Tools and Weapons

The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

By: Brad Smith, Carol Ann Browne, Bill Gates - introduction

Narrated by: Brad Smith, Carol Ann Browne

The instant New York Times bestseller.

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. 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. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. 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.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from 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 artificial intelligence, 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 pulls back 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. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.

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A good read to learn about the future. It is worth your time to the idea brought forward.

Informative and Relevant

For anyone that is in business, investment or technology, I recommend listening to this book. It is very informative and addresses current issues. Despite a small portion content that was based on opinion, I definitely gained some understanding by listening to this book.

Excellent Book On The Cutting Edge

This is an important book for technology leaders and world leaders alike. It is the “Inconvenient Truth” of the AI era, and a sobering call to action for all who care about the future of humanity.

Reseña de la historia reciente de la tecnología

Brad plasma los momentos más trascendentes de la historia reciente de las empresas del ramo tecnológico, hace enfasis en las discusiones más trascendentes y reflexiona constantemente entre la dualidad herramienta a favor del desarrollo o arma en contra de la humanidad.

Good book … but …

… boy did he cringe every time a Republican did something right. Constantly trying to phrase it as an excuse if something was not done with Democrats. Geez … this does not instill confidence that MS will treat everyone the same.