Microsoft exec called AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history,' new unredacted filings reveal
The quote is real, and it is Microsoft's own scientist saying it about its own biggest partner. What it proves legally is a separate, much harder question that a dramatic sentence cannot answer by itself.
What was checked, and what could not be.
Read the TechCrunch article directly via fetch. Cross-checked the same quotes against Washington Post, Engadget, TechRadar and Futurism coverage of the same filing via search; all outlets attribute the same lines to the same January 2023 memo and January 2024 presentation, and all ultimately trace back to the same underlying source: The New York Times' own legal brief characterizing exhibits that remain sealed. This is repetition across outlets, not independent corroboration of the underlying documents — flagged explicitly in the piece. Confirmed: Hecht's name, title (Microsoft director of Applied Science), and both attributed quotes; the Brockman "ah nice" exchange; Nadella's deposition statement; the 91,692/2 million/160,903 document counts; the 93% click-through figure; Microsoft's on-record spokesperson statement (verified verbatim in the primary source and matched in secondary coverage). Could not verify: the full text or context of Hecht's memo and presentation beyond the quoted excerpts, since the exhibits are sealed; whether Hecht's internal warnings were shared with or acted on by Microsoft leadership at the time; the exact case docket number, which the source article does not state. Left these out rather than guess. Chose the media-literacy angle — separating the viral quote from the unresolved legal question and naming who benefits from which framing (Times' litigation position vs. Microsoft's public defense) — because that distinction, not "is AI training theft," is the checkable and useful part of the story for a practitioner-minded reader.