Microsoft@50

As Microsoft’s vice chair and president, Brad Smith is responsible for spearheading the company’s work and representing it publicly on a wide variety of critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, privacy, environmental sustainability, human rights, digital safety, immigration, philanthropy, and products and business for non-profit customers. He leads a team of roughly 2,000 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals located in 54 countries and operating in more than 120 nations.

In Smith’s bestselling book, coauthored with Microsoft’s Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, he urges the tech sector to assume more responsibility and calls for governments to move faster to address the challenges that new technologies are creating. In his podcast by the same name, Smith and his guests expand on the themes in the book, exploring potential solutions to the digital issues shaping the world today. The New York Times has called Smith “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large” and The Australian Financial Review has described him as “one of the technology industry’s most respected figures.” He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on these key policy issues.

Smith joined Microsoft in 1993, first spending three years in Paris leading the legal and corporate affairs team in Europe. In 2002, he was named Microsoft’s general counsel and spent the following decade leading work to resolve the company’s antitrust controversies with governments around the world and companies across the tech sector. Over the past decade, Smith has spearheaded the company’s work to advance privacy protection for Microsoft customers and the rights of DREAMers and other immigrants, including bringing multiple lawsuits against the U.S. government on these issues.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Smith was an associate and then partner at the law firm of Covington and Burling, where he is still remembered as the first attorney in the long history of the firm to insist (in 1986) on having a personal computer on his desk as a condition for accepting a job offer. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Smith is active in several civic organizations and in the broader technology industry. In 2014, Smith was named to the board of trustees of Princeton University, for which he continues to serve today. He has served on the Netflix board of directors since 2015 and chairs the board of directors for the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship program. In 2024, he transitioned to board chair emeritus of the Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), an organization he cofounded with Angelina Jolie in 2008, and served as its chair of the board of directors for 15 years.

Smith grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Green Bay was the big city next door. He attended Princeton University, where he met his wife, Kathy. He earned his J.D. from Columbia University Law School and studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland.

Nathan Myhrvold
CEO of Intellectual Ventures, former Microsoft CTO
Dr. Nathan Myhrvold is a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author, and photographer whose career spans technology, science, and the culinary arts. A true polymath, Nathan started college at age 14 and went on to earn a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton University, where he also completed a master’s degree in economics. He later conducted postdoctoral research at Cambridge University with renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, focusing on quantum theories of gravitation.Nathan’s entrepreneurial journey began when Microsoft acquired his software company, Dynamical Systems Research, in 1986. He spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he became the company’s first Chief Technology Officer and founded Microsoft Research, building it into a world-class innovation hub. As Chief Strategist and CTO, Nathan shaped the company’s technology vision, managed a $2 billion R&D budget, and played a key role in the development of Windows, Office, and Microsoft’s early products.

Nathan retired from Microsoft in 1999 to found Intellectual Ventures (IV), where he serves as CEO. Under his leadership, IV has become a global leader in invention and technology commercialization, with Nathan himself named as an inventor on more than 900 U.S. patents. IV has spun out companies bringing advanced metamaterials and other innovations to market. Nathan serves as Vice Chairman of IV spinout, TerraPower, an advanced nuclear energy company.

Nathan’s curiosity and creativity extend beyond technology into the culinary world. In 2010, he founded The Cooking Lab and published the groundbreaking Modernist Cuisine book series, which revolutionized the intersection of food, science, and photography. His first work, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, has been translated into seven languages, won two James Beard Awards, and was inducted into the Gourmand World Cookbook Hall of Fame. Since then, he has authored four additional cookbooks and two photo books.

As a photographer, Nathan’s work focuses on food, wildlife, and landscape photography, combining technical precision with artistic vision. His photography is featured in the Modernist Cuisine Gallery by Nathan Myhrvold, the world’s first gallery solely dedicated to food photography, with locations in New Orleans and La Jolla. His photography and culinary work can be viewed at modernistcuisinegallery.com and modernistcuisine.com.