Before you read this please go read my colleague Carmen Crincoli’s tremendous Medium post on the Microsoft PAC. He put in to words many things I’ve failed to express here and I view my post as an attempt at additive commentary from a poorer author with a less professional style.

I deliberated on the title of this post because it is fairly incendiary, but it is what it is. I want the Microsoft PAC gone. I have wanted it gone for years. I don’t believe in PACs or corporations giving (by proxy or directly) to politicians. I think it’s toxic and has done immeasurable harm to America over the last several decades. I view the Citizen’s United decision as fundamentally harmful. I am, I suppose, a “libtard clown”. 🤷‍♂️

Still, I believe there are superb reasons to disband the Microsoft PAC that are non-partisan and generally amenable to people of all political persuasions and so I shall attempt to make my case as best I can.

Negative Advertising

Core to my argument is a concept I’m calling “negative advertising.” I don’t know if that’s a real thing and I don’t care. The idea is that you can put a message out to the world that does harm to your image and to the way that people perceive you. I believe the Microsoft PAC is unintentionally doing just this. It is telling people “Microsoft endorses this thing you don’t like.”

The PAC doled out less than $830,000 in 2019-2020 at the Federal level in the United States. A frankly paltry sum of money as far as giant corporate advertisement budgets go. Less than a Super Bowl commercial! However, for that relative pittance the company and the PAC have received a tremendous amount of widespread, public criticism. Employees are being exhorted to spend money to have the public at large think poorly of it! Think about this for a bit, really let it sink in.

Moreover, there are probably people being paid right now to weave their way through public PR to undo the brand damage that the PAC did, and I’m sure those people ain’t cheap. It’s good money after bad!

Everyone is mad

As an aforementioned libtard I don’t like to see giving to the pack of election haters in the Republican party. However, were I on team MAGA I’d also be pissed at the PAC for giving Jerry Nadler $7,500, along with a bunch of other Democrats who don’t espouse my world views.

This is the critical bit: nobody walks away happy here. The rationalists will, of course, shrug and say “political giving is the way of the world,” but as recent events so amply demonstrate there are a ton of people on both ends of the political spectrum who aren’t going to take this well. For a company which spends a lot of money to generate brand loyalty it is, frankly, bizarre that this is allowed to go on. After all identity association with a political party is just brand loyalty for politics, and brand loyalty is a fundamentally emotional thing.

You can lobby without a PAC

I am absolutely not suggesting that Microsoft cease spending money to influence politics. I am not that naive. Money has always been and will always continue to be involved in politics in some fashion. I fully expect Microsoft to be an active and eager participant in this realm. Hell, I even encourage it!

The key here is that if we spend this time and energy lobbying on the issues that are core to our company’s mission then we avoid this trap of political giving tailor-made to incense somebody no matter how you do it. By excusing ourselves from the table of direct-to-politician donations we can focus time and energy on goals which are critical to the future of our company and its communities. The same talented people who work on the PAC could, I imagine, even continue to use their skills in this arena to great effect.

People will still be upset about issues that Microsoft chooses to lobby for, of course. However, the key difference is that we’re walking in to that situation with eyes open. Microsoft has taken a stand on LGBTQ+ rights, climate change (which is scientific fact, but I digress), etc. It is fundamentally understood and accepted that people in opposition to these concerns will be unhappy. However, the people who are with us on these issues will lose a reason to be unhappy with the company. We will engender more brand loyalty while losing less goodwill.

And, even better, we’ll spend less money to get more impact. A real win/win.