Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott joins the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to share how one of the world’s largest technology companies is navigating the AI revolution and what it means for startups and the future of innovation. From its landmark partnership with OpenAI to reshaping enterprise and consumer products with AI, Scott will pull back the curtain on where Microsoft sees the biggest opportunities.
This is not a session to miss. Lean in on one of the biggest discussions around AI from an enterprise perspective. Register now to save up to $444 on your pass — or up to 30% on group passes.
From Microsoft to startups: lessons from a 20-year career
He’ll also dive into how startups can strategically build on Microsoft’s platforms — from Azure AI to developer tools — and what’s next in the high-stakes race to define the future of artificial intelligence.
As one of the most influential technology leaders in the world, Scott brings more than two decades of experience at Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, and AdMob. Beyond his role as CTO, he is also a podcast host (Behind the Tech), an author (Reprogramming the American Dream), and an active investor and advisor.
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Join more than 10,000 founders, investors, and operators gathering at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 for a must-see session on the future of AI in consumer tech, commerce, and brand-driven innovation. On the Disrupt Stage, Kevin Scott will share his vision for how AI will transform industries, empower builders, and shape the next decade of innovation. Don’t miss your chance to save — register today to get up to $444 off your pass, or up to 30% off when you bring your team.
Peter Thiel, PayPal’s first CEO, turned his fintech fortune into a far-reaching empire of influence spanning venture capital, politics and power. Marco Bello/Getty Images
In 2007, Fortune magazine reimagined a classic mafia scene with a Silicon Valley twist: 13 male founders and early employees of PayPal, all long gone from the company, posed at a San Francisco café with slicked-back hair, poker chips and dozens of whiskey glasses. The crowd included some of the most recognizable names in today’s tech scene, like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. The magazine dubbed them the “PayPal mafia,” not for their time at the fintech company, but for their outsized impact on Silicon Valley through the companies they launched afterward.
PayPal went public in early 2002 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion the same year. Most of its early employees left the company after the acquisition. They went on to found YouTube, SpaceX and LinkedIn, among other legendary names in Silicon Valley. However, like their cinematic namesake, the group hasn’t avoided controversy. These former colleagues have built billion-dollar businesses while also finding themselves in the crosshairs of public criticism.
For instance, Thiel has faced controversy over his political affiliations and, most notably, for funding Hulk Hogan’s 2012 lawsuit against Gawker Media with $10 million — a case that ultimately drove the online media company into bankruptcy. Musk has also faced criticism for his takeover of Twitter and his prior role in the Trump administration, where he led widespread federal employee firings.
Here’s what they are up to these days:
Peter Thiel: venture capitalist
Peter Thiel. Marco Bello/Getty Images
Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Luke Nosek founded PayPal in 1998, originally as a software security company. After merging with Elon Musk’s X.com (unrelated to the social media platform he owns today), PayPal shifted its focus to digital payments.
Thiel served as CEO from 1998 until 2002, leaving after the company was sold to eBay. He then co-founded Palantir Technologies, a major U.S. government contractor providing data analytics services. The company now has a market capitalization of $439 billion.
Thiel is also known as a prolific angel investor. He co-founded Clarium Capital, Founders Fund, Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital. In 2004, Thiel became Facebook’s first outside investor after acquiring a 10.2 percent stake in the company for $500,000.
Thiel is among the many former PayPal employees who have entered political and high-profile public arenas. An active donor to the Republican Party, Thiel supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign but withheld donations during the 2024 election. He is also credited with helping JD Vance reach the Vice Presidential ticket.
Elon Musk: entrepreneur, the world’s richest person
Elon Musk. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Elon Musk briefly served as PayPal’s CEO before being ousted by the board in 2000. He went on to build one of the most influential portfolios in technology, spanning electric vehicles, space exploration, social media and A.I.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and has led Tesla since 2008. He also founded Neuralink and The Boring Company, expanding his reach into brain-computer interfaces and infrastructure. In 2022, Musk gained global attention for acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, later rebranding it as X.
His ties to A.I. run deep: Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 but left in 2018 over strategic disagreements. In 2023, he returned to the field by launching xAI, a research venture focused on building A.I. that is more understandable for humans.
Today, Musk is the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $400 billion. He is also perhaps the only PayPal alumnus to ascend into direct political influence. During the Trump administration, he led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a name shared with his cryptocurrency venture—before stepping down in May after clashing publicly with the President.
Max Levchin: computer scientist
Max Levchin. John Lamparski/Getty Images
Position at PayPal: co-founder, chief technology officer from 1998 to 2002
As PayPal’s chief technology officer, Max Levchin helped lead the company’s anti-fraud efforts by co-creating the Gausebeck-Levchin test—the foundation for the widely used CAPTCHA security tool. After leaving PayPal, he launched the media-sharing platform Slide in 2004, which was acquired by Google in 2010. Levchin briefly served as Google’s vice president of engineering until Slide was shut down the following year.
In 2012, he co-founded Affirm, a leading “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) company, where he continues to serve as CEO. Today, Affirm has a market capitalization of $27.5 billion, with 21.9 million consumers and more than 350,000 merchant partners on its platform.
Levchin has also held board positions at Yahoo and Yelp. In 2015, he became the first Silicon Valley executive appointed to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s advisory board, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between companies and regulators.
Reid Hoffman: entrepreneur, investor
Reid Hoffman. Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED
Before joining PayPal, Hoffman worked as a senior user experience architect at Apple, contributing to the company’s online social network eWorld. He later became director of product management at Fujitsu. After his online dating startup, SocialNet, folded, Hoffman joined PayPal in 2000 as chief operating officer.
In 2003, he co-founded the career networking site LinkedIn. Following Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2017, Hoffman joined Microsoft’s board, a move that greatly increased his wealth.
Over the years, Hoffman has served on the boards of Airbnb and OpenAI, where he was also an early investor. Through the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, he has backed dozens of A.I. startups. In 2022, he co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman, who now serves as CEO. Earlier this year, he teamed up with cancer researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee to launch Manas AI, a startup focused on drug discovery.
David Sacks: investor, White House A.I. and Crypto Czar
David Sacks currently serves as the White House A.I. and Crypto Czar. JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images
Position at PayPal: chief operating officer from 1999 to 2002
Since leaving PayPal, David Sacks has built a career spanning film, tech, investing and politics. In 2005, he produced and financed a political satire that earned two Golden Globe nominations. The following year, he founded Geni.com, a genealogy-focused social network that later spun off Yammer, one of the earliest enterprise social networking platforms. He went on to co-found Craft Ventures, the startup Glue, and the podcast platform Callin.
Jeremy Stoppelman joined Musk’s X.com in 1999 and became vice president of engineering after its transition to PayPal. In 2004, he co-founded Yelp, where he has served as CEO ever since. Under his leadership, the company turned down a 2010 acquisition offer from Google and went public two years later. Stoppelman’s net worth is estimated at more than $100 million.
Ken Howery: investor, U.S. ambassador
Position at PayPal: chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002
Ken Howery served as PayPal’s chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002. After PayPal’s sale to eBay, he became eBay’s director of corporate development until 2003. He later joined Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital as vice president of private equity and went on to co-found Founders Fund as a partner. Beyond investing, he is a member of the Explorers Club, a nonprofit dedicated to scientific exploration, and an advisor to Kiva, the micro-lending nonprofit founded by former PayPal colleague Premal Shah.
Howery is also among the former PayPal executives who have moved into politics. He has donated at least $1 million to Donald Trump’s campaign through Elon Musk’s political action committee. During Trump’s first term, Howery was appointed U.S. ambassador to Sweden and today serves as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark.
Roeloth Botha: venture capitalist
Roelof Botha joined PayPal as director of corporate development shortly before graduating from Stanford University. He later became vice president of finance and went on to serve as chief financial officer until the company’s acquisition by eBay.
Position at PayPal: software architect from 1998 to 2003
Companies later founded: Yelp, Learnirvana
Russel Simmons helped design PayPal’s payment system as a software architect. After leaving the company, he and fellow PayPal alum Jeremy Stoppelman set out to build a platform for restaurant reviews. With a $1 million investment from Max Levchin, they launched Yelp in July 2004. Simmons served as chief technology officer until his departure in 2010. At the time, Yelp said he would remain a “significant” shareholder, though the size of his stake—and whether he still holds it—remains unclear.
In 2014, Simmons co-founded Learnirvana, an online learning platform.
Andrew McCormack: entrepreneur
Position at PayPal: assistant to Thiel from July 2001 to November 2002
Companies later founded: Valar Ventures
Andrew McCormack began his career as an assistant to Peter Thiel at PayPal and followed him into subsequent ventures. From November 2002 to April 2003, he oversaw operations at Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital.
In 2010, McCormack co-founded Valar Ventures with Thiel and James Fitzgerald, focusing on fintech investments. He remains a general partner at the firm.
Luke Nosek: investor
Position at PayPal: co-founder and vice president of marketing and strategy from 1998 to 2002
Companies later founded: Founders Fund, Gigafund
In 2005, Luke Nosek joined Peter Thiel and Ken Howery to launch Founders Fund, a San Francisco–based venture capital firm that has backed companies such as Airbnb, Lyft and SpaceX. While his exact net worth is unclear, Nosek has made substantial investments through his venture firms. At Founders Fund, he led one of the firm’s earliest major deals with a $20 million investment in SpaceX, later serving on its board.
In 2017, Nosek left to co-found Gigafund, which went on to invest $1 billion in SpaceX, according to the company. He also sits on the board of ResearchGate.
Premal Shah: entrepreneur
Position at Paypal: product manager
Companies later founded: Kiva
Three years after leaving PayPal, Premal Shah co-founded Kiva, a nonprofit that provides loans to entrepreneurs in underserved communities worldwide. He also serves on the boards of other nonprofits, including the Center for Humane Technology, the Change.org Foundation, Watsi and VolunteerMatch.
Keith Rabois: investor
Position at PayPal: executive vice president of business development
After leaving his executive role at PayPal, Keith Rabois became an active investor, backing companies including Slide, YouTube and Palantir. He also invested in LinkedIn, where he served as vice president of business and corporate development, and Square, where he was chief operating officer.
Rabois joined venture capital firm Khosla Ventures from 2013 to 2019 and was a partner at Founders Fund from 2019 to 2024.
After Microsoft decided to jack up the price of its Xbox Game Pass subscriptions to up to $30 a month, it has another unwelcome surprise for members. In a statement provided to multiple outlets like Insider Gaming, a spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed it has removed the discounts for DLC that come with a Game Pass subscription, replacing them by offering points for its Rewards program.
While initial reports discovered the change with the Call of Duty franchise, the Microsoft statement later clarified that this major shift isn’t “specific to any one game and reflects all games and DLC purchases.” To replace the discount, Ultimate subscribers will get 10 percent of their purchase back in Rewards points, while Premium members get five percent, when buying qualifying games from the Game Pass library.
Earlier this month, Microsoft detailed in a post that its goal with Game Pass was to “deliver unmatched value” along with an expansive offering of included games. In the same post, Microsoft announced that it would add 45 more games, along with introducing the $10 price hike. With this latest move, Game Pass subscribers even lose out on the immediate 10 percent discount from their purchases and are forced to accept Game Pass store credit instead. This barrage of news has some members questioning their Xbox Game Pass subscription, but there are still ways to secure the previous rate with pre-paid codes.
Microsoft recently jacked up the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $30 a month, but you may not have to pay that increased rate just yet. Online retailers are still selling codes for prepaid Game Pass subscriptions at the previous $20-per-month rate. Case in point: you can pay just $60 for three-month code from Amazon, stack your codes and keep your subscription without having to downgrade or cancel.
Xbox
You can still purchase pre-paid Game Pass codes at their original price.
As the highest tier in Game Pass, an Ultimate subscription gives you the ability to download and play a library of over 200 games on your PC or Xbox. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can also stream the majority of those games to other devices, too, whether it’s a smartphone, LG TV or in-car display. It’s worth noting, though, the benefits of Ultimate did change with the introduction of the higher price. Microsoft shared that Ultimate subscribers will now also receive the benefits of an Ubisoft+ subscription at no additional cost, a $16 a month value that unlocks access to a back catalog of Ubisoft games from franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. Starting in November, the new Ultimate subscription also includes access to Fortnite Crew, Epic’s $12 a month plan that gives you V-Bucks, battle passes and more in Fortnite.
While those new benefits might justify a higher price monetarily, whether that’s a convincing reason to stay subscribed is a separate question. This likely won’t be the last time Microsoft will raise the price of its subscription service. Avoiding those fees by buying pre-paid Game Pass codes seems like an excellent way to try out the new Ultimate before committing to cancelling your subscription, downgrading your plan or sticking with Microsoft’s new price. You can purchase three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $60 a month. Stacking four three-month codes should come out to around $240.
It’s been quite the week for Xbox news. A lot of people are still coming to terms with Microsoft’s veritable gut-punch of that the price of a Game Pass Ultimate subscription is about to soar by 50 percent. And if that has already pushed you into with Xbox , it looks like Microsoft may soon attempt to tempt you back by giving away its cloud gaming service for free. That is, an extremely limited version of it, with ads.
According to , Microsoft is preparing to announce an ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming, which finally exited beta this week. Sources said to be familiar with Microsoft’s strategy told The Verge that game streaming with ads is already being tested internally with employees. You’ll reportedly be able to play select games that you own as well as a selection of Xbox Retro Classics titles. Microsoft will also offer Free Play Days games, an initiative that already lets Xbox users try games over a weekend. All of this will be possible without a paid Game Pass subscription.
But the inevitable catch, beyond the restricted catalogue of available games, is that you could have to watch up to several minutes of ad content before getting into a game, and it sounds like there are a number of time-based restrictions as well. It’s currently being tested with a one-hour time limit, up to five times per month, though that could change come launch.
Microsoft could launch its ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming tier in beta soon, and it will reportedly be available on PC, Xbox, handheld devices and on browsers. What isn’t clear is what streaming quality will be offered on the free version. Xbox Cloud Gaming’s 1440p option is going to be exclusive to Game Pass Ultimate, with Microsoft saving the “best quality” streaming for its most expensive plan. You’ll be capped at 1080p on the Premium and Essential tiers.
All three paid Game Pass tiers include unlimited cloud gaming, but wait times get longer the further down you go. It’s fair to assume that any free cloud service not tied to Game Pass will be hit with longer wait times, though perhaps the enforced ads would hide those pretty well anyway.
With Microsoft ending support for Windows 10 this October, many people are racing to upgrade. Catherine, a longtime HP desktop user, shared her concerns with us: “I need to purchase a new/updated computer with Windows 11 pretty darn quick. I’ve utilized HP desktops for years and would prefer to continue to do so. My concern deals with transferring everything from one computer to another, made more interesting since my husband and I have separate setups and log-ins. I had a My Passport running, but now I believe a lot is in the cloud. We are concerned about losing our emails/contacts, etc. I also use various programs for a couple of groups I’m involved with (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Adobe Acrobat, etc.), which I cannot afford to lose. Any guidance for a smooth transition would be great.”
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The good news: you can move everything to a new HP computer running Windows 11 with the right preparation and tools. Here’s a step-by-step guide.
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Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 this month.(Microsoft)
What to prepare before you buy a new computer
Before you switch to a new Windows 11 PC, take these steps to organize your files, programs and accounts, so the move goes as smoothly as possible.
1) Inventory what you have and make sure it’s backed up.
List the programs/software you use (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Acrobat, etc.), including any license/activation info.
Find where your data is: local hard drive, external My Passport drive or cloud (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.).
Make sure you have backups of anything that’s only local.
2) Check how your email is set up.
If it’s a Microsoft/Outlook/Exchange account, a lot may already be stored in the cloud. Outlook contacts/calendars may sync automatically depending on how your accounts are configured.
If you use POP (email downloaded locally), or “local only” Outlook data (.pst files), you’ll need to move those manually.
3) Have your login accounts ready.
Know your Microsoft account credentials (if you use one).
Know admin passwords for existing software.
4) Gather license keys/software installers.
For paid apps (Adobe Acrobat etc.), make sure you have install files or know how to re-download, plus activation keys.
Make a note of any special settings or plugins you use so they get restored.
Choosing the right computer for your needs
When choosing a new HP computer, confirm it runs Windows 11 out of the box. Pick a model with enough storage to hold all your files and plenty of RAM for multitasking. If you rely on external drives, make sure the new computer has the right ports, like USB-C or USB 3.0.
You can browse CyberGuy’s best laptop picks or best desktop computers for solid options at Cyberguy.com. If you mainly use your computer for email, browsing, or video calls, a tablet, Chromebook, or iPad might be all you need. They’re low-maintenance, secure, and often more affordable than a new Windows laptop.
Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating system logos are displayed on laptop screens. Krakow, Poland, on Feb. 3, 2022. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto)
Step-by-step: Migrating to the new Windows 11 computer
Moving to a new PC takes planning, but following these steps will help you transfer your files, programs and settings safely. This is especially important if you and your spouse use separate logins.
Back up everything
Start by backing up your personal files, documents, pictures and desktop to both your external drive and a cloud service like OneDrive. If you use Outlook, export your email, contacts, and calendar if needed.
For POP or local .pst files, go to File → Open & Export → Export → Outlook Data File (.pst) and make a copy.
For IMAP or Exchange accounts, confirm that everything has synced properly online.
Back up Windows and settings
Use Windows Backup or the built-in tools to save your settings and user folders. Apply the latest Windows updates on the old PC before making the switch.
Set up the new PC
When you turn on your new computer, sign in with your Microsoft account if you have one. This helps sync certain settings automatically. Reinstall your Office apps, Adobe Acrobat, and any other software using your license keys or installers.
Transfer data and settings
If both PCs are connected and supported, you can use Windows Backup’s “Transfer information to a new PC” option. Simply pair them and choose what to move. If that’s not an option, copy backups from your external drive or cloud storage onto the new computer. Restore email by importing your .pst file if required.
Verify everything works
Open your key programs to confirm licensing is valid. Check that your email, contacts and calendar are functioning correctly. Go through your files to make sure nothing is missing.
Set up backup and ongoing sync
Once you’re up and running, turn on OneDrive or your preferred cloud service to sync important folders like Documents and Desktop. Finally, create a regular backup plan using either your external drive or the cloud, so your new PC stays protected.
Common problems to avoid
Some users run out of space on their new PC because they underestimated how much data they had. Others lose email when they forget to export .pst files. License activation can also cause headaches if the software is tied to the old machine, so always deactivate before reinstalling. And remember that older programs may not work perfectly on Windows 11, so check compatibility in advance.
Tools that can help
3rd party software: Transfers files, settings and some installed apps automatically. For our picks, search “First 10 things to do if you got a new PC” on Cyberguy.com
Windows Backup and Transfer: Free but may require reinstalling programs manually.
External hard drive backup: Still the simplest safety net for keeping copies of your important files. Copy everything important to your external drive as a safety measure before migrating.
Experts recommend backing up your files to an external hard drive or a cloud service before making the switch.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
How long the process takes
Upgrading to a new computer isn’t instant, but knowing the timeline helps you plan your day. On average, you can expect the transition to take most of an afternoon. Here’s what it looks like step by step:
Choose and order your new PC: Browsing, comparing models and making the purchase usually takes one to two hours.
Initial setup and Windows updates: When the new computer arrives, the first startup and applying all current Windows updates can take another one to two hours.
Install key programs: Installing Microsoft Office apps and Adobe Acrobat typically requires about one hour, depending on download speed and license activation.
Back up data on your old PC: Creating backups of your documents, photos and email accounts usually takes one to three hours. The exact time depends on how much data you have and whether you use an external drive or the cloud.
Transfer data and settings: Moving files, Outlook .pst backups and Windows settings to the new computer often takes one to two hours.
Verify that everything works: Allow about an hour to test your programs, check your email and contacts, and confirm that none of your files were left behind.
Reconnect devices and tweak settings: Finally, plan for 30 to 60 minutes to reconnect printers, set up Bluetooth accessories and customize your desktop and preferences.
When you add it all together, the full migration can take anywhere from six to ten hours spread over a day. While it requires patience, completing each step carefully ensures that your new Windows 11 computer runs smoothly without losing important data.
Pro tip: Once your new PC is ready, don’t forget security. Install strong antivirus software right away. The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com/LockUpYourTech
What to do with your old PC
Once you’ve finished moving everything over to your new Windows 11 computer and confirmed it’s working, don’t forget about your old PC. Leaving files on it could expose your personal data if the computer is ever donated, recycled or resold.
Before repurposing, always perform a secure wipe to erase all personal information. This step ensures that sensitive files, passwords and documents can’t be recovered later. After wiping, you can safely recycle the device, donate it or set it up for light use elsewhere in your home.
For step-by-step instructions, check out how to securely get rid of your old computer before recycling, selling or donating it.
Not everyone wants to switch right away. The good news is that Microsoft recently added two ways to extend Windows 10 support until October 13, 2026.
Use Microsoft Rewards: Redeem 1,000 points to keep your Windows 10 system covered.
Back up with OneDrive: Sync your files through Windows Backup and get extended support for free.
These options buy you more time, but remember: Windows 11 is the future. Planning now ensures you won’t be caught off guard when the final end date arrives.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 may feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right preparation, backups and tools, you can make the switch smoothly and protect everything that matters.
Are you ready to upgrade before Windows 10 support runs out, or will you risk sticking with an outdated system? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com/Contact
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Microsoft may have made the unfortunate decision to raise the price of a Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to $30 a month, but you don’t have to live by the company’s rules — at least not yet. Most online retailers are still selling codes for prepaid Game Pass subscriptions at the original $20 a month price. That means you can pay $60 for three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, stack your codes and keep your subscription without having to downgrade or cancel.
Xbox
You can still purchase pre-paid Game Pass codes at their original price.
As the highest tier in Game Pass, an Ultimate subscription gives you the ability to download and play a library of over 200 games on your PC or Xbox. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can also stream the majority of those games to other devices, too, whether it’s a smartphone, LG TV or in-car display. It’s worth noting, though, the benefits of Ultimate did change with the introduction of the higher price. Microsoft shared that Ultimate subscribers will now also receive the benefits of an Ubisoft+ subscription at no additional cost, a $16 a month value that unlocks access to a back catalog of Ubisoft games from franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. Starting in November, the new Ultimate subscription also includes access to Fortnite Crew, Epic’s $12 a month plan that gives you V-Bucks, battle passes and more in Fortnite.
While those new benefits might justify a higher price monetarily, whether that’s a convincing reason to stay subscribed is a separate question. This likely won’t be the last time Microsoft will raise the price of its subscription service. Avoiding those fees by buying pre-paid Game Pass codes seems like an excellent way to try out the new Ultimate before committing to cancelling your subscription, downgrading your plan or sticking with Microsoft’s new price. You can purchase three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $60 a month. Stacking four three-month codes should come out to around $240.
Before David Risher was tasked with scripting a “comeback story” for ride-sharing company Lyft, he made a career move so audacious that it prompted a direct, and blunt, intervention from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. In a recent appearance on Fortune‘s Leadership Next podcast, Risher shared the moment Gates told him he was making “the stupidest decision I’ve ever heard anyone made.”
The year was 1996, and Risher was enjoying a successful career at Microsoft during the heyday of Windows. In fact, Risher noted he and his wife just had their 30th wedding anniversary, having met “on the first day” at Microsoft. He said it was a very formative time for him and his career at a very competitive company.
But he had been in talks with a man named Jeff Bezos, who was running a brand-new startup called Amazon. When Risher decided to leave the tech giant to join the fledgling online retailer, Gates himself sent an email and called him into his office.
“He says, ‘Hold on for a second. You mean to tell me you’re leaving this company for some tiny, little internet bookstore that nobody’s ever heard of … that has got to be the stupidest decision I’ve ever heard anyone made,’” Risher recalled.
While Risher admitted the move wasn’t “entirely rational,” he said he was drawn to the opportunity. He had first connected with Bezos a year earlier, when the Amazon founder was conducting a reference check. What ultimately convinced Risher to take the leap was Bezos’s intense focus on the customer. “He was very customer-obsessed,” Risher said, noting Bezos’s logic that on the internet, “everyone is one click away from somebody else, so you have to create a great customer experience.” (In fact, Bezos’s management style stressed to Amazonians that they should approach every day from a “day one” mindset.)
Bezos also laid out a compellingly ambitious vision: to grow the then-$15.6 million business into a billion-dollar company by the year 2000. Risher, an avid reader, was captivated by the chance to build something new at the “crazy intersection of technology and culture.” He joined Amazon as its 37th employee, tasked with helping build the “everything store” by adding music, video, and toy categories. The company hit its billion-dollar target a year early, in 1999. The move paid off so well that a “Thank You” letter from Bezos to Risher, dated February 2002, remains on Amazon’s website to this day.
One of the great comebacks
Now, as CEO of Lyft, Risher is applying that same foundational principle of customer obsession to engineer what he hopes will be “one of the world’s great comeback stories.” He said when he took the job in 2023, the company had “lost its way” a little bit, as it was losing market share, and it wasn’t profitable. (Lyft stock is down roughly 20% over the last five years, but has risen 60% year-to-date.) Risher’s strategy has been to return to the basics: understanding what customers actually want.
To achieve this, he famously works “undercover” as a Lyft driver in Napa Valley and San Francisco to learn firsthand about the rider and driver experience. A conversation with a passenger stressed by variable pricing led directly to the creation of Lyft’s “Price Lock” feature. He insists on viewing drivers as customers, too, which led to a 70% earnings guarantee—ensuring drivers always receive at least 70% of what riders pay, a move that has given Lyft a 19-point advantage in driver preference over competitors.
This obsessive focus on improving the service is part of Risher’s fight against what he calls “enshittification,” borrowing the phrase from Cory Doctorow that was named the “word of the year” by both an Australian dictionary and the American Dialect Society for how it summed up widespread frustration with the tech sector, even with modern life. Risher described it as the gravitational pull that makes services worse over time due to profit and investor pressures. By breaking down problems piece by piece, his team has drastically improved the user experience, cutting the driver cancellation rate from a “super irritating” 15% down to below 5%.
From receiving a stark warning from a tech titan to earning a permanent thank-you from another, Risher’s unconventional career has been defined by taking on ambitious challenges. Now, he’s betting that the same customer-first philosophy that turned a small online bookstore into a global empire can drive Lyft’s next chapter of growth.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
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If raising console prices wasn’t enough to scare you away, Microsoft has also increased the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate by 50 percent. That makes the subscription cost $30 per month when it used to be $20. Even if it comes with more games and the benefits of a Fortnite Crew subscription, you wouldn’t be wrong for wanting to cancel.
Cancelling means you’ll also lose ability to play online multiplayer games, but cheaper tiers of Game Pass received new benefits without getting a similar price hike, so downgrading might be worth considering. Whichever you choose, the process of managing your subscription is relatively easy, provided you remember your login information.
How to cancel your Game Pass subscription
Ian Carlos Campbell for Engadget
Rather than managing your Game Pass subscription on your Xbox, you’ll need to log in to your Microsoft account through a web browser. To get started:
Access your account by clicking the profile icon in the top-right corner of , or by heading to and logging in.
Click on the Subscriptions tab in the left sidebar.
In the Game Pass section, click on Manage.
Then click on Cancel subscription, the last option in the menu.
Depending on when you subscribed and when your next billing date is, Microsoft might offer to refund a portion of your subscription if you choose to unsubscribe immediately, rather than wait to the end of your billing period. Whichever you choose, once you confirm, you’ll be unsubscribed.
How to downgrade to a cheaper Game Pass subscription
Ian Carlos Campbell for Engadget
If you’d prefer to just switch to a more affordable subscription, like Game Pass Premium for $15 per month or Game Pass Essential for $10 per month, the process is nearly the same.
Log in to your account through or .
Click on the Subscriptions tab in the left sidebar.
In the Game Pass section, click on Manage.
Then, click on Change subscription plan.
Consider your options, then click on Switch subscription to change plans.
Microsoft will ask you to confirm your decision and potentially choose a payment option, but once you click on Subscribe, you’ll be all set.
Microsoft is adding another subscription plan to its already confusing list of offerings. The new Microsoft 365 Premium plan, which costs $20 a month, bundles the company’s standard Office productivity suite together with access to OpenAI’s latest models and extended AI usage limits.
Microsoft positions it as a more valuable subscription than OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus, which also costs $20 a month and doesn’t have the benefit of Office apps or the 1TB of OneDrive storage you get with all Microsoft 365 subscriptions. (That’s certainly an odd way to treat a close partner.)
Thankfully, Microsoft isn’t touching the pricing of its $10-a-month MS 365 Personal plan, or the $13 monthly MS 365 Family subscription — for now, anyway. The company just announced today that it’s pushing its GamePass Ultimate subscription to $30-a-month, much to the chagrin of gamers everywhere.
In a way, the Microsoft 365 Premium plan simplifies Microsoft’s offerings a bit. If you had one of the cheaper MS 365 plans, you’d still need to pay another $20 a month to get access to higher AI usage limits with the Copilot Pro subscription. Microsoft hasn’t made any updates about what’s happening with Copilot Pro, but it seems redundant and overpriced now that MS 365 Premium is available.
According to the company, Microsoft 365 Premium will get you access to GPT-5 and 4o, as well as AI agents including “Actions, Researcher and Analyst.” That’s directly comparable to OpenAI’s plan, which uses ChatGPT Agent’s instead of Microsoft’s. MS 365 Premium users will also be able to test new AI features as they’re available, but they won’t have access to OpenAI’s custom GPTs or Sora video generation.
With A.I. leaders like Sam Altman warning of a potential bubble, it might seem logical for investors to pull back. Instead, venture capitalists say they’re doubling down, though in a more deliberate and strategic way.
“Every investor I speak to says 90 percent of new investments are in an A.I.-related field,” Gené Teare, senior data editor at Crunchbase, told Observer. “A.I. is the center. Every one of these investors, they’re looking to invest in companies who are going to be part of the next wave.”
Teare sees current investor buzz centering on coding and customer service startups with A.I. foundations. She added that investors are “very focused on investing in companies at the seed or series A level, who are going to be the emerging or the largest companies 5 to 10 years out.” According to Crunchbase, tomorrow’s most promising companies will likely be in A.I. infrastructure and cybersecurity.
Even with venture funding down from its 2021 peak when it hit $702 billion compared to just over half that in 2024, investors remain active, albeit more selective. “For most of these investors, they’re not investing in a large set of companies. They’re making very targeted bets in companies that they think are going to become formative in the next period,” Teare said. That approach has already fueled record-breaking rounds, including this year’s $40 billion going to OpenAI.
A.I. is changing how VCs invest
A.I.’s rapid evolution isn’t just changing which companies VCs invest in; it’s changing how they invest.
“We are experimenting with how A.I. can help analyze leads,” Michael Stewart, managing partner at M12, Microsoft’s venture capital fund, told Observer. M12’s portfolio includes companies like Livongo by Teledoc Health, HR software Beamery and retail advertising platform GroundTruth. While M12 still sources deals the traditional way, through meetings and networking, the team now uses A.I. to analyze those leads, looking at unit economics, pricing strategies and underlying technology.
Stewart didn’t specify which tools they use, but said M12 has shifted from outside customer relationship management systems to Microsoft’s own technology. Dealmaking platforms like Affinity and Carta also integrate A.I. into their offerings. Last year, Anthropic partnered with Menlo Ventures to launch the Anthology Fund, which uses Claude to recommend startups for investment.
Despite all the changes, some venture capital fundamentals remain. Customer acquisition cost and lifetime value are still pivotal metrics. And founder quality matters more than ever, Crunchbase’s Teare noted. “There are a lot of companies going after the same markets, so it’s the pedigree of the founder,” she said. “That might be a repeat founder who’s done it before, or new founders who have an angle on a market, or a certain energy and grit that they believe could carry it through.”
While some startup founders are opting to bootstrap, Stewart noted that’s rarely an option in A.I. Given the steep costs of hiring top talent, securing GPUs and scaling infrastructure, most cutting-edge A.I. ventures require outside funding despite the technology’s potential to reduce operating expenses.
That competitive environment pushes Stewart to ask founders tough questions: “How are you showing that you’re changing customers’ behaviors? How are you getting them to bring in A.I. at a deeper level of their own company strategy?” With so much A.I. use still experimental, he said, proving real recurring revenue beyond pilot projects is a key differentiator.
Like many A.I. investors, M12 is also eyeing infrastructure. “We’re in this energy-constrained world where we want to scale solutions at a global level,” Stewart said. “If unaddressed, these things become destiny-limiting, so it’s chips, it’s networking, it’s memory, it’s the kinds of endpoints where you deliver A.I.”
Still, challenges lie ahead. As Stewart noted, funding rounds keep getting bigger at earlier stages, creating pressure for those investments to mature. “Mathematically, it is possible to go even larger, but you’re going to need to let those bets we in the VC industry just made mature into those leaders,” he said.
More than 600 metro Atlanta jobseekers gathered at the Impact Event Center on Thursday, Sept. 26, for a free career networking event that opened new doors to opportunity in tech, construction, and logistics. Hosted through a collaboration between MWI Workforce Institute and Microsoft, the event resulted in more than 100 on-site hires and scheduled interviews, with additional participants connected to human resources teams, training opportunities, and upskilling resources.
The event featured resume coaching, interview strategies, and direct networking with employers and Microsoft hiring managers. Attendees also participated in a Datacenter 101 workshop, designed to introduce jobseekers to one of the fastest-growing fields supporting the digital economy.
“As conversations about artificial intelligence and digital transformation continue to dominate the job market, it is critical to create accessible spaces where people can sharpen skills, build networks and engage directly with employers,” said Ahsan Manji, Board Member, MWI Workforce Institute. “The strong turnout and on-the-spot hiring outcomes are a clear signal that this event truly delivered on its promise of opportunity.”
Photo Credit: MWI Workforce Institute x Microsoft Career Networking Event
The career networking event reflects a broader commitment to workforce development across the region. Through initiatives such as Microsoft’s Datacenter Academy, MWI Workforce Institute and Microsoft are working to expand access to both established and emerging career pathways.
“Microsoft is committed to ensuring that communities everywhere have access to the skills and opportunities that power the digital world,” said Jon McKenley, Microsoft Sr. Community Affairs Manager. “The success of this event shows how vital it is to meet people where they are, offering training, guidance, and direct connections to industries shaping the future.”
For more information about upcoming opportunities, visit MWIWorkforce.org
It takes a lot of computing power to run an AI product — and as the tech industry races to tap the power of AI models, there’s a parallel race underway to build the infrastructure that will power them. On a recent earnings call, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang estimated that between $3 trillion and $4 trillion will be spent on AI infrastructure by the end of the decade — with much of that money coming from AI companies. Along the way, they’re placing immense strain on power grids and pushing the industry’s building capacity to its limit.
Below, we’ve laid out everything we know about the biggest AI infrastructure projects, including major spending from Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. We’ll keep it updated as the boom continues and the numbers climb even higher.
Microsoft’s $1 billion investment in OpenAI
This is arguably the deal that kicked off the whole contemporary AI boom: In 2019, Microsoft made a $1 billion investment in a buzzy non-profit called OpenAI, known mostly for its association with Elon Musk. Crucially, the deal made Microsoft the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI — and as the demands of model training became more intense, more of Microsoft’s investment started to come in the form of Azure cloud credit rather than cash.
It was a great deal for both sides: Microsoft was able to claim more Azure sales, and OpenAI got more money for its biggest single expense. In the years that followed, Microsoft would build its investment up to nearly $14 billion — a move that is set to pay off enormously when OpenAI converts into a for-profit company.
The partnership between the two companies has unwound more recently. In January, OpenAI announced it would no longer be using Microsoft’s cloud exclusively, instead giving the company a right of first refusal on future infrastructure demands but pursuing others if Azure couldn’t meet their needs. More recently, Microsoft began exploring other foundation models to power its AI products, establishing even more independence from the AI giant.
OpenAI’s arrangement with Microsoft was so successful that it’s become a common practice for AI services to sign on with a particular cloud provider. Anthropic has received $8 billion in investment from Amazon, while making kernel-level modifications on the company’s hardware to make it better suited for AI training. Google Cloud has also signed on smaller AI companies like Lovable and Windsurf as “primary computing partners,” although those deals did not involve any investment. And even OpenAI has gone back to the well, receiving a $100 billion investment from Nvidia in September, giving it capacity to buy even more of the company’s GPUs.
The rise of Oracle
On June 30, 2025, Oracle revealed in an SEC filing that it had signed a $30 billion cloud services deal with an unnamed partner; this is more than the company’s cloud revenues for all of the previous fiscal year. OpenAI was eventually revealed as the partner, securing Oracle a spot alongside Google as one of OpenAI’s string of post-Microsoft hosting partners. Unsurprisingly, the company’s stock went shooting up.
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A few months later, it happened again. On September 10, Oracle revealed a five-year, $300 billion deal for compute power, set to begin in 2027. Oracle’s stock climbed even higher, briefly making founder Larry Ellison the richest man in the world. The sheer scale of the deal is stunning: OpenAI does not have $300 billion to spend, so the figure presumes immense growth for both companies, and more than a little faith.
But before a single dollar is spent, the deal has already cemented Oracle as one of the leading AI infrastructure providers — and a financial force to be reckoned with.
Building tomorrow’s hyperscale data centers
For companies like Meta that already have significant legacy infrastructure, the story is more complicated — although equally expensive. Mark Zuckerberg has said that Meta plans to spend $600 billion on U.S. infrastructure through the end of 2028.
In just the first half of 2025, the company spent $30 billion more than the previous year, driven largely by the company’s growing AI ambitions. Some of that spending goes toward big ticket cloud contracts, like a recent $10 billion deal with Google Cloud, but even more resources are being poured into two massive new data centers.
A new 2,250-acre site in Louisiana, dubbed Hyperion, will cost an estimated $10 billion to build out and provide an estimated 5 gigawatts of compute power. Notably, the site includes an arrangement with a local nuclear power plant to handle the increased energy load. A smaller site in Ohio, called Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026, powered by natural gas.
That kind of buildout comes with real environmental costs. Elon Musk’s xAI built its own hybrid data center and power-generation plant in South Memphis, Tennessee. The plant has quickly become one of the county’s largest emitters of smog-producing chemicals, thanks to a string of natural gas turbines that experts say violate the Clean Air Act.
The Stargate moonshot
Just two days after his second inauguration, President Trump announced a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle, meant to spend $500 billion building AI infrastructure in the United States. Named “Stargate” after the 1994 film, the project arrived with incredible amounts of hype, with Trump calling it “the largest AI infrastructure project in history. Sam Altman seemed to agree, saying, ”I think this will be the most important project of this era.”
In broad strokes, the plan was for SoftBank to provide the funding, with Oracle handling the buildout with input from OpenAI. Overseeing it all was Trump, who promised to clear away any regulatory hurdles that might slow down the build. But there were doubts from the beginning, including from Elon Musk, Altman’s business rival, who claimed the project did not have the available funds.
As the hype has died down, the project has lost some momentum. In August, Bloomberg reported that the partners were failing to reach consensus. Nonetheless, the project has moved forward with the construction of eight data centers in Abilene, Texas, with construction on the final building set to be finished by the end of 2026.
Donald Trump has issued his latest challenge to test corporate America’s fealty to his administration. On Friday, the President decided to wade into the personnel decision of Microsoft and called for the company to fire its President of Global Affairs, Lisa Monaco, over her previous work under the Obama and Biden administrations—a warning shot fired apparently at the advice of far-right activist Laura Loomer.
Trump called Monaco, who previously served as the deputy attorney general during the Biden administration and Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, “Corrupt and Totally Trump Deranged,” He also claimed that because of her ties to the previous administrations, she is “a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government”—a statement that likely doesn’t not read like a threat to review and potentially revoke lucrative federal procurements that Microsft has landed.
“It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco,” Trump wrote. Microsoft declined to comment when contacted by Gizmodo.
Why the President issuing opinions on an employee who doesn’t even appear on Microsoft’s leadership team page? It appears that it’s because Laura Loomer got in his ear again. Back in July, Loomer took aim at Monaco, tying her to Microsoft’s decision to use engineers in China to help provide tech support to the Defense Department. The connections take some red string and corkboard to make, but Loomer went ahead and connected the dots.
On Friday, she took credit for the President following suit and calling for Microsoft to dismiss Monaco. “After I alerted President Trump to the fact that Microsoft has hired Lisa Monaco to be their new President of Global Affairs, he has just called on Microsoft to terminate her employment,” she wrote on X. (For what it’s worth, Monaco was hired in May, and Loomer didn’t mention her until July, so apparently it takes a while for her alerts to get to Trump’s desk.)
In the post, she also tagged Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and asked, “Are you going to comply?” which certainly has some echoes of Federal Communications Commission head Brendan Carr telling ABC, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” in regards to punishing Jimmy Kimmel over a monologue that conservatives didn’t like. It sure feels like an attempt to compel corporations to capitulate to the wishes of the administration—though, at least in Loomer’s case, she doesn’t have any formal power.
If anything, Trump may be better off with Monaco stuck in a corporate office somewhere rather than back in legal waters serving as cop on the beat. Under Biden, Monaco was involved in the creation of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which led crackdowns on crypto scams similar to the ones the President and his family have profited from. Prior to that, she served as a member of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force and was involved in the prosecution of five former Enron executives.
President Donald Trump declared Friday that Microsoft needs to fire Lisa Monaco, the company’s president of global affairs.
Citing her roles as “a senior National Security aide under Barack Hussein Obama, and a Lawfare and Weaponization obsessed Deputy Attorney General under Crooked Joe Biden and Lisa’s Puppet ‘Boss’ Attorney General Merrick Garland,” Trump posted on Truth Social that Monaco’s current role gives her access to “Highly Sensitive Information,” which he deemed “unacceptable.”
“It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco,” he wrote.
As Trump noted, Monaco worked with both Barack Obama and Joe Biden, including as a deputy attorney general under the Biden administration. Trump rescinded Monaco’s security clearance earlier this year, in the an order that did the same for Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and the Biden family.
A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment. Monaco joined the company in May, taking on a role overseeing the company’s cybersecurity policy and its relationship with world governments.
Far-right activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer has repeatedlycriticized Microsoft for hiring Monaco in posts on X, complaining in one post that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was “born in India” and accusing him of “disgraceful scammer behavior.” On Friday, Loomed triumphantly quoted Trump’s post and again called on the president to “cancel all of Microsoft’s government contracts.”
A cyberattack on the UK-based automaker Jaguar Land Rover has been causing a supply chain meltdown, halting vehicle production, costing JLR tens of millions of dollars, and forcing its parts suppliers to lay off workers. The beleaguered company will have to shoulder the full cost of the attack because of inadequate insurance coverage, prompting talks of possible UK government assistance.
And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
An app used to out those who spoke ill of the murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was found to be leaking its users’ personal information, doxing the very people it had invited to dox its targets.
The app Cancel the Hate, founded in the wake of Kirk’s September 10 assassination, suspended its services this week after it was revealed that security flaws in the website where the app was hosted exposed users’ email addresses and phone numbers. That site had asked its users to collect and share employment and other personal information of critics of Kirk and others “supporting political violence.” But a security researcher who identified themselves only as BobDaHacker demonstrated to news outlet Straight Arrow News that privacy settings on the site didn’t work as advertised, publicly leaking users’ information even when it was set to private. The hacker also reportedly had the ability to delete users’ accounts at will.
Cancel the Hate, which displayed a photo of Kirk on its homepage and was founded by a Kirk supporter who cited his death as the motivation for creating the site, has since taken down its reporting features. It now displays a message on its homepage that it’s moving to a “new service provider.” The page that allows visitors to buy a $23 T-shirt remains online.
Ransomware groups continued to plumb the depths of abject immorality this week with a new tactic: extorting preschools by stealing toddlers’ personal information and threatening their parents. The BBC reports that a hacker group says it has stolen the names, addresses, and photos of around 8,000 children from the preschool chain Kido, which has sites largely around London but also in the US and India. The hackers are threatening to leak the data if a ransom isn’t paid, going so far as to contact some of the children’s parents to reinforce their threat. The group has also posted sample information and photos of 10 children on their dark-web site.
In August, The Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language publication Local Call revealed how Israeli signals intelligence agency Unit 8200 had built a comprehensive surveillance system to intercept and store Palestinian phone calls. More than “a million calls an hour” could be collected by the system, which reportedly amassed around 8,000 terabytes of call data and stored it in Microsoft’s Azure cloud service in the Netherlands, the publications reported.
This week, following an external investigation commissioned by Microsoft, the company pulled some of the Israeli military’s access to its technology. In a statement, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the firm has taken the decision to “cease and disable” some “specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies” that it was providing to Israeli forces. Microsoft’s action—its investigation is still ongoing—follows a wave of staff protests at its ties to Israel and its ongoing war in Gaza. “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades,” Smith wrote in a statement.
Microsoft has finally revealed how much the ROG Xbox Ally handheld consoles will cost you, now that they’re available for preorder. The ROG Xbox Ally X, which the company describes as the “ultimate high-performance handheld” that’s “built for the most demanding players,” will set you back $1,000. Meanwhile, the ROG Xbox Ally is “for everyone from the casual player to the avid enthusiast.” That model costs a more palatable $600.
ASUS + Xbox
Microsoft unveiled the devices during the Xbox Games Showcase at Summer Game Fest in June, with the promise that they’d be available by this year’s holiday shopping season. It was revealed a couple of months later that the consoles will be on store shelves by October 16. However, they hadn’t announced their prices until now.
Microsoft teamed up with ASUS’ ROG division to develop the handhelds. They’re powered by Windows 11 and lets you play any Xbox game you’ve purchased, whether you bought it on your console or your computer, as well as PC games from any store that you install directly on the device. You can use it to stream Xbox games from your console anywhere in your home or from the Xbox Cloud Gaming service. And yes, you’ll be able to continue where you left off when you jump from one device to another. At launch, Xbox will mark thousands of games as Handheld Optimized or Mostly Compatible to indicate if they play well on handhelds.
Specs
Digging into their specs accentuates those differences. The ROG Xbox Ally uses an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, while the ROG Xbox Ally X has a more powerful AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme. The standard model has 16GB RAM (6,400 MT/s), while the premium version has 24GB (8,000 MT/s).
The ROG Xbox Ally has a 512GB SSD; the ROG Xbox Ally X boosts that to 1TB. However, they each have a microSD slot to help you store more games. (And they both use upgrade-friendly M.2 2280 SSDs.)
The premium model has a larger battery, measuring 80 Wh. The entry-level version has a 60 Wh one. But that doesn’t necessarily mean longer battery life. We’ll have to wait for extended testing to know that.
Each variant has two USB-C ports, but (again) you get a higher-end version in the higher-end model. The Xbox ROG Ally includes two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The Xbox ROG Ally X has one of those, along with a USB 4 Type-C port. The latter is more versatile, supporting Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 2.1 and eGPUs.
Each model has a seven-inch 1080p, 16:9 display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness. They’re anti-reflective, use Corning Gorilla Glass Victus and support FreeSync Premium.
How to pre-order
The standard ROG Xbox Ally is more readily available. In the US, you can pre-order it from Xbox, Microsoft Store, Asus, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. Meanwhile, the ROG Xbox Ally X is only available from Microsoft (“sold out” at the time of publication), Asus and Best Buy. Both handhelds are more expensive than their non-Xbox counterparts, which range between $500 and $800.
A SanDisk microSD card designed specifically for the handhelds and a SeaGate SSD that supports Microsoft DirectStorage are now also available for preorder.
The devices are also available around the world. You can also preorder the consoles in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine.
All these markets, including the US, are getting the console on October 16. The handhelds will also be available in additional markets in the future. These will include Brazil, China, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Philippines and Switzerland.
ASUS
Pre-order the handheld ahead of its October 16 arrival.
Microsoft has a fix for long shader compilation wait times. The system is called , and it’s being first introduced for handhelds and games listed on the .
Just about every PC gamer knows the feeling of booting up a highly anticipated new AAA title, excited to explore its sprawling environments or open world, only to be hit with “compiling shaders” and a progress bar that seems to move at a snail’s pace. Depending on what specs you’re rocking and what game you’ve just installed, the wait could be as much as one to two hours for those with slower CPUs and older systems.
While it seems increasingly common that huge games are using these shader compilation screens before even getting to the main menu (looking at you Hogwarts Legacy), games that choose not to use them still need to load and compile shaders. If they aren’t done ahead of time, then they must be done during gameplay, which can lead to in-game stuttering that many gamers are also familiar with.
Advanced Shader Delivery would preempt this by doing the entire compilation process ahead of time and storing those compiled shaders in the cloud. The catch is that shader compilation is hardware-specific, and since there are myriad GPU and driver combos, it would take a few dozen sets of compiled shaders to cover all the most common setups, and that’s per game. Extrapolate that out even just to all the AAA titles released yearly, and you’ve got yourself a massive database.
This is similar to how shader compilation works on consoles, but you’re talking about at most two or three versions per console, or even fewer in the case of the Nintendo Switch. In fact, that’s precisely why Microsoft is starting with the handhelds, which comprises only two hardware configurations.
Microsoft’s Agility SDK for game developers now supports Advanced Shader Delivery, meaning devs could start building it into new games already. In practice, it can take years to fully capitalize on new technologies like this.
That’s exactly what we’ve seen with , another Microsoft technology meant to reduce asset load times. Three years after its release, we still see only a handful of big titles incorporating Direct Storage. It might be a long time before we see Advanced Shader Delivery incorporated into most popular games and available on different store fronts like Steam.
PC gaming is wonderful. You can customize games as much as you desire, run them at high framerates, and enjoy all sorts of other useful advantages. But one really annoying part of gaming on a PC in 2025 is dealing with shader compilation. Thankfully, Microsoft is rolling out a solution, but it might take some time before you get to enjoy its benefits.
Over the last few years, game developers have started implementing shader compilation on PC. The idea is for your GPU to compile as many of the shaders that will be used during gameplay as possible ahead of time and limit how much stuttering you feel while playing. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a pretty good way to improve how well games play on your PC. But the big problem with compiling shaders is that it takes time,and you’re often left looking at a screen for a few minutes or more, depending on your PC and how many shaders the game needs to compile. In theory, you only have to do this once at startup. But in reality, you’ll likely do it a few times, as big updates or changes you make to the game’s settings can force another shader compilation. I have even run into games, like Borderlands 4, that compile shaders mid-game when fast-traveling for the first time. It’s all very annoying, but thankfully, Microsoft has a solution that is now in the wild.
As spotted by PC Gamer, Microsoft’s Agility software development kit, a collection of game development tools for DirectX, has been updated to 1.618 and now supports Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD). This tech, which was announced last month, is Microsoft’s plan to get rid of those annoying shader compiling screens. The basic idea is that instead of your GPU and PC compiling all the shaders at game boot, ADS will contain a large database of pre-compiled shaders for various hardware and API setups. So you download a game and it includes all the shaders you’ll need, already compiled offline and ready to go.
This is essentially how consoles get around having to compile shaders when booting up a game, but it’s much easier over there, as devs only have to manage a few setups. In the world of PC gaming, there are many, many different hardware configurations to deal with, making it trickier to pre-compile everything. But AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are all working together alongside Microsoft to provide devs and storefronts with everything they’ll need to pre-compile shaders for as many hardware variations as possible, and then offer these to consumers when they buy digital games.
For now, ADS is only available on Microsoft’s Xbox Store app and only when using the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds, which both launch on October 16. It’ll likely be a few years before ADS is a normal feature included in most big stores and games, but at least there’s hope. One day, not too far in the future, we’ll all be free from having to wait for every big PC game to compile shaders. Doesn’t that sound nice?
Microsoft says it has stopped providing some of its cloud and AI services to Israel’s Ministry of Defense following a report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which alleged Israel used the services to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Guardian report, published in August in conjunction with Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, claimed Israel’s military surveillance agency — called Unit 8200 — used Microsoft‘s Azure cloud platform to store recordings of millions of cellphone calls made by Palestinians.
These calls could be played back by intelligence officers, and The Guardian cited three sources within Unit 8200 who said the database was used to help shape military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, and to prepare deadly airstrikes by helping with research and to identify bombing targets in Gaza.
One source told The Guardian that during the planning of an airstrike on an individual in a densely populated area of Gaza, officers would use the system to examine calls made by other people in the immediate vicinity.
Other sources told The Guardian that use of the data was initially focused on the West Bank, which Israel’s military controls.
“When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason to do so, that’s where they find the excuse,” one source told the British newspaper.
The Guardian reported that leaked Microsoft files suggested a large proportion of the sensitive data was potentially being stored in Microsoft data centers in Ireland and the Netherlands.
After the publication of its report, several sources told the newspaper that the repository of intercepted calls — as much as 8,000 terabytes of data — had been held in a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands, but within days of its report being published in early August, the data appeared to have been moved out of the country.
“We have found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian’s reporting. This evidence includes information relating to IMOD consumption of Azure storage capacity in the Netherlands and the use of AI services,” Microsoft said in a statement Thursday, without elaborating on what the evidence showed.
Microsoft said it had informed the Israeli Ministry of Defense that it would be halting and disabling its use of some specific subscriptions and services.
“We have reviewed this decision with IMOD and the steps we are taking to ensure compliance with our terms of service, focused on ensuring our services are not used for mass surveillance of civilians,” Microsoft said.
Intelligence sources told The Guardian that Unit 8200 planned to transfer the data from Microsoft’s servers to the Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Neither the Israel Defense Forces nor Amazon replied to The Guardian’s request for comment.
CBS News asked both the IDF and Amazon for comment on the report of a possible transfer of the data to Amazon’s servers but did not receive a reply by time of publication.
Microsoft said its current review is still ongoing.
It follows an initial review by the American tech giant, triggered by an earlier Guardian report about how the IDF’s use of Microsoft’s Azure and AI services surged during its Gaza offensive, in which the company said it had found “no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct.”
