With a foreword by Bill Gates

From Microsoft's President and one of the tech industry's wisest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates.

Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: when your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. Now, though, we have reached an inflection point: Silicon Valley has moved fast and it has broken things. A new understanding has emerged that companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future. And governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation that is impacting our communities and changing the world.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith takes us into the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of AI, big tech's relationship to inequality and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book opens up the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points, as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. Every tool can be a weapon in the wrong person's hands, and companies are being challenged in entirely new ways to embrace the totality of their responsibilities. We have moved from a world in which Silicon Valley could take no prisoners to one in which tech companies and governments must work together to address the challenges and adapt to the changes technology has unleashed. There are huge ramifications to be thought through, and Brad Smith provides a marvelous and urgently necessary contribution to that effort.

Reader Reviews

Burmajones

(2/5)

Apr 19, 2024

I learned that Microsoft is primarily driven by a desire to serve the public good, rather than a profit motive, and that Microsoft (with Smith’s legal leadership) often stood up to other tech companies to ensure benevolent progress.

Shilpa Rao

(1/5)

Picked up this book in the hope I would learn something on evolving policy and tech companies, governments and data protection, but the book is a PR exercise for Microsoft. Very disappointing, and of course, I've learnt nothing new.

Lisa

(5/5)

Democracy, privacy, cybersecurity, rural broadband, government regulation of tech and more – this book is so much more than just “will AI-infused robots take over the world.”It’s a quick, easy read that breaks down these complex issues in a comprehensible manner with really interesting connections to lessons from history, providing fascinating insight and perspective on topics we should all be considering.Living in a rural community, I found the rural broadband issues, including government repor...

Rayfes Mondal

Powerful title for a weak book written by the president of Microsoft and about all the great things they've done to protect me. Reading a book about his meetings with important people wasn't interesting. Talks at a high level about important topics but there's no depth in the technological discussion and no prognostications about the future. A little bit of interesting history here and there. I kept waiting for the book to kick in to high gear and get better but it never did.

Ubaid Dhiyan

Great title, not so great content. Reads essentially as a history of Microsoft’s PR - which admittedly includes many admirable and important initiatives - but comes across as bland and uninspiring.

Alex

This whole book was an ad for Microsoft. It did contain good information for someone who does not work in the tech world.

Saivya

After reading, it becomes apparent that Brad Smith is not only an insufferable “Yes-Man” but also a dickless one at that, who after 50 years of sucking up to Microsoft’s leaders wound himself at a position of power important enough to compel him to write this drab and sorrow account of him stroking his ego for 400 fucking pages.While there are tid bits that offer insight into Microsoft’s endeavours to push technological boundaries within the industry, they are overshadowed by Smith’s constant ne...

☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣

Superficial material that could've been read in a newspaper. Some of the stories covered in detail but never in enough of it to be worthwhile. Some 'Russian hackers', some 'Chinese hackers', bits and pieces of this and that. Never in any significant detail. Never any deep insights. The overall rating is closer to 1 than 2.

Matthew Gabert

(3/5)

This was a very good book, full of information and details about things that I knew about at a cursory level, but never knew the full details of. This book is about Microsoft, and has little to do with anything else. It has to do with the digital revolution of Microsoft and Brad's role in that. I felt as if he was making Microsoft out to be the best thing since sliced bread and had little to no faults in the transition and issues. Very preachy of how good Microsoft is/was, and that rubbed me the...

Mohamed Haydar

TLDR:Microsoft loves you. Microsoft only wants what's best for the people.Microsoft is willing to die for your privacy.Here's a template of how every chapter goes:- Somewhat relevant historical anecdote.- Technology issue happens. - Microsoft is the first company to do the right thing even though the dum dums at Google and Apple were against them.

Annie Wilson

This book really does not offer any deep insights above a superficial survey of the pros/cons of technological development and considerations. It also felt like one giant Microsoft propaganda piece....maybe they’re as good, ethical, and pro social as the book suggests, but it felt too much like the author was constantly patting himself on the back with every story/example rather than giving a deep dive into all of the considerations of decisions and changes.

Rick Wilson

This set itself up as a book I would really enjoy. It’s written by someone with deep industry knowledge. Brad Smith has been a high-level lawyer at Microsoft and eventually promoted to president after 20 years. I’m deferential to authors who have extensive experience in the subjects they talk about. This could have been a banger. Sadly it felt like it fell short. I guess I naturally end up comparing it to other books by CEOs and corporate presidents. Next to Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh this was

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Popular Genres

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

More books from Carol Ann Browne

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

Reader Reviews