Eisenhower visit to Microsoft

A few weeks ago I traveled to Redmond to meet another USA Fellow and a group of International Fellows for a packed day of meetings at Microsoft. We had a series of presentations from across the company and got a tour of the Microsoft Home of the Future. Most of the presentations were terrific (shockingly the HR discussion was the most interesting to me). The Microsoft home was disappointing – all smoke and mirrors and not particularly forward looking. My favorite moment in the tour was when the docent picked up a Microsoft remote

to use the TV: “We think that there’s still a place for the remote, but probably just with a few buttons driving menus.”  ​

Yeah, might it look like this?

The highlight of the day was a lunch meeting with Matt Lydon, a GM in Microsoft Advertising. We had a candid discussion about the ad market overall and Microsoft’s place in it. Matt’s a great contact.
There was a major logistics snafu which prevented me from having a second day of planned 1on1 meetings, which – although disappointing – was a good heads-up that I’ll have to be on top of these things incountry and flexible when screw-ups happen.
Even before traveling, the experience continues to be terrific.