Satya Nadella’s experimental culture loses its home as Microsoft shuts its maker lab

Microsoft is shutting down The Garage, the companywide program that gave employees space and tools for side projects and ran its annual Global Hackathon. The move ends a 17-year run for an effort that started as a small Office Labs experiment in Redmond and grew into maker spaces across 15 regions, from Vancouver and New York to Israel, India and Beijing. GeekWire first reported the news, citing an internal FAQ, and some Garage spaces could be restricted starting today, October 23.The Garage mattered beyond its workbenches and soldering irons. CEO Satya Nadella was a regular at its hackathons, where employees could put their projects in front of senior executives. Now the internal FAQ tells staff that "the spirit of experimentation that once lived primarily in dedicated programs is now reflected in how teams work every day."