Former Xbox COO Helen Chiang suddenly left Microsoft less than two weeks ago after being promoted to the role in July. I wrote in my Pad newsletter last week that it seemed very strange that Chiang would suddenly leave Microsoft after 21 years with a surprisingly brief memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Now, Chiang says she has “serious concerns” about how she was treated.
In a lengthy LinkedIn post, titled “clarity is kindness,” a reference to Sharma WSJ profile: Chiang doesn’t deny that she was fired, but she doesn’t say why she was fired. eurogamer reported last month that Chiang had been “terminated for policy violations,” but says this is “not accurate.”
Chiang denies unfounded rumors that speculated that he was leaking confidential information or that he left to join a competitor. It’s clear that the decision to leave Xbox was out of his hands. “You don’t spend two decades somewhere without developing a deep loyalty to the people, teams and companies you’ve helped build,” Chiang says. “Xbox was never just another stop in my career. My ultimate goal was always to continue building here.”
He also denies engaging in “discrimination, intimidation, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement or other fraudulent activity.” As I wrote in Pad Last week, several Xbox employees described Chiang to me as a highly respected person with great integrity. “I stand by my record: both the results I achieved and the way I have treated people throughout my career,” Chiang says.
The most important part of Chiang’s post is a paragraph about justice and responsibility, which implies that she was not treated fairly:
I believe in fairness, responsibility, and living up to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean anything when they are applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case and I think those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.
Chiang also says, “I never imagined that this is how my story would end here. And it’s not the whole story.”
We reached out to Chiang to ask if he is taking legal action against Microsoft. We also asked Microsoft for comment on Chiang’s post, but the company did not respond in time for publication.
