I've seen it happen, multiple times, at Microsoft. Additionally know 2nd hand of dozens of other instances of abuse, career sabotage, and scorched earth management.

Have been fortunate that the instances I was involved in directly, I was prepared, had extensive documentation, and my position (and my colleagues) were more valuable than the perpetrators, so they were swiftly shown the door.

At the end of the day it's the same at every large company. HR protects the business, not the employee. They don't protect the victim, they protect the more valuable resource.

I agree, in 15 years at MSFT I've had mostly good experiences. The worst I've seen could only be described as "mildly annoying".

If any manager behaved like the article described, I don't see how the team would get anything done, plus their MSFT poll score would quickly get them into trouble.

I would suspect that finding out how many employees throughout the hierarchy have been there for a long time may be a good way to find a good company. The company I work for got acquired a couple years ago by a much older and larger company, and it usually feels like anyone you talk to has been there for 15, 20, even 30 years. I've yet to have a single issue with someone in that part of the parent organization, even though helping my group out isn't something they have been told to do.

My employer is like this - I'm the second newest person on my team and I've been here for 9 years. It's a great place to work and quite difficult to be hired here.

To quote the old Tom and Jerry cartoon, "Don't you believe it." I could tell you comparable hair-raising stories I witnessed there over a couple of decades.