Brad Smith on AI and employment
From Microsoft President Brad Smith Talks Using AI to Advance the Global South | Bloomberg Talks · · Bloomberg Podcasts
“Well, fundamentally, I think we should recognize a few things. These kinds of technology waves typically take years and decades, not weeks or months. I think we should recognize that none of this is fundamentally ever about what technology does to people. It's about people making decisions about how to use technology. People who run businesses, people who run governments, people who run nonprofits. We have an opportunity, I believe, to use AI to make jobs better for people. There will be some processes that are automated. There will be some jobs that are displaced, but new jobs will be created, but mostly I think many jobs will change. And the key is to give people access to AI tools, give them the skills that they need to use them, give people the opportunity to innovate in how they work. I think when you do that, you create a much better foundation for the future.”
On , Brad Smith, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Intuit, spoke about AI and employment during Microsoft President Brad Smith Talks Using AI to Advance the Global South | Bloomberg Talks on Bloomberg Podcasts.
About Brad Smith
Brad Smith, former Chairman and CEO of Intuit, has spoken at multiple QuickBooks Connect events between 2014 and 2018, where he discussed the company's strategy, product innovations, and the role of small businesses in the economy. At the 2014 event, Smith described Intuit's goal to be "the operating system behind small business success" and highlighted features such as QuickBooks financing, which he said had increased loan acceptance rates from 60% to 70% by using business data rather than FICO scores. He also stated that small businesses had created 60% of new jobs since the beginning of the recession and that if one in three small businesses hired one more employee, it would eliminate unemployment in the U.S. In 2015, Smith announced a $100 million fund for QuickBooks financing and said the company had facilitated over a quarter of a billion dollars in loans. He also noted that the company had testified before Congress as an advocate for self-employed workers. In a 2018 interview, Smith said he heard from customers that they valued connecting with one another, new product launches such as practice management, and innovations in payments, payroll, and capital access. He stated that "people don't care what you know until they know that you care" and expressed optimism about the company's future. In other appearances, Smith discussed Intuit's operating values, including a "70-20-10" resource allocation model and a "delight pyramid" for product design. He described an experiment where engineers developed a mobile feature allowing users to photograph tax documents for automatic data entry, which he said became a significant growth driver for TurboTax. Smith also spoke about his upbringing in West Virginia and his education at Marshall University, stating that leadership involves being true to oneself and playing to one's strengths.