Tools and Weapons

Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller, now updated with new material on cyber attacks, digital sovereignty, and tech in a pandemic. From Microsoft's president and one of the tech industry's broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. “A colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.” —Walter Isaacson 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. In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the top of Microsoft, as the company flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with disruption as an end in itself, and in doing so navigates some of the thorniest issues of our time—from privacy to cyberwar to the challenges for democracy, far and near. As the tumultuous events of 2020 brought technology and Big Tech even further into the lives of almost all Americans, Smith and Browne updated the book throughout to reflect a changed world. With three new chapters on cybersecurity, technology and nation-states, and tech in the pandemic, Tools and Weapons is an invaluable resource from the cockpit of one of the world’s largest tech companies.