Microsoft 365 Went Dark. These CEOs Never Relied on Email Anyway

A widespread Microsoft outage on Thursday cut off access to Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services for thousands of users, disrupting workplaces and government operations around the world. The failures dragged into Friday.

Microsoft blamed its own hardware. In updates on X, the company said overloaded infrastructure and unresponsive servers caused the disruptions. "We regret that today's outages caused disruptions for our customers, and we are working to address the issue," Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said in a Thursday post on X. "We will continue to share more information as soon as we have it, and for now I can confirm that there is no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity."

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

How did workers react?

The reaction split into two camps on social media. Some employees joked that without Teams and email they could not possibly work, and half-seriously suggested their bosses give them Friday off. Others posted angry messages demanding that Microsoft fix the problem fast so they could get back to their jobs.

For a small group of very successful business leaders, however, losing email would barely register. Several CEOs and entrepreneurs have previously told Business Insider that they rarely touch email at all. They prefer phone calls, text messages, or in some cases handwritten letters.

Kevin O'Leary: 2,000 to 4,000 messages killed it

"Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary said in a December interview with Business Insider that he abandoned email after his inbox became unmanageable. "I don't do emails anymore because I get anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 a day," he said.

O'Leary tried different filtering systems. None stopped the flood. People who need him now reach him through messaging apps instead.

Brian Chesky: one email a week, maybe

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky writes almost nothing. "I don't know if I write an email a week," Chesky told Time in a September interview.

He still responds to emails daily but almost never starts them. Texts, calls and face-to-face conversations carry his decisions instead. "I just find it inferior to almost every other form of communication," Chesky said, explaining that texts feel faster and more personal.

John Paul DeJoria: no computer, no email address

John Paul DeJoria, the billionaire cofounder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patrón Tequila, goes further than anyone on this list. "I don't even own a computer," the 82-year-old told Business Insider in a June interview.

DeJoria has no email address at all. He borrows his assistant's computer when a task demands it, and otherwise runs his business through phone calls and handwritten letters.

Wolfgang Puck: talk, don't type

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck applies the same logic to his restaurant empire. "I don't enjoy emails very much. I like talking to people directly. I think you understand people better that way," Puck told Business Insider earlier this year.

Melanie Perkins: email stays on the laptop

Canva CEO Melanie Perkins does not reject email. She fences it off. "I don't have email or Slack on my phone," Perkins said on a podcast last year. "When I shut my laptop, I actually tune out."

She stays reachable for genuine emergencies through calls or pages. Everything else waits until the laptop opens again, which keeps her downtime intact.

What does this mean when the infrastructure fails?

The Microsoft episode shows how much ordinary work now runs through a single vendor's stack of email, chat and AI tools. Thursday's outage lasted into Friday, and Microsoft's own explanation pointed to overloaded infrastructure rather than an attack. That leaves corporate IT teams with a straightforward question: if a handful of billionaires can run global businesses on calls, texts and letters, how much of the inbox traffic inside a normal company is truly load-bearing?