How Nerdy Software Engineer Vaniya Agrawal Stood Up to Microsoft Leadership for its ‘Complicity’ in Gaza Genocide
- The Indian American interrupted 50th Anniversary event featuring Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella, calling them “hypocrites,” and claiming that the company’s technology murdered 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
When Vaniya Agrawal joined Microsoft a year and a half ago, she believed that the company’s mission aligned with her values. But she became aware of Microsoft’s “growing role in the military industrial complex.” And she increasingly found it difficult to continue working without voicing her opinion.
So, last week, with her colleague Ibtihal Aboussad, Agrawal disrupted an event at the company headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The aim of the event was to showcase Microsoft’s Copilot and AI advancements.
Agrawal and Aboussad are organizers of No Azure for Apartheid, a campaign led by Microsoft workers opposing the company’s $133 million contract with Israel’s Ministry of Defense and demanding an end to Microsoft’s alleged complicity in Israel’s apartheid and genocide.
Agrawal interrupted the event featuring Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former CEO Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Shame on you,” she shouted, calling them “hypocrites,” and claiming “50,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered with Microsoft technology.” Gates “brushed off Agrawal’s outburst with a chuckle and an ‘alright,’ before resuming his conversation, as reported by The Verge.
Aboussad interrupted a speech by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, calling him a “war profiteer.”
A day later, Agrawal sent an email to the company’s leadership announcing her resignation on April 11. But yesterday, April 7, both she and Aboussad were fired. While Agrawal is a software engineer in Seattle, Aboussad is a software engineer in the company’s AI division and is based in Canada. Agrawal’s resignation date was pushed ahead, the company informed her. Microsoft said Aboussad was fired for “just cause, willful misconduct, disobedience or willful neglect of duty,” CNBC reported, citing the company’s documents.
Who is Vaniya Agrawal?
According to her LinkedIn profile, Agrawal earned a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering from Arizona State University (2016–2019), graduating summa cum laude. She was one of only 35 students awarded the prestigious Grace Hopper Scholarship in 2017.
Before her software engineering career, she worked in various roles — including as a tea consultant and social media manager at Adagio Teas (2015), and as a medical assistant and receptionist at True Health Medical Centre (2016–2017).
She interned at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer in 2018 and later joined the company full-time in September 2019. After leaving Amazon in October 2022, she joined Microsoft as a Software Engineer II in September 2023.
Wrong Side of History
In her mass email published on The Medium, Agrawal wrote that the protests were fueled by an Associated Press investigation earlier this year. “Microsoft cloud and AI enable the Israeli military to be more lethal and destructive in Gaza,” Agrawal wrote. “It is undeniable that Microsoft’s Azure cloud offerings and AI developments form the technological backbone of Israel’s automated apartheid and genocide systems,” she continued. “Microsoft is so deeply connected to the Israeli military that it was just yesterday designated one of the priority boycott targets of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) campaign.” The AP report detailed “a 2023 Israeli airstrike that mistakenly hit a vehicle in Lebanon, killing three young girls and their grandmother, highlighting the lethal consequences of such technology.”
“As time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to continue giving my time, energy, and care to a company that is on the wrong side of history,” Agarwal wrote, explaining her April 11 resignation announcement. “Leaving my job at Microsoft has become the obvious choice for me, and I see no alternative but to use my last few days at Microsoft to speak up however I can, whether by disrupting Satya’s talk, or by sending this email today,” she wrote. “Microsoft leadership must divest from Israel and stop selling lethal technology to power apartheid and genocide.”
She also offered advice for those who don’t have “the option” of leaving Microsoft: “If you must continue to work at Microsoft, I urge you to use your position, power, and privilege to hold Microsoft accountable to its own values and mission.”
What about the ongoing persecution of Bangladeshi Hindus, the reduction in the numbers of Kashmiri Hindus and Pakistani Hindus. The almost complete migration under duress of Hindus in Afghanistan, causing their numbers to drop from 500,000 at one time, to almost nothing now! Do the Palestinians give two hoots about Hindus, when Hindus suffer persecution or genocide?