What’s this I hear about you working for Microsoft
these days? Did Microsoft
influence the book?
To be absolutely clear:
The book expresses my personal opinion, and no one at Microsoft
read it before I turned it in to the publisher.
Since it is an expansion of some of my well-known essays, like
Digital Maoism or the Half Manifesto, everyone inside and out of
Microsoft knew more or less what it would be about.
When the book was completed I had no idea I would
become so closely involved with Microsoft later on.
It came as more of a shock to me than you might think, because I
haven’t ever had a job with a real company before.
I have had the Microsoft gig for about a half-year now.
To my amazement, it’s going great.
I don’t think any other major tech
company would tolerate someone like me writing the way I do, so I think
this is a great indication of positive qualities in Microsoft’s current
culture.
Does anyone at Microsoft tend to agree with the
positions you take in the book?
It isn’t what we usually talk about!
But when the topic comes up, it depends on the individual person.
I would say that on average what I hear is that a particular
person there agrees strongly with some of what I say, and disagrees
strongly with other things, but overall feels that they have benefitted
from thinking about my provocations.
That’s the strongest compliment for my writing that I can hope
for. (I find it a little
disappointing when someone agrees with me completely, since I find
myself disagreeing with things I have said in the past as time goes on.
I want to connect with thinkers, not accrue fans or followers, as
is the fashion in these supposedly socially-networked times.
And Microsoft has a decent, tough, honest culture in that way.
What do you
do at Microsoft?
My role at Microsoft is to make technology, not to
discuss the very biggest picture, which is what I do in the book.
It annoys me that I am sometimes categorized as being
“anti-technology” when I am in fact a completely committed technologist.
Microsoft happens to be a unique gathering of superb
technologists who are in an amazing position to bring about wonderful
developments. No other
company has both a cloud and a gaming platform, for just one example.
Who else could bring out Natal?
Look at the types of technology I have worked on for decades,
then look at Microsoft’s’ current people, resources, and market
positions, and the nature of the attraction should be clear.
Do you have a conflict of interest?
I have so many conflicts of interest in Silicon Valley
that I think I end up suspended in mid-air, perfectly balanced and
objective. Or at least I
hope so.
For instance, I was the chief scientist of a company
that Google bought, and have probably had more financial incentives to
speak favorably about Google in recent years than about its competitors.
As for Microsoft specifically, there might be some
conflicts of interest, but there are also counter-interests, and I think
on balance the result is a wash.
Microsoft is playing the same game I am criticizing, in some
cases, while in other cases it is playing a game I advocate in the book.
For instance, I am not so hot on advertising to fund the
Internet, which tends to be Bing’s business, while I am all for paid
content, which tends to be XBOX’s business.
One can and should play different roles in a society
at the same time. You can
play by the existing rules in order to make your living, even while you
might be advocating for a change in the rules as a citizen.
Sometimes the rules need to change for everyone at once, if they
are to change at all, and that’s why you can’t always unite these two
activities.
For instance, I find it creepy that there is such a
dominant cloud-based advertising referral service at the moment, for the
many reasons I explain in the book.
I don’t hold that against the individuals who maintain it: The
Google founders and many major figures within that company have been
friends for years, from before they found such extreme success.
But I do think the current situation is unhealthy.
One way to address my discomfort as a citizen is to
advocate a reconsideration of whether “content” really should be free
and mashable, while advertising must be protected in a fortress and made
the center of all intellectual economic activity.
That’s what the book is for.
On the other hand, maybe just helping to improve the
standing of a competing cloud would be another path to a less
out-of-balance situation:
That’s why I feel good about helping out with Bing when I get a chance.
Is there a contradiction in there?
Maybe to a degree, but there is also uncertainty about the best
way to improve the way things are, and I think of it more as covering
all the bases.
Didn’t you used to criticize Microsoft more than
you do now?
There’s some truth to that, though it’s worth
appreciating some nuance.
The conflicts between tech companies are to a degree a
form of theater that is hopefully entertaining to someone out there, but
in practice, the roles and natures of the various tech companies change
over time, and individual people move around between them.
So I’d like to talk about Microsoft and me in a historical
context.
Back in the mid-1980s, I was part of a young
generation of computer scientists trying to figure out how to properly
conceive of computers for the benefit of the real world.
Here’s the cover of the very first book put out by Microsoft
press. (This image of me is
one of the few that exists without dreadlocks.
I tried for a short while to fight the genetic intent of my hair,
but it was too much work, so shortly after this sketch was created, the
locks were back.)
Amazingly,
I am working today with a significant number of the people who were part
of the conversation back then.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s I got angry with
Microsoft. For me, it was
about the software. I was
unhappy that Windows wasn’t more stable, and so on.
When I hear from Microsoft haters these days, I often think to
myself, “Man, these kids don’t even know how it’s done.”
I was a founding contributing editor of Wired magazine, and wrote what was at the time a rather extreme piece, potentially for the premier issue. Kevin Kelly, the original Editor in Chief, decided not to run it, in part, I suspect, because it wasn’t well written, and also just maybe because someone mentioned to him that Microsoft might turn out to be a significant advertiser someday…
But at
any rate, this was passed around Silicon Valley quite a lot, and I think
it was the first articulation of how a cloud-based strategy could
challenge Microsoft. Also found
here is the first description of those aspects of Google that don't make
much money in a direct way. (I wasn't diabolical enough to foresee that
advertising would actually be placed at the center of all human
online activity.) This tract is
blemished by vaguely socialist nonsense.
In the box below you'll find that infamous text in the form that was passed around… Was written when the web and html were brand new… has never been published before….
At the same time, I was a founding member of the small
society of activists that created the ideology that I criticize in the
book. Here are some
examples…
http://www.jaronlanier.com/unmuzzle.html
http://cyber-media.com/freemusic/links/piracyfriend.html
What changed?
As I explain in the book, enough time has passed that
I have had a chance to see how one possible utopia is starting to play out, and
it is plain that it isn’t working.
On another front, Microsoft’s software got good.
A part of me is unhappy that we’re still using windows-style
software at this late date (instead of, say, some vivid sort of virtual
reality.) If, however,
you’re going to use software of the familiar kind, Windows 7 is
unquestionably the best there’s ever been.
I run Snow Leopard and various LINUX machines at home, and
they’ve all been annoyances in comparison.
Since I actually do care about software, this means something to me.
(FYI, I am still using an iPhone
for now; am not biased in my personal choices.)