Microsoft veteran Brad Smith lights way for Big Tech

As America’s regulators take on Silicon Valley, Danny Fortson in Redmond meets a boss who has seen it all before
Microsoft’s Brad Smith shows that Big Tech can have a conscience
Microsoft’s Brad Smith shows that Big Tech can have a conscience
HAYLEY YOUNG

Brad Smith swung his ankle on to his knee and took a sip from a paper cup filled to the brim with steaming, watery coffee. Seated on the couch in his corner office, the president of Microsoft, the world’s largest company by market worth, was the picture of serenity. “Obviously,” he said, “there are some dramas that are easier to watch than star in.”

The day we met at the $1 trillion (£803bn) giant’s sprawling corporate campus in Redmond, Washington state, it emerged 50 attorneys-general were planning to open an antitrust investigation into Google. That same day, a different group of states sued Facebook. Apple and Amazon are in the cross-hairs of US and European competition regulators.

In the great tech crackdown of 2019, one