Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the world’s most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society. As a 30-year veteran of an industry driven by disruption, Brad Smith hosts candid conversations with his guests that examine, reframe, and explore potential solutions to the digital issues shaping our world today, including cybersecurity, privacy, digital inclusion, environmental sustainability, artificial intelligence, and human rights.

Episodes

June 20, 2024 35 mins

Dr. Sultan Al Jaber is the President of COP28, the UN Climate Change Conference hosted by the UAE last year. He's also the CEO and Managing Director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), where he leads efforts to produce cleaner energy today and invests in sustainable energy solutions for the future. In this episode, Dr. Sultan shares how his leadership united diverse stakeholders to adopt the UAE Consensus. He also discus...

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Bayer CEO Bill Anderson considers himself a scientist at heart, a chemical engineer by training, and a lifelong student of biotechnology. Now at the helm of a 160-year-old German pharmaceutical and agriculture company, he's employing science and technology with a bold mission — Health for All, Hunger for none.

In this episode, Bill discusses AI’s role in accelerating agricultural breakthroughs that are needed to feed a a growing pop...

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March 6, 2024 23 mins

Gutenberg's invention of the printing press led to a new economy, which created a new sector of businesses, industries, and jobs. Generative AI is providing a similar opportunity today.

In this episode, Brad Smith draws on the lessons from the printing press and supporting industries to illustrate how different technologies are coming together to create a new AI economy. He explains the critical partnerships between countries, gover...

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Yves Ubelmann is a technologist, artist, and architect who is on a mission to digitally preserve the world’s cultural and natural heritage. He is the founder and CEO of Iconem, a company that creates stunning 3D models of endangered sites and environments. In this episode, Brad and Yves take a boat trip through Venice, touring the subject of his most ambitious project: an AI-generated digital twin of one of the world’s most magnifi...

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As the United States’ first Ambassador-at-Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, Nathaniel Fick is leading a tech-centered global diplomatic mission. Nate brings extraordinary depth to this important role in contemporary foreign policy – not as a career diplomat, but from a wide range of experiences: a Classics graduate from Dartmouth, a Marine leader in Afghanistan and Iraq, a venture capitalist, and a CEO for a cybersecurity fi...

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Ben Rhodes had a front-row seat to one of the great transformations of our time - how people consume and react to information on social media. From his post as Deputy National Security Advisor and speechwriter serving under Barack Obama, Ben watched, as this technology evolved from a democratizing force of the Arab Spring to a weapon used to spread disinformation and divide societies.

In this episode, the bestselling author and podc...

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As a young child, His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama developed his confidence and leadership skills through video games, which sparked his passion for history, strategy, and problem-solving.

Today, he’s putting these skills to use as the first in the world to hold a cabinet level position on AI as the Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications in the United Ara...

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Throughout her impressive career leading businesses, nonprofits, and now as the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman has been driven by a simple question: "What are we going to do about it?" This relentless focus on action propelled her as she transformed eBay from a fledgling startup into a global e-commerce powerhouse and guided her as CEO navigating HP through a high-stakes corporate split. In this episode, she shares how her m...

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Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Scott, believes that for AI to benefit everyone, humans must be at the center of its development. His philosophy was shaped by his rural Virginia roots, where he belonged to a hardworking community that used creativity, perseverance, and curiosity to support each other and tackle practical challenges.

 

In this episode, we talk about how a culture grounded in human values can lead to safer ...

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Nadia Calviño is a world leader who has earned a reputation for getting things done. As Spain’s First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, she created the first national agency for regulating AI. In this episode, she explains how she rearchitected Spain’s economy to embrace AI in every sector while protecting citizens’ digital privacy and safety. They discuss how she is ensuring that Spain’s d...

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AI may be the most consequential technology advance of our lifetime. Rapid advances are creating new opportunities, challenges, and questions that require the public and private sectors to come together to ensure that this technology serves the public good. In this special episode, recorded as part of an event hosted by Microsoft in Washington D.C., I share how AI is leading to new breakthroughs in research, healthcare, and product...

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At a time when most Africans had not yet heard the sound of a ringing telephone, Strive Masiyiwa, an impatient young engineer, successfully challenged Zimbabwe’s state-run telecoms monopoly to get the licenses he needed to launch Econet Wireless. The court’s decision reverberated across Africa, clearing the way for private sector operators to enter this new mobile technology industry and connect people across the continent for the ...

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Brad and Carol Ann discovered that riding in an autonomous vehicle as it learns to navigate the streets of London can be a bit nerve-wracking. But these hands-on experiences are crucial to understanding the impact that AI's sudden surge has on everyday life at the intersection of technology and society. In this episode, Brad's co-author, chief of staff, and long-time colleague Carol Ann Browne puts him in the hot seat to discuss th...

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As a young engineer, a simple question about life’s meaning directed Paulo Benanti’s journey to an unexpected destination – living in a monastery next to the Vatican. Now known as Father Benanti, he’s a Franciscan monk, but he’s also a technology and bioethics professor who advises Pope Francis on the ethics of artificial intelligence. In this episode, we discuss how the Rome Call for AI Ethics puts people at the center of AI devel...

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As Greece’s Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has put digital technology to work to drive economic resurgence, develop a vibrant tech sector, and transform the way everyday citizens interact with the government. In this episode, we cover Greece's ambition to be an energy hub for Europe, its efforts to digitally preserve ancient cultural sites, and what it takes to protect one of the oldest and best inventions that Greece has cont...

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Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, says a multinational company’s license to do business is earned by creating “local surplus” wherever it operates. In this episode, Brad and Satya unpack what this means, how it connects to the company’s mission, the responsibility that companies have to create inclusive growth, and how software is one of the biggest deflationary forces during inflationary times.

 

Satya Nadella is Chairma...

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When it comes to reporting on the tech industry, nothing escapes Kara Swisher.  For four decades, the influential journalist has used the power of her pen and microphone to not only report the news, but influence the events of the day. Sharing insights from her career, they explore patterns that help her see what’s coming in tech before others, the attributes of tech leaders that succeed, the adaptability of leading companies, and ...

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Why does the head of a global media powerhouse still give his occupation as “journalist?” Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE, is driven by deep convictions about journalism’s role in safeguarding democracy – a perspective forged in his youth after viewing the American miniseries Holocaust.

In this episode, Brad and Mathias dive into the worrying trends developing in democracies around the world and how technology can reduce – ...

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In 2017, leading AI expert Kai-Fu Lee shared a dire prediction: half of all jobs – both blue collar and white collar – could be automated within ten years, replacing the workforce with solutions built on artificial intelligence. Brad and Kai-Fu discuss what this coming change means for national economies and for people who care about their work. Kai-Fu lays out practical steps policy makers can take today to prepare, the three area...

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Thomas Friedman believes if you want to understand human nature, live with people in extreme situations. And if you want to know the future, hang around people inventing it.  As a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas Friedman has spent a career reporting from a civil war in Beirut, observing some of the world’s leading companies from the inside, and discovering that the key to understanding globalization is studying the only s...

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