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A review by rick2
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age by Carol Ann Browne, Brad Smith
3.0
This set itself up as a book I would really enjoy. It’s written by someone with deep industry knowledge. Brad Smith has been a high-level lawyer at Microsoft and eventually promoted to president after 20 years. I’m deferential to authors who have extensive experience in the subjects they talk about. This could have been a banger. Sadly it felt like it fell short.
I guess I naturally end up comparing it to other books by CEOs and corporate presidents. Next to Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh this was incredible. But that’s in part due to Hit Refresh being terrible. Compared to a narritavely focused book like Shoe Dog I found it lacking. I don’t know if that’s fair to this book because Shoe Dog was very clearly ghost written. I just know I wanted more from this book. There were a few interesting tidbits. But most of it is just stuff you can find on any tech oriented HBR think piece or surface level Bloomberg article.
If you want to read this, I think you should read this as a survey of the mainstream tech industry in the late 20 teens. And as that is a solid book. But I’m not sure that I’m taking away any deep specific insights or unique knowledge here. Most of the takes are very safe and end with saying how, or sort of framing how Microsoft is doing great. And they might be, I own a chunk of Microsoft stock because I think it’s a good company (this is not investment advice. Just wishing to illustrate that I have drunk the Kool-Aid) and I think there’s value in being able to confidently kind of update your mental models around emergent technology. Some of the stuff that I haven’t been as directly involved in or aware of definitely has progressed. The rural broadband Internet TV channel stuff was fairly interesting. Because this book doesn’t take any risks on what they think the future is doing. It’s all current day capabilities and very realistic recent histories.
The tech industry, or at least my engagement with it, often seems very prone to hype and bombbast. Six months ago it was NFTs, today and seems to be web3 companies. There’s always a “new new“ thing to quote Michael Lewis. I do think it is valuable to be able to hear from someone at the pinnacle of one of the largest technology companies what the sort of safe conventional tech wisdom is. Now do I wish for more? Yes. This is like going to a boring industry conference. It’s like hearing a professor without tenure talk about it. There’s no real risk and it’s very clear that most of the opinion when it happens to sneak through is calculated not to offend.
There are plenty of bits and pieces that are interesting. Brad writes clearly and portrays his ideas sympathetically. I thought that it was interesting to hear from the Microsoft side of things how they interacted with and handled some of the Snowden revelations. I think if you work around tech it’s valuable to understand how someone like Brad thinks. But constantly having to mentally fact check everything against what is obviously a very pro Microsoft take can be exhausting. And the structure of the book is such that each issue presented goes through a discussion of the topic and then spends the second half of the chapter on how Microsoft is doing such a great job with it.
So realistically, if you want to get the most out of this book, you read the first half of every chapter and then use the second half of every chapter as doodle paper. It’ll save you time, you’ll maximize your knowledge intake, and the doodling is probably good for your mental health.
I guess I naturally end up comparing it to other books by CEOs and corporate presidents. Next to Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh this was incredible. But that’s in part due to Hit Refresh being terrible. Compared to a narritavely focused book like Shoe Dog I found it lacking. I don’t know if that’s fair to this book because Shoe Dog was very clearly ghost written. I just know I wanted more from this book. There were a few interesting tidbits. But most of it is just stuff you can find on any tech oriented HBR think piece or surface level Bloomberg article.
If you want to read this, I think you should read this as a survey of the mainstream tech industry in the late 20 teens. And as that is a solid book. But I’m not sure that I’m taking away any deep specific insights or unique knowledge here. Most of the takes are very safe and end with saying how, or sort of framing how Microsoft is doing great. And they might be, I own a chunk of Microsoft stock because I think it’s a good company (this is not investment advice. Just wishing to illustrate that I have drunk the Kool-Aid) and I think there’s value in being able to confidently kind of update your mental models around emergent technology. Some of the stuff that I haven’t been as directly involved in or aware of definitely has progressed. The rural broadband Internet TV channel stuff was fairly interesting. Because this book doesn’t take any risks on what they think the future is doing. It’s all current day capabilities and very realistic recent histories.
The tech industry, or at least my engagement with it, often seems very prone to hype and bombbast. Six months ago it was NFTs, today and seems to be web3 companies. There’s always a “new new“ thing to quote Michael Lewis. I do think it is valuable to be able to hear from someone at the pinnacle of one of the largest technology companies what the sort of safe conventional tech wisdom is. Now do I wish for more? Yes. This is like going to a boring industry conference. It’s like hearing a professor without tenure talk about it. There’s no real risk and it’s very clear that most of the opinion when it happens to sneak through is calculated not to offend.
There are plenty of bits and pieces that are interesting. Brad writes clearly and portrays his ideas sympathetically. I thought that it was interesting to hear from the Microsoft side of things how they interacted with and handled some of the Snowden revelations. I think if you work around tech it’s valuable to understand how someone like Brad thinks. But constantly having to mentally fact check everything against what is obviously a very pro Microsoft take can be exhausting. And the structure of the book is such that each issue presented goes through a discussion of the topic and then spends the second half of the chapter on how Microsoft is doing such a great job with it.
So realistically, if you want to get the most out of this book, you read the first half of every chapter and then use the second half of every chapter as doodle paper. It’ll save you time, you’ll maximize your knowledge intake, and the doodling is probably good for your mental health.