Hey everyone, it's Justine and I'm at Microsoft right now. I'm so hyped because I just got to participate in a really fun presentation for Microsoft's 50th anniversary. Not only did they have this little celebration, but we also got some announcements about Copilot. But during this presentation, they had Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, and Satya, so we had past and present CEOs of Microsoft on stage chatting with each other. It was such a really incredible experience, and I'm so glad I was there to witness it. Now, on the topic of CEOs, I also got a chance to sit down with my friend Phil Spencer, who's the CEO of Xbox Gaming, and we had such a fun chat. I was talking to him about his time at Microsoft because he's been here for a really long time, like 38 years. Not quite 50, but one of these days, Phil, you're going to get there. But thinking about the conversation that we had, it made me start thinking about my history with Microsoft and where I sort of really got into gaming. It was probably right when I graduated high school. I've always been a Mac user, and that's no surprise for a lot of you, but I went to a lot of LAN parties in high school. As a Mac user, I was kind of shunned. I do remember Unreal Tournament was released at some point, and I brought my Mac to the LAN party, and literally everyone was just like, 'Justine, you can't sit with us.' It was a really sad moment. So for my graduation, I had a friend help me build a PC, and it was such a pivotal moment for me. This was around, I would say, Windows 2000 era. So when we got this PC set up, all built, installed Windows 2000, IRC chat, I had my Unreal Tournament, my Quake, my Doom, and it just felt like I was able to come to the LAN parties now. So that was my fun kind of Microsoft moment. And now I'm so excited because I get a chance to sit down with Phil and chat about his history with Microsoft as well. Phil, thanks so much for joining me. You're here at our house on Microsoft campus. Welcome.
Actually, I'm joining you here. So this is awesome. Well, thanks for having me out. So this is a huge celebration of 50 years at Microsoft. So what has this kind of been like for you to sort of celebrate with everyone and just seeing it from a pretty early time as well? You're at work, you have the day-to-day kind of opportunities and issues that you're dealing with. It was, I bet it was like six months ago where the planning started. I got some visibility into the planning for 50 years, and you start seeing some old pictures and products, some you worked on, some you were just around. And it was nice. It was nice just to recognize how long the company's been around. And then we did the show, and I'm sitting literally next to Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates. It's a really nice moment for the company. It was nice.
What was that kind of like for you to be here and you're sitting in the audience with them to just be like, 'Wow, this is history right here.'
I often reflect on Bill's role in getting the company founded and rolling and building products, and that product ethos that's still with us. Steve, I really think of as the person who scaled the company, right? He was really into how we sell products, how we package products. I think he was the right leader at the right time for that. Now Satya, when you're in a time where the human connection to technology is so just important, we're launching Copilot. It's almost humanlike in how it interacts with you. And I often reflect that those three, we have only had three CEOs in 50 years, which is remarkable, and they were kind of each the right person for the right time. And it was nice to see them all three on stage at the same time.
Now how many years have you been here now? Because it's been a while.
It's been a while. Some people tease me when they see the old pictures of Paul Allen and Bill that I'm the one that took the photo. It's not true. I did not take the photos. I started as an intern in 1988. And the weird thing back then was I was a programming intern, so writing code. My summer internship, I was at the University of Washington, it's just across the lake. They asked if I wanted to stay on and keep working, so I actually never left. From June 9th, 1988, I think was the day I started.
Wow, so what's that, 37 years? That's a lot. Actually, so yeah, I mean not quite 50, but still, that's pretty incredible. For you to kind of take your gaming passion and bring that to Microsoft and see that through to where it is today, how's that been for you?
A little bit different. But just because I can't, when you were asking the question, one of the things that really strikes me is my own life over those 37 years. Like when I started here, I wasn't married. Kelly and I are still married now. We have two daughters. My daughters grew up with me working at Microsoft and different products that I've worked on. So I often think about my own kind of personal journey through the same years of working my professional life. And Xbox gaming is such a good kind of intersection of those things. I've played video games since I was five or six years old. It's still kind of my primary form of enjoyment, is playing video games. So I've been very lucky to see that I've been able to mix those two things: my love of video games, interactive entertainment and creation, and what I've been able to do here at Microsoft. It's been really special.
And today also they made a bunch of announcements with Copilot and AI. And I've been using AI a lot in my own personal life, as far as just for creating, for making thumbnails, for just taking tons of information and paring it down to small digestible pieces that I can understand. How do you kind of see AI and Copilot going hand in hand with that?
I think very similarly in some ways. What I see in our studios is using the direction that you can give to a Copilot, but also the kind of serendipity or difference that you get back as inspiration into the creative process. Whether it's an icon that you're looking for, a graphic that you're looking for, or you're early on in your journey on storytelling and maybe even art style. I see a lot of our early concept creators using the tools to just inspire them, find new ideas. And I think that's a nice part of the process of how do we kickstart the creative process. I'd say more kind of pragmatically, when we look at Xbox and the network you play, so you know when you're online, making sure we're employing these great capabilities to keep the network safe and secure for some of the most vulnerable people, you know, young kids playing Roblox or Minecraft on our platform, and how important that is. I think there's just a ton of opportunity. And the nice thing about gaming, gaming's always been a great place to incubate new technologies, and I see it happening now.
And I have no shame searching for how to get past some levels or puzzles. And it's always really difficult when sometimes we get previews of games and there's no help online available, so that's always a little bit of a struggle. But I can also see how it could be interesting. Copilot Vision is kind of an interesting thing because what if I'm stuck in this level? I can use Copilot Vision to kind of help me navigate through.
Absolutely. And you know, Copilot for gaming, like the gaming assist work that we've been putting out, it's kind of an early stage at this. You know, I'm often on YouTube as well, kind of doing searches for walkthroughs and people can help me if I'm really stuck in a place on a game. But it's not always easy when I'm stuck at one place and I do a search and I get back a 30-minute walkthrough video and I'm like, 'Okay, now I've got to scrub because where am I?' And you think about as the agents, the Copilot progresses its ability to see, let me hold up my phone, show the screen, see where I am, and give me, if I choose, give me some either hints or just 'Here's the key you're missing, it's over here, you didn't see it.' I think it's great. I mean, we want people to enjoy the games that are built. We want them to see them beginning, middle, and end, completion. And all of us have rage quit games at some point. And having things that can help us when we choose to get through difficult parts in a game, I think it's just really great.
Yeah, and I think people play games differently too. Like I mean, sometimes if I get stuck, I don't want to spend the time figuring it out. Like I just want to move on to the next part. So I'll spend like at least 30 minutes, like if we can't get it, we're moving on.
Yeah, well I mean in our games now, I love the challenge in video games. The kind of mechanics and games are now such a great tapestry for telling stories. Wasn't true when I started playing games 40 years ago, 50 years ago. But now you want to experience the whole story. Like not finishing a video game is like reading half of a book. You see the role that video games are playing in movies and television today because the storytellers in video games are fantastic. And so many of these stories, like you want to experience the whole thing. And Copilot can help me get through areas where I'm stuck so I get to experience the whole story. I think that's great.
