Microsoft Promises Disclosure of Sexual Harassment Data
On January 11, 2011, Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein met for the first time. Their relationship follows Epstein’s conviction of soliciting prostitution of a minor and the enactment of his status as a sex offender. The pair spent months planning their philanthropic endeavors together and were spotted among Epstein’s inner circle. Following the financier’s arrest in 2019 for sex trafficking, Gates retracted his relation to Epstein, in which he stated to The Wall Street Journal, “I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him.” The attempt to salvage Gates’s image proved ineffective and raised concern among Microsoft’s shareholders into the former CEO’s ill-suited behavior with female employees in the past.
Then, on March 30, 2020, Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft board, eradicating any connection between him and the company he and Paul Allen started in 1975. Microsoft earlier that year had commenced an investigation into an alleged affair Gates was having with a female employee. Even before that, in 2008, Executive Vice President of Human Resources Lisa Brumell and other executives discovered Gates had been inappropriately messaging a female employee, inviting her out privately outside of the workplace while he was serving as chairman of the board.
Now, Microsoft shareholders have voted for the disclosure of data from any and all internal investigations into cases of sexual harassment and misconduct. The meeting signified a shift in Microsoft’s longstanding influence over investors and board members, as the company had advised voters to reject the proposal. A plausible cause is the company’s furtive handling of the investigations into Microsoft executives. Last June, 51 sexual harassment complaints came from employees, a 64% decrease from the 142 complaints from the year prior. The latter is a fraction of the data to be released annually to shareholders, which will include a summary of complaints, their resolutions, and the reports on any inquiries into co-founder Bill Gates and high-ranking executives.
The historic turnaround is an example of how shareholder power can influence company policies to ameliorate workplace culture. Voting power is a function of the dynamic relationship between a company and its investors. As the company moves forward with improvements to the human resources department, may their example proliferate reform amongst other businesses.
Following an overwhelming acceptance of the proposal, Microsoft President Brad Smith promised that a third party will conduct and delineate sexual harassment data to investors in the future.
Works Cited
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/tech/bill-gates-microsoft-employee-emails-report/index.html
