Microsoft is doubling down on its controversial presence in China, hiring staff for its real estate project that it is dubbing "revolutionary." The tech giant is hiring staff in Suzhou to work on a project that helps people find their "dream home." Their goal is to transform the real estate industry to a state where all rental tasks are done online. The job listings that they have posted are for software engineering and management roles on a team called "Bing Rentals." It appears that the company might be building a rental listings app similar to Zillow and realtor.com.
The job posting reads, "leveraging the great eco-system Microsoft has been building such as feeds, search engine, browser, and app, this investment has great growth opportunity and will empower people with rental need to find their dream house efficiently." This job posting shows that Microsoft has a much higher presence than most other firms in China. To Microsoft, it seems that cooperating with the Chinese government is just a cost of doing business. Microsoft's "Bing" has been in China since 2009 and usually censors information at the government's request. Just last year, Microsoft removed more than 1,100 pieces of online content at the request of the Chinese government. They also launched a new job-seeking platform called InJobs, an app that attempts to minimize controversy by not including a social feed like LinkedIn. Other tech firms like Meta and Google are barred from China, but Microsoft has had a large presence in China since it entered the market in 1992.
Microsoft's Chinese expansion comes at a time where the company maintains a high standing on Capitol Hill. Although the company has a $2 trillion market capitalization that makes it as valuable as Meta and Google combined, lawmakers who usually side against big tech have been quiet regarding Microsoft's large takeover of Activision, a merger valued at $69 billion. "They've flown under the radar well," said Paul Rosenzweig, cybersecurity consultant and former Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary. He added that the company has not yet been forced to choose a side and has been allowed to hang in the midst of the two rival countries.