Has Microsoft Lost Its Mojo (Again)?
Has Microsoft Lost Its Mojo (Again)?
微软是否（再次）失去了它的魔力？
This week, Satya Nadella kicked off Microsoft’s annual Build developer’s conference with typical boasts about new products and a sunny view of AI. The focus of his speech was how Microsoft was going gaga for agentic AI. But there was a cloud over the gathering at San Francisco’s Fort Mason, and I’m not talking about Azure.
本周，萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）以惯常的姿态开启了微软年度 Build 开发者大会，不仅吹捧了新产品，还对人工智能的前景展现出乐观态度。他演讲的重点在于微软如何对“代理式 AI”（agentic AI）趋之若鹜。然而，在旧金山梅森堡（Fort Mason）的聚会上空却笼罩着一层阴云，我指的并不是 Azure 云服务。
While the valuations and share prices of its competitors have soared, Microsoft’s stock has been down this year. Its workplace AI products, which like just about everything at Microsoft these days are called Copilot, have had disappointing uptake. And while the company was an early leader in coding tools, Anthropic has grabbed the lead with its groundbreaking agentic approach to coding. Microsoft responded by ending its Claude Code licenses to force its developers to use Copilot.
尽管竞争对手的估值和股价一路飙升，但微软的股价今年却表现低迷。其办公 AI 产品——像微软如今几乎所有产品一样都被命名为 Copilot——的市场采纳率令人失望。虽然该公司曾是编程工具领域的早期领导者，但 Anthropic 凭借其开创性的代理式编程方法抢占了先机。微软对此的回应是终止了 Claude Code 的授权，以强制其开发者使用 Copilot。
Meanwhile, GitHub, the invaluable code repository and Microsoft subsidiary, has had unprecedented downtimes that have led longtime fans to complain and even defect. One Reddit post said it outright: “Has GitHub become a dumpster fire?” For Microsoft, losing the hearts and minds of the coding community would amount to a catastrophe. Remember former CEO Steve Ballmer’s famous summary of what kept the company ahead? Developers! Developers! Developers!
与此同时，作为微软子公司且价值连城的代码托管平台 GitHub，近期出现了前所未有的宕机，导致长期用户抱怨连连，甚至纷纷弃用。Reddit 上的一篇帖子直言不讳地问道：“GitHub 变成了一场灾难吗？”对于微软来说，失去编程社区的民心将是一场灾难。还记得前任 CEO 史蒂夫·鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）对公司保持领先地位的著名总结吗？开发者！开发者！开发者！
Scott Hanselman is a Microsoft VP who is on the GitHub technical staff. He has spent countless hours talking to developers, training engineers, and evangelizing GitHub and AI. He’s also smack in the middle of Microsoft’s belated effort to seize the agentic moment. Late last year, he was considering leaving the company after 18 years to teach high school science. But in November, he became supercharged by the agentic coding revolution kicked off by Claude Code and OpenClaw. He helped bring the latter, which is open-source, into Microsoft. At the Build conference, he was part of Nadella’s keynote, demonstrating how the company’s “copilots” could automate tasks for coders, workers, and anyone else.
斯科特·汉塞尔曼（Scott Hanselman）是微软副总裁，也是 GitHub 技术团队的一员。他花费了无数时间与开发者交流、培训工程师，并推广 GitHub 和 AI。他正处于微软试图抓住“代理时代”机遇的中心，尽管这一努力显得有些迟缓。去年年底，在微软工作了 18 年的他曾考虑离职去教高中科学。但在 11 月，他被 Claude Code 和 OpenClaw 引发的代理式编程革命所点燃。他协助将开源的 OpenClaw 引入了微软。在 Build 大会上，他参与了纳德拉的主题演讲，演示了公司的“Copilot”如何为程序员、办公人员以及其他任何人实现任务自动化。
Hanselman seemed the perfect spokesperson to explain what’s happening at Microsoft. After busting out the gate three years ago as a leader in the generative AI era, has Microsoft lost its mojo? (This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.)
汉塞尔曼似乎是解释微软现状的最佳发言人。在三年前以生成式 AI 时代领跑者的身份强势起步后，微软是否已经失去了它的魔力？（本文采访内容为清晰简洁起见经过编辑。）
STEVEN LEVY: GitHub users have been complaining lately about frequent downtimes. Some have left. What’s going on there?
史蒂文·列维（STEVEN LEVY）：GitHub 用户最近一直在抱怨频繁的宕机。有些人已经离开了。那里到底发生了什么？
SCOTT HANSELMAN: You remember when social media got flooded by bots, or 20 years ago when email got flooded by spam? The incoming traffic to GitHub and the usage of GitHub is as many bots as people. GitHub, I think, is doing a great job of scaling to meet that need, but the bots are very, very fast. I think this is just a hiccup moment.
斯科特·汉塞尔曼： 你还记得社交媒体被机器人淹没的时候吗？或者 20 年前电子邮件被垃圾邮件淹没的时候？GitHub 收到的流量和使用量中，机器人和人类的数量旗鼓相当。我认为 GitHub 在扩展以满足这种需求方面做得很好，但机器人的速度非常非常快。我认为这只是一个短暂的波折。
How are you convincing developers that this is just a hiccup and not a sign of complacency?
你如何让开发者相信这只是一个波折，而不是自满的迹象？
It’s easy to say it’s down at this moment, but people forget that it’s up 99 percent of the time. It’s just under tremendous pressure from the bots.
说它现在宕机很容易，但人们忘记了它 99% 的时间都在正常运行。它只是承受着来自机器人的巨大压力。
Microsoft’s biggest announcement at Build was about agents and its OpenClaw adoption, through a product called Scout. You helped make that happen and even brought OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger into the process.
微软在 Build 大会上最大的公告是关于代理及其对 OpenClaw 的采用，通过一款名为 Scout 的产品实现。你促成了这一切，甚至将 OpenClaw 的创始人彼得·斯坦伯格（Peter Steinberger）带入了这一进程。
It’s just one of those things that happens when open-source people talk. Last year, OpenClaw started everything. I made a little Windows app, Satya thought it was exciting, and I started talking to folks. Microsoft had been thinking about agents on Windows for a very long time, and I just thought, “This is a great opportunity for us, why not go for it?”
这只是开源人士交流时会发生的事情之一。去年，OpenClaw 开启了一切。我做了一个小型的 Windows 应用，萨提亚觉得很兴奋，于是我开始与相关人员沟通。微软长期以来一直在思考 Windows 上的代理问题，我当时就想：“这对我们来说是一个绝佳的机会，为什么不放手一搏呢？”
You went down the coding agent rabbit hole last November along with everyone else?
去年 11 月，你和大家一样陷入了编程代理的“兔子洞”（指深入钻研）吗？
It was an intense time for the nerds. I spent a lot of time talking to coding agents during that holiday. And it’s been an absolute rocket ship of a ride since then.
那对极客们来说是一段紧张的时光。那个假期我花了很多时间与编程代理交流。从那以后，这简直是一场火箭般的旅程。
Claude Code seems to have gotten the thunder there, beating Codex, and frankly, Copilot. A few years ago Microsoft’s Copilot coding tool seemed to stand at the head of the pack. Now it’s Claude Code.
Claude Code 似乎抢尽了风头，击败了 Codex，坦率地说，也击败了 Copilot。几年前，微软的 Copilot 编程工具似乎处于领先地位。现在却是 Claude Code。
I would respectfully disagree. Coding models are part of it, but Microsoft is a great place for developers. Windows is an open platform on open hardware where people can build anything.
我对此表示恭敬地反对。编程模型只是其中的一部分，但微软对开发者来说是一个伟大的地方。Windows 是一个基于开放硬件的开放平台，人们可以在上面构建任何东西。
Microsoft wants Scout to be adopted by productivity workers and even consumers. AI agents make mistakes and have hallucinations. How many errors will people tolerate?
微软希望 Scout 能被办公人员甚至消费者采用。AI 代理会犯错并产生幻觉。人们能容忍多少错误？
That’s a good question. I don’t know. Trust but verify. Give it a small task, and then try it out, and see if it works. And then, “Oh it hasn’t done anything wrong. I’ll give it read-only access to something.” For example, when I tell somebody I gave OpenClaw access to my blood sugar, because I’m a type 1 diabetic, there’s the knee-jerk reaction, “How dare you give an agent access to your health data?” It is super useful for me to get proactive notifications about my blood sugar. I don’t think that’s a controversial thing.
这是个好问题。我不知道。信任但要验证。给它一个小任务，然后试一试，看看它是否有效。然后你会想：“哦，它没做错什么。我可以给它一些只读权限。”例如，当我告诉别人我给了 OpenClaw 我的血糖数据访问权限时——因为我是 1 型糖尿病患者——人们会有膝跳反应：“你怎么敢让代理访问你的健康数据？”但对我来说，能收到关于血糖的主动通知是非常有用的。我不认为这是一件有争议的事情。
I get that, but right now there are many people who are skeptical or hostile to AI.
我明白，但现在有很多人对 AI 持怀疑或敌对态度。
When a new tool is introduced, whether it be a chainsaw, a power tool, or the internal combustion engine, there’s a chaotic time as people figure out how to make this thing good for humans. I am not personally all in on AI, because I vote with my feet. I don’t use AI image generation, and I don’t use AI video generation, because I don’t believe in those things. I use AI for coding, and I find it to be a joy.
当一种新工具被引入时，无论是电锯、电动工具还是内燃机，人们在摸索如何让它造福人类的过程中总会经历一段混乱时期。我个人并没有完全沉迷于 AI，因为我会用行动投票。我不使用 AI 图像生成，也不使用 AI 视频生成，因为我不相信那些东西。我将 AI 用于编程，并从中找到了乐趣。
Yes, coders absolutely love agents, but outside of that community, there’s resistance. Microsoft has seen this in the underperformance of its AI productivity tools. Are you anticipating similar headwinds with agentic AI?
是的，程序员绝对喜欢代理，但在该社区之外，存在着抵触情绪。微软已经在其 AI 办公工具表现不佳中看到了这一点。你是否预见到代理式 AI 会面临类似的阻力？
They’ll either like it or they won’t. I remember when the Walkman came out and people said, “No one’s going to wear those things on their heads. Those headphones look ridiculous.” Now we all walk around with these white Q-tips hanging out of our ears.
他们要么喜欢，要么不喜欢。我记得当随身听（Walkman）刚出来时，人们说：“没人会把那东西戴在头上。那些耳机看起来太荒谬了。”现在，我们都戴着这些像白色棉签一样的东西走来走去。
You don’t feel that Microsoft is in catch-up mode?
你不觉得微软正处于追赶模式吗？
I would respectfully push back and point out that everybody’s in catch-up mode, because you pull ahead and then you go back and forth.
我会恭敬地反驳并指出，每个人都处于追赶模式，因为你领先之后，情况总会反复波动。