President, International & Franchising, Darden Restaurants
Search every verified Brad Smith interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a July 2020 interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Microsoft President Brad Smith discussed the publication of his book "Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age." Smith described the book as an effort to make issues in the tech sector more accessible and to show paths forward for addressing them. He stated that the tech industry is at an inflection point, which he said began with the Cambridge Analytica incident and would continue for some time. Smith also commented on the time spent by Microsoft leadership on past antitrust issues, noting that time spent on such matters is time not spent on other activities. Smith discussed Microsoft's advocacy for new laws regarding facial recognition, stating that the company does not want to see a "commercial race to the bottom" that could lead to societal discomfort with how the technology is used by law enforcement or shopping malls. He also noted that Microsoft has sued the United States government under two different administrations to protect customers.
“We've been advocating ourselves for new laws, laws around facial recognition. We've said we don't want to see a commercial race to the bottom because that's where you just let this genie out of the bottle and then we wake up five years from now and we find that we're really not comfortable societally with how law enfor...”
“We've sued the United States government in two different administrations and we thought we needed to to protect customers.”
Microsoft president Brad Smith joins CNBC's "Squawk Box" team to give his thoughts on the biggest technology news of the day, including the antitrust investigation being launched into Google, how the U.S.-China trade fight will affect the industry, corporate responsibility, data privacy and more.
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