In what he said was his last Microsoft email, Laybourn said he “will spend my time in the future helping others to make the world a better place, but if you ever need someone to come take on a really HARD problem and make it SUCK LESS.” In a response to an inquiry, he explained he is “Mostly retiring but will be helping out a few companies that I have invested in when they need it" He was a VP at Microsoft from 2001 through 2008, leading product teams in the former Microsoft Business Solutions, which was the unit that once housed the Dynamics product line. He held executive positions with the Windows Phone effort and Microsoft News and had worked in his latest position from February 2020 until the present.