Microsoft

‘Microsoft is back.’ How AI put the five-decade-old tech giant on top again.

Author: Editors Desk Source: The Washington Post

January 31, 2024 at 12:24

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on Nov. 6, 2023. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

.The software giant’s market value passed $3 trillion, only the second corporation to ever do so.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the early 2010s, conversations among Microsoft’s top executives had become bleak. The smartphone revolution was in full swing, and Google and Apple were charging ahead, while Microsoft’s efforts to build a mobile business were floundering.

Employees were leaving the company in droves to go work at competitors, and Microsoft had trouble recruiting from colleges.

“Are we at risk of becoming irrelevant?” was the question hanging over the company, said Sivaramakrishnan Somasegar, an investor at Madrona Venture Group in Seattle, who at the time was a senior Microsoft executive.

How times have changed.

On Tuesday, Microsoft reported its fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue, booking $62 billion in sales, and just last week its market capitalization — the total value of all of its shares put together — surpassed $3 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world.

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