work as if I were trying to land my next job.

Part of that is practicality. Freelancing teaches you quickly that stability is often temporary. Editors leave. Budgets shrink. Publications pivot. Consistent work can disappear overnight. I’ve had stretches where everything felt solid, only to lose multiple clients within weeks through no fault of my own.

Once you experience that a few times, it permanently changes the way you think and approach your work.

The mindset never fully turns off

Even during busy periods, part of my brain is always scanning for what’s next. I’m pitching editors, maintaining relationships, updating lists of ideas, and paying attention to industry shifts.

The rise of AI has intensified that feeling over the last few years. As someone who writes for a living, I’ve had to adapt quickly, learn new tools, and think carefully about what still makes human-driven writing valuable.

From the outside, freelancing can look flexible and relaxed. And in many ways, it is. It allows me to drop off and pick up my kids from school, coach their soccer teams, and handle daily life in a way a traditional job likely wouldn’t.

But mentally, I rarely feel fully “off.” There’s always a low-level awareness that I should be working and that if I stop pushing for too long, opportunities could dry up.

The stress doesn’t disappear when things are going well

One of the strangest things about freelancing is that external success doesn’t automatically create internal security.

I still feel anxious when I send a pitch email or submit a story draft. I still overanalyze unanswered messages. I still wonder, occasionally, whether the work will eventually dry up despite years of evidence suggesting otherwise. And I still regularly deal with imposter syndrome.

Some of that is probably tied to my personality. But I also think many freelancers quietly carry this same low-grade uncertainty, especially those of us supporting families.

I’m 39 years old now. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, and responsibilities that feel very real every month. There’s no corporate structure absorbing the risk for me. If work slows down, I feel it directly. That pressure has made me more disciplined, proactive, and resilient. But it’s also made it difficult to completely relax professionally, even during good periods.

It’s become part of my identity

At this point, I’m not sure I could fully shut off the “feast or famine” mindset even if I wanted to. Freelancing has conditioned me to constantly adapt, reinvent myself, and prepare for change.

In some ways, I think that’s kept me sharp. I’m always learning new skills, studying trends, and thinking about how to evolve. One day, I’m interviewing a researcher about blood sugar regulation; the next, I’m writing about fitness trends or trying to understand how AI might reshape media over the next decade. That constant motion can be exhausting. But it can also feel energizing.

The trade-off I’ve accepted

There are days when I envy people like my wife, who have clearly defined careers, predictable paychecks, and the ability to leave work at work. That kind of work stability sounds incredibly appealing.

But freelancing has also given me things I’m not willing to give up: flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to shape my life around my family instead of structuring my family around work.

The uncertainty is the price I pay for that freedom.

I still approach my career like I’m job hunting because, in some ways, I always am. Not out of desperation, but because freelancing requires you to stay engaged, visible, and adaptable at all times. At some point, I stopped seeing that mindset as a temporary phase and started recognizing it as part of the job itself, which has been both relieving and nerve-racking.

• Mercor’s CEO says the $10 billion startup now spends more on AI tokens than employee pay.
• Before long, he says, the average company could be spending more on AI compute than on salaries.
• Some tech leaders are questioning whether soaring AI costs are producing returns.

What happens when a company spends more on AI than on its workers? Mercor’s CEO says his startup is already finding out.

“Right now we’re spending more on tokens for our internal agents than we are on employee head count,” Foody said during an appearance on the “20VC” podcast on Monday.

When host Harry Stebbings asked if Mercor’s token spending on AI agents exceeded salaries, Foody replied: “That’s correct. It’s pretty incredible.”

Mercor — a $10 billion startup that helps companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic train AI models through a network of its human experts — has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the AI ecosystem since its 2023 launch.

As of October 2025, per PitchBook, it had around 300 employees. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Foody said Mercor uses AI agents across a wide range of functions, including project management, recruiting, accounting, fraud detection, and candidate evaluation. The company has conducted more than 5 million AI-assisted interviews, he said.

The executive believes Mercor’s spending patterns foreshadow a broader shift across corporate America.

“I would bet that in five years the average enterprise spends more on compute than headcount,” Foody said.

When AI costs more than employees

Foody’s comments come amid a broader debate among executives over whether rising AI spending is translating into meaningful business returns.

Uber COO Andrew Macdonald recently said he has yet to see a clear link between rising AI spending and proportional productivity gains.

Foody said that falling costs and rapidly improving model capabilities are driving a Jevons paradox-style effect, where cheaper AI leads to significantly more consumption rather than less.

He said Mercor measures the performance of different AI models for specific business tasks and evaluates whether newer models offer better value.

The result, he said, is a future in which AI becomes a core operating expense for companies, potentially rivaling or surpassing the cost of human labor itself.

“Humans will still play an important role at the things models can’t do,” he said. “But I expect that cost of inference, cost of compute will exceed that.”

• While I was traveling to Greenland, my son unexpectedly became independent.
• He started taking the bus and making his own lunches without me.
• The experience gave both of us more confidence and freedom.

I love to travel, but I rarely take solo trips because it’s hard to be away from my family.

I miss my children when we are apart, but the practicalities of packing lunches and shuffling kids to school and soccer practice are a bigger hurdle than homesickness. I like to think that everyone in my family needs me. However, my youngest son, aged 11, is still in elementary school and relies on me to make his lunches and get him to and from school. I am always particularly worried about how he will get by without his Mom when I am away.

Despite my initial hesitation, I recently took a trip to Greenland to mark a milestone birthday. The trip was a dream for me, full of glacier hiking and exploring a remote part of the world that’s not yet overrun with tourists. I planned to be away for 10 days, which seemed like an eternity, but I decided to do it anyway.

I planned ahead so things at home would run smoothly

To prepare my family for my absence, I left detailed notes about everyone’s daily schedule. I baked lasagnas, created a meal plan, shopped for ingredients, and pre-made a handful of packed lunches. I called in favors to make sure my son had rides to and from school every day, and left my husband the names and phone numbers of the parents who agreed to pitch in to help with childcare and shuttle our son around while I was gone. Just getting everything in order was exhausting and took hours.

It turns out I didn’t need to worry.

My son started being more independent while I was away

About midway through my trip, I called my family to check in. “You should probably tell Mom what I’ve been doing, Dad,” I heard my son whisper.

It took some prodding, but I discovered that while I was gone, my husband started sending my 11-year-old to school on the public bus, and that my son had started making his own lunch. Once, when a friend got stuck at work and couldn’t pick him up as planned, he took the bus home too.

When I expressed concern about this abrupt change, my son insisted that he was a big boy and could handle it. He hadn’t been late to school once, and he hadn’t gone hungry. I was unsure about all of these changes, but I wasn’t there to stop them.

When I returned, I assumed things would return to normal. My son insisted on taking the bus, although he said he “wouldn’t mind” if I kept making his lunch. I agreed to keep packing lunches and even enjoy showing him love in this way, knowing that he is growing up very quickly. Nevertheless, he now often wakes before me and packs his own lunches anyway.

I still worry, and make sure my son can stay in touch when he’s out in the big, wide world alone. He has a phone he can use to check the bus schedule and maps, and to text me when he arrives at school or gets on the bus to come home. Although giving my son so much independence so quickly wasn’t the plan, he rose to the challenge and is thriving.

My son’s newfound independence is better for both of us

Since I’m no longer driving my son to and from school and packing lunches every morning, I’ve added about an hour and a half to my day. Giving up this time with my son has been bittersweet, but time has shown that we are both ready for the change.

Getting out the door in the morning used to be the most stressful part of my day, and I’ve enjoyed the slower pace. I use the extra time I have to myself to start exercising more and planning healthier meals. I’ve managed to see friends more, too, for morning walks or lunch dates. I’ve been wanting to do all of these things for a while, but I hadn’t managed to fit them in between work, household, and childcare responsibilities.

I’m not sure what the next leap in independence will be for my son. However, this experience shows he’s been ready for more responsibility before I was ready to give it to him. And I was ready for it, too.

• Satya Nadella defended Microsoft’s AI data center plans amid community backlash at Build keynote.
• Microsoft’s AI infrastructure aims to address environmental and economic community concerns.
• Microsoft is spending heavily on data center expansion.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used a conference keynote on Tuesday to defend against one of the biggest challenges to the company’s massive AI datacenter buildout: Community backlash.

AI data centers have become such a political flashpoint that more people in a recent Gallup poll said they’d rather live near a nuclear reactor. The data center boom has received criticism over growing power costs, environmental concerns, and the potential impact of AI on jobs.

Microsoft in January released a plan to build what the company called “community-first” AI infrastructure, making promises including that its data centers won’t raise electricity rates for residents.

“How do we ensure that the DCs do not increase electricity prices, making sure that we are replenishing all our water use, creating jobs in the local communities for the local residents, adding to the tax base, making sure we’re strengthening the communities by investing in local training and the nonprofits in the area?” Nadella said at Microsoft’s Build conference.

“Only when we live up to these principles, do the hard work around it, is when we earn the permission to go ahead and innovate and build,” he added.

During Tuesday’s keynote, Nadella said the company’s Azure cloud business spans more than 500 data centers in 80 regions, which he described as the “most expansive hyperscaler footprint out there.” Microsoft has added more data center capacity in the last 18 months than in the first decade of Azure, the CEO also noted.

Building these facilities, and packing them with AI chips, networking equipment and other gear, is hugely expensive. The biggest cloud providers are on course to spend hundreds of billions of dollars this year on data centers. Meeting Microsoft’s recent pledges could add to this cost.

During his talk on Tuesday, Nadella said Microsoft is using a cooling loop for its data centers that is filled once, which helps the facilities operate with almost zero water consumption.

“In fact, the daily water usage over the course of an entire year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use,” Nadella said.

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• Dunkin’ gave away free tote bags this week. I coveted one. And got one.
• Dunkin’ has done cheeky and ironic merch drops like track suits and wedding ring boxes.
• People have an affinity for the brand with Northeastern roots in a way they don’t for Starbucks.

On Monday, I called a few of my local Dunkin‘ locations to ask if they still had the free tote bags available with the purchase of a half or full dozen donuts. One location was very confused by the call, one didn’t answer, and one said that yes, they had just one in stock. I raced over, and to my relief, I secured the bag.

The free tote was a limited-time promotion. Locations only got 20 bags each. It’s not the first Dunkin’ merchandise promotion, and certainly not even the most exciting. A branded tote bag is one of those things that you accumulate in life — not necessarily something you seek out.

But there was just something about the Dunkin’ tote that called to me. As far as totes go, it’s handsome. It came in pink or orange straps against white, an L.L. Bean-influenced style. I felt something deep in my bones, my soul, that I had to have it.

What was it about this tote back that activated something in me? Stanning a brand is cringe (see: Disney adults), and I live in fear of being cringe. So what made this different for me?

I have a few ideas.

Dunkin’s merch strategy works on Gen Z

The marketing for Dunkin’ has leaned into viral moments and Gen Z appeal in the last few years. In 2020, Dunkin’ got TikTok star Charli D’Amelio to act as spokesperson and sold viral donut-scented candles. Its menu is full of sweet iced drinks that chase trendy flavors like matcha and ube. Dunkin’ recently jumped on the “dirty soda” trend, combining Pepsi and coffee milk. (I tried it, along with some of its other newest drinks, and found it fairly disgusting.)

Part of this push to Gen Z is with limited merch drops over the last few years (young people love a “drop”). This winter, Dunkin’ gave away a single pink mitten to keep your hand warm while holding an iced coffee, a playful nod to the Northeast tradition of consuming iced coffee even in winter. (While this may have once been a New England thing, the rise of iced beverages is nationwide, and since 2021, iced drinks have outsold hot ones at Starbucks, even in winter months.)

Earlier this spring, Dunkin’ gave away a pink wedding ring box (with purchase of 25 or more Munchkins) as part of its “I Dough” collaboration with Vera Wang. The collection, available online, was bridal-themed, including a white silk robe and pajama set with little cups of iced coffee on the sleeves.

A spokesperson for Dunkin’ told me the brand leans into the playful aspect of its personality and believes its fans appreciate being in on the joke.

New England runs on Dunkin’ merch

Regional pride is certainly a factor here. Dunkin’ started in the Boston suburbs in the 1950s, and now has more than 14,000 locations worldwide, but the Northeast US still has the highest concentration of stores. Although its headquarters are still in Massachusetts, Dunkin’ is owned by the conglomerate Inspire Brands, which also owns Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John’s, and Arby’s. In May, Inspire Brands confidentially filed for an initial public offering.

I’m not immune to all this, having grown up in New England, where Munchkins and a Box O’ Joe were a simple part of the fabric of life. Even so, I didn’t really think of Dunkin’ as being so aligned with Boston and New England until the last decade or so, when there seemed to be a shift in the public consciousness about Dunkin’ being part of the Masshole identity. Whether this shift was organic or pushed by Dunkin’s own marketing, it’s hard to say.

In 2024, Dunkin’ sold limited editions of the “Dunkings” tracksuit worn by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Tom Brady in a Super Bowl ad. The suits sold out in minutes. The Massachusetts governor wore the tracksuit to an event. Affleck and Damon, who have lived in Los Angeles for nearly their entire adult lives, appeared in more Super Bowl spots for the chain in 2025 and 2026.

The ironic love of Dunkin’: It’s kind of bad

There’s something about Dunkin’ that engenders love and a fandom unlike, say, Starbucks. People love Starbucks, sure. But they don’t typically wear Starbucks tracksuits or bucket hats. (Starbucks is the US’s No. 2 restaurant chain — behind McDonald’s — with more than $29 billion in consumer spending in 2025, which was up 2% from the previous year, according to a report from EMARKETER, Business Insider’s sister company. Dunkin’ is No. 5, with nearly $13.5 billion in spending, up 5% from the prior year.)

There’s also a layer of irony in the love of Dunkin’ that’s different from loving a “good” coffee shop.

Dunkin’ is, and I say this with great affection, kind of crummy. Dunkin’ does not aspire for that high-end coffee shop experience that Starbucks is going for. The interiors often leave a little to be desired, the food’s consistency is questionable, and the coffee is love-it-or-hate-it.

That lower pretension and lower price point are part of its appeal. I would go so far as to say that its humble reputation holds particular sway among its New England fan base, where there are deep cultural taboos against displays of flashiness or luxury. There are, of course, status symbols that denote New England class striations, but these are often subtle and hard for outsiders to parse. Something as overt as loudly announcing your love of expensive coffee (expensive coffee certainly exists there!) would violate local norms.

This is my first piece of Dunkin’ merch, even after decades of happy Munchkin consumption. My colleague Juliana Kaplan owns a Dunkin’-inspired T-shirt. A Dunkin’-loving friend who grew up in Massachusetts was given one of the pink “D” door handles from an actual Dunkin’ location as a housewarming gift when she bought an apartment in Queens. There’s just something whimsical and silly about Dunkin’ merch that people love.

I am already using my Dunkin’ bag (I like to think of it as a Dunkin’ Birkin, or what I call … a Dunkin) and have already received compliments on it.

A day later, totes are selling for $30 to $50 on eBay, and other limited Dunkin’ drops are selling for even more. I’ve seen the single mitten for $75 on Facebook Marketplace, and a hat that was given out at Fenway Park with the Red Sox’s “B” logo on an iced coffee is going for $75-plus.

But me? I’ll never sell.