Microsoft's larger lesson from TikTok: Brad Smith on the future of U.S.-China tech relations

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this week called the company's unsuccessful efforts to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations last year "the strangest thing" he's ever worked on.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and newly named vice chair, laughed when he read that — agreeing with the sentiment, even if he has seen stranger things in his two decades representing the tech giant in its dealings with companies and governments around the world.

In the new paperback edition of his book, Tools & Weapons, Smith writes that the situation showed it's "possible to run a foreign technology service in a domestic data center with strict security, privacy, and digital safety controls in a manner that provides appropriate transparency to local government officials."

"In effect, this creates the opportunity to consider a new technology regulatory model for those instances where the US government wants technology trade to continue across the Pacific, but in a more controlled manner," he writes.

Smith elaborates on the issue in this GeekWire Podcast conversation about the paperback update to Tools & Weapons, written with co-author Carol Ann Browne.

They made extensive updates in the new paperback version of Tools & Weapons, including new chapters on the challenges created by unprecedented cyberattacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smith also talks about Microsoft's new cybersecurity initiatives, his concerns about a lack of transparency and communication about cyberattacks among U.S. agencies and companies, and the future of work after the pandemic.

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