I am proud of the work that New Relic has done to create an inclusive and welcoming workplace. This accomplishment underscores our commitment both in the U.S. and globally.
Most for-profit companies still confine nonprofit relationships to corporate philanthropy. Donations flow through foundations, annual reports highlight community contributions, and nonprofit engagement is framed as evidence of corporate responsibility.
Multinational firms are under rising pressure-from investors, regulators, and employees-to demonstrate positive societal impact in the places where they do business. With ESG-focused institutional investments projected to reach nearly $34 trillion this year and roughly 90% of large U.S. companies now disclosing ESG reports, these pressures are now a central part of corporate strategy.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the unprecedented step of designating a U.S. firm-Anthropic-as a supply chain risk. Anthropic's crime? It refused to violate industry-wide protocols against using AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. Hegseth's designation, which has until now been reserved for foreign firms, bars U.S. military contractors from doing business with the company.
The change in the administration's tactics in Minneapolis is not a retreat. Instead, they are regrouping and planning another mode of attack, with the hopes that their repression might be met with resistance that is easier to control and contain. People who garner their relevancy and power through the dehumanization and oppression of others will do whatever it takes to cling to their soulless sense of self.
The average CEO makes over 280 times what their company's line worker earns. This is more than 10 times the ratio observed in the 1970s. Looking just at the salaries and bonuses of Fortune 500 CEOs, financial executives, top university presidents, and even some directors of the larger non-profit organizations, you would think that these leaders are performing at high levels-at least levels high enough to justify their huge compensation. Unfortunately, that's not often the case.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a future-state conversation. It is here, embedded across enterprise systems, cloud platforms, security tooling, analytics engines and decision-making frameworks. The pace of adoption has been extraordinary, and so is the scale and intensity of the infrastructure required to power it. Against this backdrop, Microsoft's recent call for a "community-first" approach to AI infrastructure is both timely and necessary.
