Late on Friday, it was revealed that former Minecraft lead Helen Chiang was leaving Microsoft, shared by CEO Asha Sharma in an internal email.
Helen Chiang had been leading at Xbox as its first ever Chief Operations Officer, and had only been in the post for a few months. As such, the departure raised eyebrows immediately.
"Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I’m grateful for her years of service and wish her well," Asha Sharma said in an internal email shared by The Verge. Sharma noted that an update on the COO post would arrive later. Indeed, it doesn't sound as though the COO post is going away, suggesting that this wasn't a redundancy departure. People immediately began to speculate that Chiang had been removed over a clash or disagreement of sorts.
In a statement to Windows Central, a Microsoft spokesperson said: "We don't discuss individual personnel matters. We are grateful for Helen's years of service and wish her well," echoing statements given to other outlets.
We now have more detail on what might've transpired from Eurogamer, who suggests that Chiang was "terminated for policy violations," via one of its sources, although it said it wasn't able to gain additional corroborative sources.
Chiang has had a large, storied career at Microsoft. She joined all the way back in 2005 working on mapping software, and then began rising through the ranks of Xbox back in 2007. She's been working on Minecraft since 2014, and led the game's expansion across consoles, mobile devices, education services, merchandising, and more recently, movies and other transmedia opportunities.
Chiang is incredibly well-liked and highly regarded within Microsoft by every employee I've spoken to. She's known as supportive and helpful, described to me as going above and beyond for employees at all levels.
She has been one of Xbox's longest-serving leaders and her promotion to COO was celebrated. Her purported termination immediately struck me as odd, and not exactly something that would've been done lightly.
I suspect this isn't the last we've heard of this story, and certainly not the last we've heard of Chiang, who by all accounts was excellent in her role.
Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.