Xbox’s former COO has ‘serious concerns’ about her abrupt departure

Xbox’s former chief operating officer, Helen Chiang, suddenly left Microsoft less than two weeks ago after being promoted into the role in July. I wrote in my Notepad newsletter last week that it seemed very weird for Chiang to suddenly depart Microsoft after 21 years with a surprisingly short memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Now, Chiang says she has “serious concerns” about how she was treated.

Xbox 前首席运营官海伦·蒋（Helen Chiang）在七月刚被提拔后，不到两周就突然离开了微软。我在上周的《Notepad》通讯中写道，蒋在微软工作 21 年后突然离职，且仅收到 Xbox 首席执行官阿莎·夏尔马（Asha Sharma）一份简短得令人惊讶的备忘录，这显得非常奇怪。现在，蒋表示她对自己的遭遇有“严重关切”。

In a lengthy LinkedIn post — entitled “Clarity is Kindness,” a reference to Sharma’s WSJ profile — Chiang doesn’t dispute that she was fired, but she doesn’t say why she was let go. Eurogamer reported last month that Chiang had been “terminated for policy violations,” but she says this is “not accurate.”

在一篇名为《清晰即仁慈》（Clarity is Kindness，引用自夏尔马在《华尔街日报》的个人资料）的长篇领英文章中，蒋并未否认自己被解雇的事实，但她没有说明被辞退的原因。Eurogamer 上个月报道称蒋是“因违反政策被解雇”，但她表示这一说法“不准确”。

Chiang denies unfounded rumors that speculated she was leaking confidential information, or that she left to join a competitor. It’s clear the decision to leave Xbox was out of her hands. “You don’t spend two decades somewhere without developing a deep loyalty to the people, teams, and businesses you’ve helped build,” says Chiang. “Xbox was never just another stop in my career. My end game was always to keep building here.”

蒋否认了关于她泄露机密信息或离职加入竞争对手公司的毫无根据的传言。很明显，离开 Xbox 的决定并非出自她本意。蒋表示：“你在一个地方工作了二十年，不可能不对你帮助建立的人员、团队和业务产生深厚的忠诚感。Xbox 从来不仅仅是我职业生涯中的一站。我的最终目标始终是在这里继续建设。”

She also denies engaging in “discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement, or other fraudulent activity.” Like I wrote in Notepad last week, Chiang has been described to me by multiple Xbox employees as highly respected, with high integrity. “I stand by my record: both the results I delivered and the way I have treated people throughout my career,” says Chiang.

她还否认参与了“歧视、欺凌、骚扰、内幕交易、挪用公款或其他欺诈活动”。正如我上周在《Notepad》中所写，多名 Xbox 员工向我描述蒋是一位备受尊敬且品行高尚的人。蒋说：“我坚持我的记录：无论是我交付的成果，还是我在整个职业生涯中对待他人的方式。”

The most significant part of Chiang’s post is a paragraph on fairness and accountability, hinting that she wasn’t treated fairly: I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean something when they’re applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case, and I believe those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

蒋的文章中最引人注目的部分是关于公平和问责的一段话，暗示她并未受到公平对待：“我相信公平、问责，并以我们期望他人遵守的标准来要求自己。只有在始终如一地应用时，这些标准才有意义。我对这些标准在我的案例中是如何被应用的存有严重关切，我相信这些关切值得被认真对待。”

Chiang also says “This is not how I ever imagined my story here would end. And it is not the whole story.” We’ve reached out to Chiang to ask if she’s pursuing legal action against Microsoft. We’ve also asked Microsoft to comment on Chiang’s post, but the company didn’t respond in time for publication.

蒋还表示：“我从未想象过我在微软的故事会以这种方式结束。而且，这还不是故事的全部。”我们已联系蒋，询问她是否会对微软采取法律行动。我们也要求微软对蒋的文章发表评论，但该公司未能在截稿前作出回应。