Joseph Cantrell, the Microsoft employee who terrorized and attacked another Microsoft employee should never have been hired. He was a mentally ill drug addict with paranoid delusions, and delusions of grandeur. His journal which he published publicly with his name attached was available for anyone to read and see his state of mind and life history: https://josephcantrell.org/journal-alias.php From the journal we see multiple instances where he felt compelled to violence whether it was contemplating "killing all of his friends", shooting all of the gang members in his neighborhood, or his accidental killing of his childhood dog through torture that he thoroughly enjoyed. Even while employed at Microsoft he had workplace complaints filed against him which would NOT lead to his termination before he eventually snapped. This guy should never have been hired, but a leetcode style interview, and allegedly inclusion programs (neurodiverse), let this guy slide in and cause harm. Posting more widely as this keeps getting deleted when discussed here at the company level.
That's crazy. So many of these third party "background check" companies just do the bare minimum (eg check for criminal history). They probably never even saw his website. Wish companies would research employees more closely... my condolences to his victim
I'm left wondering how many more are out there wandering the halls here :(
I feel you. I think the companies just check generic stuff like educational and employment history, addresses, and felony convictions. But those categories overlook a lot of things
I always assumed a Background check is a DB check. They don’t hire a PI to google search your name and verify everything they find, that’s actually pretty expensive and the current system works. It’s very rare for a murdering employee to occur.
Where was the link of that journal in the site? It doesn't show up on Way Back Machine. Maybe it was all put up some time after being hired?
He posted it multiple times on Reddit e.g., https://reddit.com/r/Autobiography/comments/rpvem0/adhd_autobiographical_journal_of_125000_words/ before being hired, and had a GitHub repo with it as well. Copies have been available for multiple years now. His website was readily available as well and just his about page raises red flags: https://josephcantrell.org/about.php
Go woke, get your spleen broke
Background check will check only the data you provide.
His journal makes me feel like watching some Netflix serial killer documentary
MSFT is a woke company and doesn't really give a fuck about employees as long as they can preach DEI and "growth mindset" to mask their utter incompetence.
Narcissist with substance abuse problems. Live blogged his miserable existence up until the moment he stabbed someone. Trash-tier programmer, too.
That journal is so scary !!! He had even mentioned names. It could have turned even more scary.
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Go woke get shived?
Ironically the guy was pretty darn racist as well (IMHO after reading his journal). So if the goal was to cultivate a more inclusive culture, this was not the hire to do it with.
Since DIE is racist/sexist I doubt they actually care about that, just the bad optics.