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Brad, thanks so much for being with us today.
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Thanks, thanks for having me.
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As you know, the Business Roundtable has recently come out
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with a new statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.
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What's your view and Microsoft's view on that statement
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and the whole notion of multi-stakeholder capitalism?
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Well, at Microsoft, we're very supportive
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of the Business Roundtable or BRT Statement.
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We're not actually a member of the BRT,
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but we had the opportunity to work
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and talk with them as they put it together.
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And, I think, in some ways it really is a clarion call
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to business for our time. It obviously asks businesses
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to think not about shareholders alone,
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but about all the stakeholders that we serve.
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One of the things I find fascinating is people debate,
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well, is that really the right thing to do?
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And, I will argue emphatically over the longterm,
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the best way to serve shareholders is
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to think about all of the stakeholders a business has.
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Of all the industries in the economy,
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tech is arguably having some of the most impact
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on society as a whole, how do you feel about the notion
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of an expansive view of purpose of a company applying
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in the tech industry specifically?
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Well, I think it is perhaps more important
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for tech companies to be driven by a sense of purpose
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than perhaps even companies in many other industries.
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I think it's helpful to think about context.
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I think artificial intelligence, or AI, is going
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to reshape the economy between, say, now and the year 2050
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much the same way the combustion engine did a century ago.
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So, if you start with that as your premise,
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you better think about the purpose that you bring to work.
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You better think about the broad societal impact you're
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going to have and you really need to think hard about how
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to have the most positive impact that you can.
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Let's turn to discussing how you make important
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and sometimes challenging decisions.
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I can imagine that inside of Microsoft
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there are sometimes quite different opinions on some
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of the more sensitive decisions that you need to make,
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how do you and the leadership team work
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through those challenging issues, especially when you can
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have legitimate disagreements inside the company?
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I think the first thing I've learned is, let's start by
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agreeing on what the problem is that we're trying to solve.
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Build a common understanding of the problem
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so that if we're debating solutions,
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we're at least debating solutions to solve the same problem.
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I think the second thing I've learned is,
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learn more about the problem through the power of data.
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We have a data science team and it really contributes
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invaluably to helping us understand
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the problem we're trying to solve.
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I think then the third thing I've learned,
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and this really came from working with Satya, is,
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let's see if we can take a principled approach.
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Can we define a set of principles
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that will then lead us to be consistent
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in addressing this issue on an ongoing basis?
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I think the fourth thing I've learned is,
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that we have to execute. Principles are the starting point,
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but you actually then have to operationalize them
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in an effective way, and then the last thing I've learned
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is, you just have to communicate everyday.
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You have to communicate with your employees,
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with your customers, with all your stakeholders.
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Somebody once said to me that 80%
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of leadership is communications.
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I don't know what the exact number is,
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but I do know that without it,
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none of the rest really pays off the way it needs to.
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You have principles around how you make the products
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that you build. Do you also have principles around where
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and how you'll sell those products?
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It's one thing to say, "We don't want our technology
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to be used to facilitate mass surveillance,"
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or surveillance that would sort
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of violate fundamental principles
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of due process in the rule of law.
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It's one thing to say, "We don't want our system
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to be used in ways that would result
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in bias or unlawful discrimination."
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It's another to make sure it doesn't happen.
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And so, we absolutely have had to put
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in place processes so people can identify deals,
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transactions, that might be problematic,
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but what we've all come to conclude is
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that if you are principled, but never say no to a deal,
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then in truth the only principle you're really committed
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to is doing every deal you can.
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That's not the principles we're setting for ourselves.
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And I very much hope we'll see this embraced
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by the rest of our industry, by some of our competitors.
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In the past, you've commented that some of Microsoft's
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biggest lessons from your antitrust experience
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was the importance of understanding
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how others perceive you, not just how you
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perceive yourself. What lessons can other
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tech firms learn from that experience?
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So, I often say to other folks in the tech sector
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learn from the mistakes we made in the 1990s
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because we made more than our fair share.
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It's easy for people to forget today that Microsoft
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is really the only company in our lifetime
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that had a court order issued against it to break it up.
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We obviously, therefore, were really at loggerheads
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with our own government and fundamentally to me,
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the lesson I've always taken away is that
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in the world of technology or perhaps
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any fast-growing business, you're so excited about
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what you're doing, you're so committed to the goodness
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in what you're doing, that you can miss
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what other people are seeing in you.
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You have to learn to look in the mirror,
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and see not the person that you want to see,
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but the person that others see as well.
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And, let's face it, it's always a little less positive
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than what we see when we look at the mirror ourselves,
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but that is the beginning of understanding.
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If you can understand how other people are thinking
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about you, you can understand the
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problems they may be concerned about,
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you can start to acknowledge them,
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you can start to take steps to address them.
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Brad, thank you very much.
Thank you.