Brad Smith > Quotes

“at Microsoft, we concluded that success has always required that people master four skills: learning about new topics and fields; analyzing and solving new problems; communicating ideas and sharing information with others; and collaborating effectively as part of a team.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“I was always of the opinion that progress made things easier. But it don't look that way to me. If anything, things seem more complicated. Is that the whole idea of progress - to complicate matters?”
― Brad Smith, The Return of Kid Cooper

“It was a strange thing about humans, she thought: first attractions were almost always based on physical appearances, which in time became the least important element of a relationship.”
― Brad Smith, Rough Justice

“While you're fixing what's broke, don't break what's fixed.”
― Brad Smith

“You know, if you were half as charming as you think, you'd be twice as charming as you are.”
― Brad Smith, Cactus Jack

“By late 2017, we concluded that what we really were talking about was the need for a full-blown approach to ethics across AI. It was far from a simple proposition. As computers gained the ability to make decisions previously reserved for humans, virtually every ethical question for humanity was becoming an ethical question for computing. If millennia of debate among philosophers had not forged clear-cut and universal answers, then a consensus was not likely to emerge overnight simply because we needed to apply them to computers.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“AI naturally gravitates toward monopolies . . . once a company has jumped out to an early lead, this kind of ongoing repeating cycle can turn that lead into an insurmountable barrier to entry for other firms.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“This is the house of freedom and it should constantly remind us how subtle and sensitive the barrier is between freedom and its opposite, totalitarianism.”3”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“I never had much schooling and I don't know that the lack of it hurt me none," Nate said. "I always managed to get by...on my charm and good looks." He smiled. "and my expert pool playing."
"You forgot to mention your humble nature."
"Modesty prevented it.”
― Brad Smith, The Return of Kid Cooper

“Tech leaders may be chosen by boards of directors selected by shareholders, but they are not chosen by the public. Democratic countries should not cede the future to leaders the public did not elect”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“and demanded ransom.22 Some angry Americans called for outright war. Others, such as President John Adams, thought the new nation was no match for the French. Fearing that public debate would fatally undermine the fledgling government, Adams sought to quell the discord by signing a set of four laws that became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts allowed the government to imprison and deport “dangerous” foreigners and made it a crime to criticize the government.23”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“Spending more time online, sometimes with complete strangers, has made people more susceptible to disinformation campaigns that play to their likes, desires, and sometimes their prejudices, with real-world consequences.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“almost every technology that has connected people who live apart has also created new barriers between people who live close together.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“Now we must ask whether the internet has created an asymmetric technology risk for democracies that authoritarian governments can counteract more readily than the republican form of government that Franklin’s words urge us to protect. The answer is probably yes. Digital technology has created a different world, and not always a better one.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“One of our biggest challenges was how to talk publicly about the threats. Every tech leader was reluctant to name names, and we were no different. We were companies, not governments, and while we all had lived through governmental criticism before, we weren’t accustomed to accusing a foreign government of misusing our platforms and services. But it was becoming increasingly apparent that our silence risked further enabling the very threats we wanted to help stop.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“Technology innovation is not going to slow down. The work to manage it needs to speed up”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“Autumn, when it came, slipped in through a side door and suddenly was just there, like a guest who’d arrived early for a party.”
― Brad Smith, Rough Justice

“We learned that we needed to look in the mirror and see what others saw in us and not just what we wanted to see in ourselves.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“In most respects, this limitation is the strongest in the United States. Consider the fact that President Xi’s education included reading American authors from Alexander Hamilton to Ernest Hemingway. How many American politicians have read comparable Chinese authors? With more than twenty-five hundred years of rich history, the problem is not a lack of supply but a shortage of interest. As history has demonstrated repeatedly, if the United States is going to navigate global challenges, it will need leaders who understand the world.”
― Brad Smith, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

“A leader's job is not to put greatness into people, but rather to recognize that it already exists, and to create an environment where that greatness can emerge and grow.”
― Brad Smith