weaknesses from the 1990s into strengths.” Speak-
ing as much of his own journey as his company’s,
he adds, “What I’ve learned here is that if you be-
lieve in the long term, your day eventually arrives.”
EarliEr this summEr, I visited Smith on the
fifth floor of Building 34 on Microsoft’s 502-acre
campus. While other company executives enjoy
panoramic views of the Cascade Range and sur-
rounding forests, Smith’s corner office, which he’s
occupied since 2002, overlooks a parking lot. It’s
decorated with globes of various sizes; photos of
his wife Kathy and their two grown children; and
a framed copy of the CLOUD Act, a bipartisan
law signed by Trump in 2018 that limits how law-
enforcement agencies can access consumer data
held by tech companies in third countries. The
bookshelves hold technological artifacts featured
by Smith and his co-author Carol Ann Browne in
their book, including a replica of a century-old
phone used by Alexander Graham Bell.
Smith meets me a little before 9 in the morn-
ing, wearing charcoal slacks and a plaid shirt.
Modestly built, with fading red hair, blue eyes and
a gravelly Midwestern accent, Smith has an ami-
able, self- effacing demeanor that belies his nine-
figure wealth and intense work ethic. Close aides
are known to keep their phones
charged near their beds, in case
Smith emails them from another
time zone. His commute takes 11 to
13 minutes, depending on the one
traffic light on his route, which gets
him to his desk by 7 a.m. (At the
end of his 12-hour days, he relaxes
by playing video games.) To write
Tools and Weapons, Smith holed
up before dawn in a windowless
meeting room, running through
Browne’s edits while his colleagues
trickled onto campus. The pair fin-
ished the 90,000-word manuscript
in less than six months.
Smith’s father worked for the
Wisconsin Bell phone company,
and he spent his childhood mov-
ing among several cities in the state.
He attended elementary school
in Racine, a declining industrial
city where he was one of the only
white students in a predominantly
African- American school. During
summers, he earned money by pick-
ing onions with migrant farmers.
At his mother’s urging, Smith
left Wisconsin to attend Princeton,
where he was part of a peer group
that included Elena Kagan, Eliot
Spitzer and Kathy Surace, Smith’s fu-
ture wife. “He was a little dorky, that
was my first impression,” she says.
“It was a competitive environment,
and some people were more com-
petitive than others. Brad tended to
deflect that and take an interest in
other people and learn about them,
as opposed to talking about himself.”
^
Smith, fourth from bottom right, at a Tech for Good summit
with world leaders and top business executives, hosted by French
President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace on May 15
ISA HARSIN—SIPA/AP
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