Watch CNBC's full interview with Microsoft president Brad Smith

Thank you.

That's a big part of it. I think if you look at just the issues that you cover every day, it's increasingly tech everywhere. And we thought it was important to make these issues more accessible, to bring them to life so people can understand them better, and to show that there are some paths forward to address them. Because I think the world wants the tech sector, and it wants people in government, to do more to address these issues.

I think that there is an inflection point. I think it started last year with Cambridge Analytica, and I think we're just seeing it continue to unfold. And what we're really seeing is the first year of the next decade. This is going to be with us for quite a while.

In some ways, there's a big part about trust. People want to know whether they can trust tech when it comes to the privacy of their data, the security of their data, how artificial intelligence is really going to work. But there's also a lot of issues that just hit people at home and their economic issues. What is AI going to do to my job? What is AI going to do to my community? What does it mean for my kids? What skills are they going to need to learn? What does this mean for rural communities that don't have broadband today? What does this mean for urban cities where we see tech towers being built but middle-income people being displaced in terms of their housing? If you actually think about the issues we debate every day, they have these technology roots. And we wanted to really capture how technology is impacting all of the other things we talk about every day.

We started last year. We set forth six ethical principles that we said would guide our development and deployment of AI around issues like bias, accountability, privacy, safety, and the like. 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 enforcement is using facial recognition or how shopping malls are using it. We've reached out to governments exactly, at large governments around the world. And we recognize there are days when the smartest thing that we can do for the long-term value of our company is turn down a short-term deal. And we've done that in certain cases where, for example, facial recognition would be used in ways that would either cause bias and discrimination against certain groups of people, women, people of color, or governments, especially overseas, where we felt that facial recognition could be deployed in ways that could really unleash mass surveillance. And that's just not a future we want to help create.

We shy away from identifying specific customers unless they want to talk as well. We have shared that there was a police department in California. And to me, the interesting aspect of that episode was when we went to them and we said we don't think it makes sense for us to provide you with facial recognition to do what you want to do. Our first concern was, will they just go choose a competitor instead? They said, 'You know what, we are so glad that you said this to us because you've kept us from making a mistake ourselves.' And frankly, they've said, 'You're the kind of company we want to work with for the long term.'

Ultimately, I think the answer is yes. I think we'll need industry standards to address a number of these issues. Ultimately, this is a space where we will need new laws. And I think this will be one of the leading policy issues for the next decade. Where do we want rules in place to govern how computers make decisions? It's clear that people want people to remain in charge. And if we're going to empower computers, we need to know how the computers are going to make decisions.

I think you've just hit the nail on the head of one of the global questions for the next decade. Because even if we can succeed in the United States and in developing an approach that we're comfortable with, what will Europe do? What will China do? We want to see the US take a high road in terms of creating technology that the world can trust. And at the same time, we don't want to be undercut by foreign competition. So there is a real global strategy that we are pursuing, that the whole industry is going to need to pursue. And I think that connects with many of the other trade issues of the day.

Well, I think that there's a way to break it into two parts. The first is, what will a country like China do? In a country like China, yes, there is facial recognition being deployed there in ways Americans would probably look at and say we're not comfortable in terms of mass surveillance. Ultimately though, there's 1.4 billion people that live in China. If you add up North America, if you add up Western Europe, Japan, the other democracies of the world, you have an even larger group of people. And I think in some ways, in the race for technology, who's going to pick the winner between American firms and Chinese firms? The answer is Europe. The answer is Japan. And I think it's in part our case to be made to them that we need to work together to preserve values that we really feel are timeless. And we're always excited about technology, but we also recognize that technology actually needs to serve timeless values and not simply march on over them.

Well, we were the first graduate of the school of hard knocks when it came to technology and antitrust. It's easy for people to forget today that in the late 1990s, the year 2000, the US government and 20 state attorneys general were seeking to break up Microsoft. We learned a lot of valuable lessons. And the first thing we do every day is try to remember them. You know, because, oh yeah, one of the lessons we learned is you have to really look at yourself in the mirror. You have to be able to see what other people see, and not just what you like to see in yourself. You have to understand the problems that people are raising, which means you have to get out and listen to them. And then you have to be prepared to start solving problems. You have to compromise in order to, you know, find a path forward. If you look at the history of antitrust and big tech, which didn't start with Microsoft, it actually started with Standard Oil and the tech of the early 20th century, one of the real lessons is that when these things start, they last a long time. The entire Microsoft set of issues lasted 29 years, which was less time than it took for IBM or AT&T. And so yeah, I think there's a lot of common sense, frankly, in what we took away. Better to figure out how to solve problems than just keep hiring more lawyers to fight them.

If there's one thing that is clear to all of us, it's sort of the laws of physics. You know, time is finite. Every hour you spend doing one thing, you can't spend that hour doing something else. And in those years at Microsoft, you know, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, all of us, we had to spend a lot of hours focused on antitrust issues, depositions, settlement negotiations, you know, the issues of the day. You can't help but wonder what you would have done if you could have had that time back. It's the opportunity cost of time. And I still remember when one of the members of our Board of Directors said that in the boardroom in the early 2000s, and it's a comment that has always stuck with me. You've got to decide where you're going to spend your time. And when you're in the tech sector, when the world is changing, when the technology is moving so fast, spending it on antitrust issues probably is not where most CEOs or senior leaders would want to allocate.

I think that there is a lot of inertia to these things, and I think your question points that out. The answer I would say is it's never too late. And the real question for all of us really is, what are the tech problems that we want to see the world solve? And that's really why we wrote this book, you know. And you can talk about economic power and the like, but a lot of what really I think weighs on people's minds is what it means for them personally. You know, what does this mean for my data? What does this mean for my security? And I think the more we can work together across the tech sector to address the root issues that weigh on people's minds the most, it's not going to end every issue for every individual company, but it will create a healthier climate. And I think it's a healthier climate not just for the tech sector but for the entire US economy, because the truth is, almost every company is becoming a tech company in part. So when we talk about ethical principles for artificial intelligence, we recognize we need to create these not only for ourselves, we need to get out and share them with our customers. And so when you put it in that broad perspective, then it's like, it's not a day too late, but we better not wait until tomorrow.

I don't think that one should ever equate size in and of itself with, you know, with a potential threat or harm. I do think that with power comes responsibility. And, you know, the point we make in the book: look, if you create technology that changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world that you've helped create. And I think specifically to address your question, you want to move fast, but you need some guardrails. The guardrails keep you on the road, knowing what you stand for, knowing what your principles are, knowing what you want to avoid. I believe in the long run, that's what serves companies and the shareholders. Does that mean what the companies that are in the crosshairs of the AGs have nothing in common other than being really successful, being very large? So how can we suspect all of them of doing things that are unethical or going things that need guardrails as well? Look, I'm not here to advocate for antitrust action against others in the tech sector. I am here to advocate for work that we all need to do to address the issues that technology has created for the world and get at the underlying problem.

Well, I think that you do what you just suggested. You ask, what's the problem here? Is there a problem that needs to be solved? Are competitors being harmed or blocked by offering their apps on an app store, for example? That's a specific part. But I'd like to harm most competitors as if I was starting a business, wouldn't you? Well, and that's why antitrust law in the United States and around the world says that you can do that when you're small, but once you have a certain position in the marketplace, you don't have that same freedom to maneuver. I do think there's this broader dimension to increasingly antitrust law today which looks beyond traditional competitive and economic harm, and it does ask, what is the impact of this on data? What is the impact of this on democracy? And that's where, you know, the Justice Department is increasingly focusing. And I'm not sure that they're out of touch with the American public when they're asking the broader questions about the implications of technology.

Well, I think the Business Roundtable has really defined the issue correctly for the 21st century. Why? Because what they say is focus on customers first, right? Take care of your employees, be a good steward in your community. That would happen from enhancing shareholder value though. But I would argue that the opposite is even a better strategy. Take care of customers first, and in the long term, okay, that's very well. And I would almost argue, if you look at Microsoft, look at what we've done over the last five or six years. We've sued the United States government in two different administrations because we thought we needed to protect customers.

Well, I think the point you're making is any good idea taken too far ends up creating problems. And you think shareholder value and chasing that has been taken too far? No, okay. What I'm saying is, look, of course, if you say that we're going to take care of our employees but never restructure the company, we're never going to let anybody go, that's not a sensible solution. Somewhere, someone else you're gonna end up with...

Well, I think the first thing we need to do is equip people with the knowledge of how much data there is about them, empower them so they can make more decisions. I think interestingly, maybe even ironically, the leader in empowering people with knowledge about their data is the European Union with its law from a year and a half ago. But you know, we're the one company that said we're going to extend those benefits and those rights to all of our customers everywhere in the world, because we do think that people have the right to know what data we have about them, regardless of where they live. Will it benefit if the market goes to work? If there are more opportunities for people to use their data in differently...

It sure did.

I hope you will. We wrote it so that it would be fun to read. That was one of our goals.

Thank you. Appreciate it.