April 9, 2025 • 33 mins
Microsoft is marking its 50th anniversary, celebrating five decades since Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded what would become one of the world's largest technology companies.
In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, the managing director of Microsoft New Zealand, Vanessa Sorenson, reflects on the company's journey and its vision for the future.
Featuring the hits and misses from Microsoft over 50 years in business and its more recent push into artificial intelligence and establishment of its first hyperscale data centre region in New Zealand.
The Business of Tech is streaming on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This week on the Business of Tech, powered by two degrees.
Microsoft turns fifty. Yes, the world's largest software company, started
by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on the fourth of
April nineteen seventy five, is now fifty years old, perhaps
more than any other company, IBM, Apple, Intel among them.
(00:24):
Microsoft is responsible for the personal computing revolution really taking hold.
It's had three CEOs, Bill Gates, followed by Steve Barmer
in the nearly two thousands and sach Inadella, who is
still in the top job today. But the drive in
force really was Bill Gates.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Can you see yourself working for somebody else?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I never have? Can you see it?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm used to having a company where the ideas that
I have are something that I can easily pursue, So
I think it'd be a tough transition.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That was a rather young Gates on the Today Show
in the US in nineteen eighty four, or almost a
decade into the Microsoft journey, by which point he'd had
a big hit with MS DOSS and was really well
on the way to creating Windows One, which would be
launched about a year later. That was the first version
of the operating system that today runs on roughly eighty
(01:17):
five percent of the world's computers. Gates never did work
for anyone else. He stepped down from full time work
at Microsoft in two thousand and six. He devoted himself
to philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, billions
of dollars raised and given away, pouring a lot of
money into HIV AIDS research, malaria eradication, and climate change
(01:39):
mitigation tech like carbon capture and storage and modular nuclear reactors.
He's a bit of a polarizing figure, Gates, but there's
no doubting the legacy he created with Microsoft, along with
Paul Allen. To build a company that survives and even
thrives through the exit of the founding CEO is a
big achievement, and after a rough period in the two thousand,
(02:01):
in the twenty tens, Microsoft seems healthier, bigger, and more
profitable than ever. But I thought it'd be great to
get a New Zealand perspective on the Microsoft story from
the woman who runs the local operation, Vanessa Sorenson. Vanessa
joined Microsoft in twenty seventeen after a long stint at Telecom,
then Spark and before that at Wang Computer has sort
(02:24):
of forgotten icon from the tech industry in the sixty
seventies and eighties. I wanted to get Vanessa's take on
Microsoft's big hits and misses over the last fifty years,
how Microsoft has evolved over its thirty four year history
of being in New Zealand, and also how she made
the investment case that resulted in Microsoft building its first
(02:46):
hyperscale data center region here in New Zealand that opened
in December. And I guess it's pretty much Vanessa's crowning
achievement as the MD of the local operation so far.
Vanessa Sorenson, Welcome to the business of Tech. How you doing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm fantastic, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, what a milestone this week fifty years ago Paul
Allen sadly departed now and Bill Gates, one of the
legends of personal computing and software. We're sort of in
the garage in New Mexico coming up with what was
going to be one of the biggest companies, if not
one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Incredible
(03:34):
And I guess that week back then the story goes
and Bill Gates recounts this on Gates notes really interesting
article that he's published which we'll link to in the
show notes. He was looking at the cover of Popular Electronics,
very good magazine at the time. There was a picture
of the Altair eighty eight hundred on the cover, which
(03:56):
is a computer sadly I never got my hands on.
I've never even seen except in the museum in Silicon Valley.
But he was thinking, Wow, this is a really cool machine.
And the two of them had a vision of putting
a computer on every desk and in every home, and
the key they sawt of doing that was coming up
with an operating system, a really good, efficient operating system
(04:19):
for at the start at the Altair, which was the
big new computer at the time. So that's where it
all began, really, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Oh And yeah, incredible, you know, just to save even
when I go up to Redmond and there is kind
of like a little sort of mini museum of the
first official photo man. They had bad hair and they
looked literally twelve years old, And just imagine cooking up
something like that when it just wasn't you know, it
just wasn't sort of anything that you were following anyone else.
(04:49):
And so just extraordinary to your concept about an operating system.
To then build you know what was then software that
seemed turned into apps. Kind of just seeing what a
visionary like quite incredible. But obviously Bill had incredibly driven
parents that you know, really kind of gave him that
concept of electronics and what was the art of the possible?
(05:12):
And yeah, wow, fifty years it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, and look there were sort of desktop computers around
in the seventies, including from Wang Computer, a company that
I think you started your career at in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I know, man, I'm getting my age away now. And
the funny story about that is just before starting Wang,
actually I worked for a startup and my first job
was selling Microsoft licensing. They weren't even yet in the
country in New Zealand, and my boss at the time said, look, Vanessa,
don't go to Fiji buy Microsoft shares. I mean, no way.
(05:49):
I continue to remember that. But just extraordinary seeing the
old floppy disk selling box product, you know, the first
time Microsoft Word was available, then Excel, like wow, you
could do all of this amazing spreadsheets, and then PowerPoint
and just kind of the I just think back then,
(06:10):
I just didn't realize how fortunate I was to be
right in the middle of something that not only am
I continuing to be part of, but just seeing the
incredible leap change it's had for so many businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, that's sort of when I got into the first
sort of the Intel computers of the nineties, the Pentium computers.
I was playing around building my own all obviously Windows
based on MS DOS base, but wangingt an interesting company
found it in nineteen fifty one by An Wang, the
company's named after and sort of I guess by the
(06:46):
time you were working at Wang, it had really had
to pivot. It was basically selling computers that were running
Windows and the early Office suite as well. But in
the seventies they wanted to build what they were calling
mini computers alone computer that was basically a word process.
So you bought this entire computer to do word documents.
(07:07):
And then Bill and Paul came along and went, forget that,
we want one computer that's going to do everything.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, and I think that's so. I remember going to
Wang and had a green screen and using Wang Office.
So yeah, it was a very proprietary, and I think
that's the word, you know, Microsoft blew apart. This whole
option is that you've got one thing to do at all,
and I think where Wang went astray was like, well,
(07:33):
we'll be the market leader. And of course they were
peter for their time, but they stayed within proprietary. They
didn't then open up their systems. And I've even watched
it with Microsoft over the years, you know, once Sarti
came in and said, hey, we're going to now be open.
I think for a lot of businesses just not pivoting
fast enough. And it was quite scary actually joining Wang.
(07:55):
It had such an amazing brand globally, and while I
was there, they went through chapter eleven and I was like, oh, okay,
didn't even know what chapter eleven was at the time.
And for watching Wang New Zealand survive, because the company
had an incredible brand and quickly pivot to being a
systems integrator and by then absolutely selling Microsoft and other hardware.
(08:17):
But sadly globally Wang Wang didn't do that, and it
would be very very interesting to see what that company
could have been today.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess reflecting on the companies off that period,
you've got ninety seventy five Microsoft, I think nineteen seventy
six Apple was founded as the two Steves was Niak
and jobs obviously similar thing in a garage coming up
with a pretty cool idea. You had Oracle, I think
seventy seven. Yep, a little bit earlier, the chip makers,
(08:48):
Intel and AMD early seventies, but you've got this cohort.
All of those companies are still around and a number
have gone by the wayside. But what do you think
it is about Microsoft, which basically had the same CEO,
Bill Gates for thirty years, then Steve Barmer, and now
Satya in terms of being able to pivot when needed
(09:11):
and adapt and innovate over such a long period of
time to still be around and be one of the
biggest companies in the world. What's in the DNA of
the company that allows them to do that?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I honestly think it's the concept of being a learned
or stay curious really, you know, try things like you're very,
very supportive to innovate. But of course we had some
years where we did store. You know, probably we're not
seeing that we were in that mover market. And you know,
you do look back over the history of companies and
(09:45):
I think you know it is different leaders, different age
and stage. You know, certainly the Bill Gates was so
about the development and being a very engineering led business.
Then I think with Steve Barmer was a very sales
driven company, and now Satia, who's been with the company
for twenty odd years, is bringing the combination of the both.
(10:07):
So we've still got the roots, have been absolutely and
engineering firm and believe that we've got to have the
most secure products that've got to work for everybody. But
he really embraced that we have to be open. We
can't have just our things working with our things, and
so I credit a lot of our exponential growth since
Satia about stepping down the silos within Microsoft truly co
(10:33):
working together to innovate faster. And boy, oh boy, haven't
we seen that over the last ten odd years that
he's been at the Helm.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, and over the fifty years, I mean there's been
a heck of a lot of hits ms dos, which
I don't go hands on with anymore. But I remember
in the nineties that was Windows existed, but if you
really wanted to get into the height of a computer
and do cool things, you were on the black screen
putting in prompts and commands, and that fundamentally that openness
(11:06):
that allowed you to basically do anything on the on
the operating system, off the computer, So it was the
flexibility it offered. Then, of course the Windows operating system
itself and really hit its stride. I think with Windows
three that was I remember that being a game changer,
and then obviously Windows ninety five was huge. I was
(11:27):
at the midnight launch of that in Auckland, Yep. The
first time and the only time I've ever queued for
a piece of software at midnight, I know.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And that's the thing, like these incredible moments that you
do remember, And I think it's that constant ability to
keep innovating. Don't sit there and go, Wow, we're onto
something great. Everyone loves it. I think that's you just
got to keep, you know, pivoting and moving and just
not sitting still. And I think that's that's certainly the
(11:58):
opportunity I see now in this era of AI and
what the art of the possible is going to look like.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, and we're going to talk about AI because it's
such a big focus on that at the moment. But
just looking back at some of those milestones in the company.
Obviously the Office Suite, so you had this operating system
which was great and flexible way to put programs on
a computer. And then Bill's thinking what's the key thing
that people want to use, and it's productivity. He was
selling computers mainly to businesses. First they wanted word processing,
(12:27):
they wanted Excel spreadsheets. We had Lotus one, two, three,
I think at the time, but a more user friendly
approach using that Windows interface and the mouse to access productivity,
and those products, those three alone, Word Excel, PowerPoint used
by billions of people still all over the world.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Extraordinary. I mean yeah, I remember again, you know, my
first ever job with a startup and selling software, and
it was either word against word perfect or loadus against Excel.
And truly it was I think that platform play that
Bill wasn't necessarily stating it, that wasn't about a platform,
but it was the same gooey interface, the same look
(13:10):
and feel, the same You didn't have to go and
learn something completely different. And I think that that DNA
is still through all of our products. And you know,
to me, that's the secret sauce of why did people
continually not just pay for those upgrades every time they came,
Because remember Peter, how difficult that was, right, You had
(13:31):
to go around with the floppy discs and I had
to upgrade everything and it certainly, you know, many years
before Cloud came along, people did because the next version
absolutely gave you that productivity. And I think that's the
that's the word that still underpins Microsoft. If you want
true productivity, you really want to save time, and you
want to do it well, you know, and not always
(13:53):
you know, companies that wanted to pay those licensing fees,
but it became core. You remember Exchange. I remember a
customer I was looking after they had a massive outage.
They just didn't realize that actually that was the number
one thing that that company needed to run. Like it
was such an aha moment, you know, the company couldn't
run without email, and no one really thought that until
(14:16):
it went down because it wasn't getting maintained. Their storage
just blew out, the board couldn't function like it was
a real wholly. This thing has become bigger than ben hur.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, and I think that's being the key to Microsoft's longevity.
As you said, there's been various phases off the business,
and there's been some phases that haven't been as successful
as others. You know, arguably, Microsoft was late to the
Internet revolution, missed the mobile revolution. Really when it tried
with Windows Mobile didn't quite work, arguably was late to
(14:51):
the cloud, but is now killing it with Azure. But
throughout all of that, the thing that I think saved
Microsoft when it took a wrong turn was it was
still the best company in the world for productivity software.
And that's ultimately what the average company user or someone
at home needed in their life.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And the fact, you know, I
see it with my own children using the Microsoft product
suite at school. You're going to then go into that
job and it's primarily what you know, what corporate businesses
are leveraging. And I think that's always underpinned. You know,
I think some of those market making moments that we
did miss boy have we learned. And I think that's
(15:31):
also you know, kind of calling us and growing up
now at age of fifty, really seeing those moments of
you know, you know, we missed Mobile, we miss search.
We were slower with Azure, but we did it incredibly
strategically and tactically, and now being you know, number one
in most markets, certainly Australia and New Zealand because it's
(15:52):
the most secure you can rely on it We're not
going to stand up the next day and compete with you.
We want your business to thrive and survive. And I
think that's it also underpinds what Microsoft's all about.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, and the one area that's really topical at the moment,
which is artificial intelligence, which is artificial intelligence, Microsoft was
actually early into. The one time I did actually speak
to Bill Gates was a long time ago. He'd stepped
down at CEO. I think he'd gone into the CTO role,
so Steve Barmer was in the hot seat and Bill
(16:27):
was working on product development and R and D and
that sort of thing. And the only thing I remember
from that conversation I think I asked him, you know,
what's the next big thing? And he said, artificial intelligence?
Is that really okay? And he went on and talked
about what Microsoft's research division was doing with AI, and
(16:47):
so he was talking about it way way back then.
It took a while for that really to manifest itself
into what we know as AI today, but definitely, you know,
that visionary thinking was there.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
One hundred percent. And I think, look, artificial intelligence has
actually been around a long time, and like you said,
it's more the sci fi movie where you know, all
those things now we can do. It's a bit like
everything in life. We needed the compute power, you know.
I remember listening to James Cameron about, you know, the
making of Avatar, and he's like, I dreamt that up
(17:21):
twenty years ago, but there just wasn't the compute power
to actually design, you know. So I think a lot
of these visionary thinkers where now the convergence of you know,
platforms like asure, you know, in the most secure way,
the compute power that you need, and now overlaid with
all of the AI tools. Holy, I mean, we're you know,
(17:43):
to be right in the middle of that and know
that you're in it, because I think for me, I
remember the Internet being launched. I was like, oh wow,
how did that happen? With this, you feel like you're
right in the center of it, and every day there's
some new way that we're using the tool set, and
I think it's quite quite extrame ordinary to be in that.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So the New Zealand of Microsoft operating about thirty four
years Yeah, what was the You obviously were there in
that company at the time, you were around the industry, though,
what was the real impetus for the arrival here. Was
it government driven or was a business community saying that
we want Windows on our computers. There's a number of
(18:24):
Wang and others were selling computers at the time, Compac
and IBM. We want really good access to expertise from
Microsoft here underground.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well again, back in the first startup that I first
worked for, essentially software, I remember we had to buy
Microsoft product through Brian Moore, Brian and Eddie Wilmot, who
were really incredible industry leaders back thirty five forty years ago.
And I think it was actually just New Zealand such
an incredible country that our early adopters, quite frankly, and
(18:54):
I think from a Microsoft perspective because I didn't work there,
they said, wow, what could we do with this really
amazing sovereign country that's extremely secure about New Zealand becoming
an earlier dopter and I think that's when I moved
to Wang. Actually Microsoft was right behind our building, and
you know, just seeing I think that the takeop as
(19:16):
a country for the products, and you know, it was
such a great thing to have a big global you know,
really decide to rout down in New Zealand. And I
think that's that's been amazing for our country because we
have been able to get our hands on the software
and also have many of our people part of the
development up in Seattle. In fact, I met with Maurice
(19:38):
Williamson and hopefully won't mind me saying, but he was
really key as a minister back all those years ago
talking to Bill Gates about you know, hey, imagine if
we did this and did that. So I was really
surprised to hear. And I found a couple of old
photos actually in l clearing out a storage unit of
when Bill Gates even came to New Zealand. So a
lot of it was about what is this really innovative
(20:01):
country doing and what could they do?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and a lot of kiwis in the tech industry
really cut their teeth that Microsoft went to Redmond did
a stint up there. I remember, I think it was
Windows Vista, which wasn't a great release of Windows for Microsoft,
but I remember meeting several kiwis who are involved in
the development team preparing for that launch. And it's just
(20:24):
been throughout the decades people go into a stint up there.
Some of them have gone and started up their own
companies as well. It's sort of a mini university for
tech talent.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh, like the best. In fact, all of our interns
that come and join us, I say, mate, this is
going to be the best NBA you could ever get
because what you get access to, Especially now, Peter, I
think there's about two hundred and twenty thousand people work
for Microsoft, and I say, they're your closest friends. There
are a ping away on teams, they'll help you, They're interested,
(20:55):
And I think that's what's really blown me. My mind
away is is just how helpful people are within Microsoft,
no matter what level where they are sharing what they're doing.
And yeah, boy, it's the best university I could ever
imagine going to.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and obviously Sacha Nadella has been down to New
Zealand and I think really inspired by some of the
stuff Microsoft has done with Mari around translation and that
sort of thing. And I guess on your watch, the
biggest development really potentially in the New Zealand Division's history
has been building all of that data center infrastructure in
(21:32):
New Zealand. Huge investment. What was it like trying to
convince Satya and the senior executive at Microsoft to actually
invest big dollars like that in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, Peter, it's one of the reasons I came to
Microsoft seven and a bit years ago because I just
you know, thinking, imagine if we had this year, what
could it do for startups, for New Zealand, for the
health industry, for education and so part of that plan
was definitely getting so to come to New Zealand. So
about five years ago he did, and just him meeting
so many of our incredible startups and kids, and it
(22:10):
really started from there. And of course we then had
to go through lots of gymnastics to get the business
case forward. But actually the relationship and the strong relationship
we have with the likes of Fonterra, many of the banks,
they worked with us because they could see what this
could do for their business and true transformation with data
in country and so we're really fortunate we weren't sort
(22:32):
of doing this alone. And it wasn't about them committing
to money, Peter. It was about designing what we could consider.
And none of us knew that this AI movement would come.
I mean, talk about perfect timing. Right we opened in
December last year the AI movement was starting. You know,
(22:53):
I kind of look again and think we can be
so much more forward thinking because of this, you know,
movement of both of these things coming together. So I'm
immensely proud and I just think, you know what, I
speak to a lot of ex leaders of Microsoft New
Zealand and they said they never ever thought it would come,
but actually we're an incredible country. We've got sustainability, renewable energy,
(23:16):
the contract that we've signed with Contact Energy which enabled
them to expand geothermal, Like that's what New Zealand's about.
And I think, you know, we've got to promote it
more and more and more and have more of those
investments coming into this country.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, and AI is going to be integral to the
future of Microsoft. We see that in the massive investments.
For instance, it's made in Open AI and soft Bank
has just invested forty billion in that company, so that
and Microsoft's own internal AI capability is growing as well.
(23:53):
What's your reflection on where we're at in the sort
of the AI revolution. I just wrote a report for
the AI fours. I'm looking at how businesses are using it,
and the vast majority said it's mostly generative AI and
it's mostly off the shelf tools. So although AI has
been around for a long time. Our businesses have latched
(24:14):
onto these tools which are relatively cheap, quick to adopt,
and they can get runs on the board very quickly.
But you know, about half of the company sort of said,
we're still not seeing the return on investment yet, and
maybe they don't understand that yet. It's early days. But
at what point you think we are really going to
(24:35):
see those particularly those productivity gains that so many reports
have been written about the fact we need advanced technology
to improve our productivity because we have other challenges like
an aging population, our workforce has peaked. We can't rely
on China commodity prices going up and up and up.
Growth is stalled in China, so it's got to be
(24:58):
technology driven productive. What's the next step in that journey.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Well, you know, look, we we had a report done
by a censure which it was incredible because it said
we can realize seventy six billion of increased DUDYP by
twenty thirty eight, and that was incredibly conservative. Peter, And yes,
I'm hearing you about the ROI, but we're really starting
to see a clock now because I think, yeah, it's
(25:22):
like you dip your toe's it's going to be a fad.
You know, can we afford the ten dollars a month
per person? In fact, i've heard companies now say if
they if we're not given it, we'd like the mobile phone.
Remember when that came out and companies weren't going to
pay for it. Well, I'll pay for it myself. So
I think there's always the starting point. And we truly
are seeing the gains now for the innovative companies that
(25:44):
are grabbing hold of it. And you know, recently, you know,
just seeing the Ministry of Social Development partner on an
incredible project where we can leverage all of these tools
that are actually going to help people find jobs, like
cannnecting them with the right people. I mean, and again
it was a really quite simple project. NDPGG rights and
(26:06):
counting livestocks sounds simple, but the money it's saving them.
You know. Vista Group on product personalizing podcasts. So these
are the cinemas. Every morning, the lead the owners of
the cinemas are driving to work. The podcast tells me
how much popcorn did we sell? How many seats were filled?
Like these are really really tangible and they're slowly coming along.
(26:27):
I think my worry Peter is that New Zealand wants
to sit back and wait. We say we're fast followers,
and I'm like, please start on anything that you hate
spending money on, like get a project around that. Just
prove that out because you are spending money and I
know it will have a difference. And I really hope
that these tools one day will save, you know, solve
(26:50):
cancers that we could never have even thought possible in
our lives. And fell para here in New Zealand about
what they do with breast cancer. Now they're looking at
moving it into brain cancer. It's like this stuff we've
got to celebrate. So we are definitely seeing it more
and more bigger companies going okay, we're all in with
co pilot because it's not going to take over your job.
It is a co pilot to help you. And then
(27:12):
seeing the back end compute power, especially with NZ North
now live watch the space. You're going to see some
incredible stories coming out.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, and one of the key things to really being
able to leverage AI is having that capability and that
capacity in companies to understand it. You've committed to training
one hundred thousand New Zealanders in AI and digital skills
over the next two years. It's a lot of people.
How practically, how are you going to go about that?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So we're scaling through our partners and you know that's
my other role as well. I'm fortunate to run New
Zealand and I'm also the partner leader across Australia and
New Zealand. And so we're scaling through our partners and
we're investing in them to roll it out. We've got
incredible tools that are now monitoring and checking that. We're
signing up incredible opportunity unities with some other government agencies
(28:03):
which are going to be phenomenal. I'm you know, mentioning
the Ministry of Social Development with the AI tools we're
going to connect into this incredible project, which is going
to make it easier and literally just funding it, you know,
I think making it so much more available where these
courses used to cost money, Your certification used to cost money.
(28:26):
So you're going to see a lot more open opportunity
where people can go and do these courses. And the
next thing we want to do it is infusing it
in schools because I think that if you can start
skilling and I talked to my own children like, yeah,
we haven't even this stuff's not even available to us.
We're doing that as well, and with the university, so
you attach this while you are studying. So yeah, we're
(28:49):
going to be tracking progress. You know. We truly believe
that this is New Zealand's opportunity to get more of
those high paid jobs. We lift everyone up and immensely
proud of our relationship with the likes of Tubatoa where
we aligning with them to upskill more Mani Pacifica through
their programs. So yeah, we've got a very very clear
plan which we're executing. It is a lot of people,
(29:10):
but we believe we can get there.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, and I think as we look to the next
fifty years, you know, hopefully Microsoft will be around. It's
one hundredth anniversary, and part of it is having a
sort of an equitable relationship with the people of the
country that you're operating in. Some argue that big tech
has got too big. There's too few companies that have
(29:33):
concentrated power. So what's the key do you think for
you for the future of Microsoft New Zealand Building that
really healthy relationship that allows innovation to thrive without being
too dominant in people's lives.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, and it's a tough one, right because we've also
seen over the last fifty years organizations go with every
single other company and get nowhere. And so it's a
real double sword. And I think the only thing I
can say, and this is to quote starting Adella, we
know when you're not happy with us, you can simply
turn us off. You know, the whole cloud movement, you
dial it down, moving to CSP now rather than big
(30:13):
complicated licensing contracts. It's up to you. And we believe
competition is a good thing. We have to earn the
right every single day and for me, it's that means
continue innovating, be the most secure, have investments like we've
done an ENDZ North that will show that we will
be here for the next fifty years. Believe you me
with the size and scale of that. But it's great
(30:36):
for all New Zealand, like it puts us on the map,
it connects us to the rest of the world. It
enables you know, businesses like Contact Energy to bring forward
projects they could never have done otherwise. And we've got
to embrace this. But everyone has choice, Peter, and that's
what we know, and that's why every single day. We
(30:57):
have to prove that.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Out absolutely well. Look, thanks so much. Congratulations on fifty
years and over seven and a half years of you
at Microsoft. That's been a pretty whirlwind sort of ride
as well. But thanks so much for coming on the
Business of Tech.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Thank you for having me. And yeah, I can't wait
to maybe I'll come on the next one for fifty
years or we far too old them, Peter, but thanking
forward to it. Enjoyed it, see you.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Thanks so much to Vanessa Sowrenson for coming on the show.
I've got to say a slightly subdued birthday celebration. I
think for Microsoft that fifty years quite a big one.
They did get the three CEOs back together last week.
That was great to see because I don't think Bill
and Steve Barmer are particularly close these days. I don't
know if they ever really were, but it really was,
(31:52):
and you know, Bill Gates acknowledges this. It was Barmer's
sort of natural ability to hustle and get deals over
the line, and just his natural enthusiasm and intensity. And
if you've ever been to a Microsoft conference, you've seen that,
you know, twenty years ago when he was on stage
literally sweating he was so worked out about all of
(32:14):
this stuff, so he was integral to it, but he did,
you know, pass the baton to Sacha Adella. And I
guess Satcha's big success really has been cloud computing and AI.
You know, Microsoft had been a player in service software,
very successful there, but Satua really saw the future off
the business being cloud centric and he picked that up
(32:35):
and ran with it. Now it's one of the biggest
cloud companies in the world with its Azure platform, and
it's a leader in AI too, through open Ai and
its own internal efforts as well. So I hope you
enjoyed the chat with Vanessa. Show notes are in the
podcast section at businesses dot co dot nz. You can
stream the podcast on iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast app.
(33:00):
Next week, how could we do doge properly here in
New Zealand. I've got a fantastic panel lined up to
talk about how we need to make government more efficient
and transparent, but how we could do it without all
the craziness that's gone hand in hand with Eli Musk's
Doge in the United States. That's next week's episode, dropping
(33:21):
on Thursday, and I'll catch you then
This week on the Business of Tech, powered by two degrees.
Microsoft turns fifty. Yes, the world's largest software company, started
by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on the fourth of
April nineteen seventy five, is now fifty years old, perhaps
more than any other company, IBM, Apple, Intel among them.
(00:24):
Microsoft is responsible for the personal computing revolution really taking hold.
It's had three CEOs, Bill Gates, followed by Steve Barmer
in the nearly two thousands and sach Inadella, who is
still in the top job today. But the drive in
force really was Bill Gates.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Can you see yourself working for somebody else?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I never have? Can you see it?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm used to having a company where the ideas that
I have are something that I can easily pursue, So
I think it'd be a tough transition.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That was a rather young Gates on the Today Show
in the US in nineteen eighty four, or almost a
decade into the Microsoft journey, by which point he'd had
a big hit with MS DOSS and was really well
on the way to creating Windows One, which would be
launched about a year later. That was the first version
of the operating system that today runs on roughly eighty
(01:17):
five percent of the world's computers. Gates never did work
for anyone else. He stepped down from full time work
at Microsoft in two thousand and six. He devoted himself
to philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, billions
of dollars raised and given away, pouring a lot of
money into HIV AIDS research, malaria eradication, and climate change
(01:39):
mitigation tech like carbon capture and storage and modular nuclear reactors.
He's a bit of a polarizing figure, Gates, but there's
no doubting the legacy he created with Microsoft, along with
Paul Allen. To build a company that survives and even
thrives through the exit of the founding CEO is a
big achievement, and after a rough period in the two thousand,
(02:01):
in the twenty tens, Microsoft seems healthier, bigger, and more
profitable than ever. But I thought it'd be great to
get a New Zealand perspective on the Microsoft story from
the woman who runs the local operation, Vanessa Sorenson. Vanessa
joined Microsoft in twenty seventeen after a long stint at Telecom,
then Spark and before that at Wang Computer has sort
(02:24):
of forgotten icon from the tech industry in the sixty
seventies and eighties. I wanted to get Vanessa's take on
Microsoft's big hits and misses over the last fifty years,
how Microsoft has evolved over its thirty four year history
of being in New Zealand, and also how she made
the investment case that resulted in Microsoft building its first
(02:46):
hyperscale data center region here in New Zealand that opened
in December. And I guess it's pretty much Vanessa's crowning
achievement as the MD of the local operation so far.
Vanessa Sorenson, Welcome to the business of Tech. How you doing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm fantastic, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, what a milestone this week fifty years ago Paul
Allen sadly departed now and Bill Gates, one of the
legends of personal computing and software. We're sort of in
the garage in New Mexico coming up with what was
going to be one of the biggest companies, if not
one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Incredible
(03:34):
And I guess that week back then the story goes
and Bill Gates recounts this on Gates notes really interesting
article that he's published which we'll link to in the
show notes. He was looking at the cover of Popular Electronics,
very good magazine at the time. There was a picture
of the Altair eighty eight hundred on the cover, which
(03:56):
is a computer sadly I never got my hands on.
I've never even seen except in the museum in Silicon Valley.
But he was thinking, Wow, this is a really cool machine.
And the two of them had a vision of putting
a computer on every desk and in every home, and
the key they sawt of doing that was coming up
with an operating system, a really good, efficient operating system
(04:19):
for at the start at the Altair, which was the
big new computer at the time. So that's where it
all began, really, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Oh And yeah, incredible, you know, just to save even
when I go up to Redmond and there is kind
of like a little sort of mini museum of the
first official photo man. They had bad hair and they
looked literally twelve years old, And just imagine cooking up
something like that when it just wasn't you know, it
just wasn't sort of anything that you were following anyone else.
(04:49):
And so just extraordinary to your concept about an operating system.
To then build you know what was then software that
seemed turned into apps. Kind of just seeing what a
visionary like quite incredible. But obviously Bill had incredibly driven
parents that you know, really kind of gave him that
concept of electronics and what was the art of the possible?
(05:12):
And yeah, wow, fifty years it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, and look there were sort of desktop computers around
in the seventies, including from Wang Computer, a company that
I think you started your career at in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I know, man, I'm getting my age away now. And
the funny story about that is just before starting Wang,
actually I worked for a startup and my first job
was selling Microsoft licensing. They weren't even yet in the
country in New Zealand, and my boss at the time said, look, Vanessa,
don't go to Fiji buy Microsoft shares. I mean, no way.
(05:49):
I continue to remember that. But just extraordinary seeing the
old floppy disk selling box product, you know, the first
time Microsoft Word was available, then Excel, like wow, you
could do all of this amazing spreadsheets, and then PowerPoint
and just kind of the I just think back then,
(06:10):
I just didn't realize how fortunate I was to be
right in the middle of something that not only am
I continuing to be part of, but just seeing the
incredible leap change it's had for so many businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, that's sort of when I got into the first
sort of the Intel computers of the nineties, the Pentium computers.
I was playing around building my own all obviously Windows
based on MS DOS base, but wangingt an interesting company
found it in nineteen fifty one by An Wang, the
company's named after and sort of I guess by the
(06:46):
time you were working at Wang, it had really had
to pivot. It was basically selling computers that were running
Windows and the early Office suite as well. But in
the seventies they wanted to build what they were calling
mini computers alone computer that was basically a word process.
So you bought this entire computer to do word documents.
(07:07):
And then Bill and Paul came along and went, forget that,
we want one computer that's going to do everything.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, and I think that's so. I remember going to
Wang and had a green screen and using Wang Office.
So yeah, it was a very proprietary, and I think
that's the word, you know, Microsoft blew apart. This whole
option is that you've got one thing to do at all,
and I think where Wang went astray was like, well,
(07:33):
we'll be the market leader. And of course they were
peter for their time, but they stayed within proprietary. They
didn't then open up their systems. And I've even watched
it with Microsoft over the years, you know, once Sarti
came in and said, hey, we're going to now be open.
I think for a lot of businesses just not pivoting
fast enough. And it was quite scary actually joining Wang.
(07:55):
It had such an amazing brand globally, and while I
was there, they went through chapter eleven and I was like, oh, okay,
didn't even know what chapter eleven was at the time.
And for watching Wang New Zealand survive, because the company
had an incredible brand and quickly pivot to being a
systems integrator and by then absolutely selling Microsoft and other hardware.
(08:17):
But sadly globally Wang Wang didn't do that, and it
would be very very interesting to see what that company
could have been today.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess reflecting on the companies off that period,
you've got ninety seventy five Microsoft, I think nineteen seventy
six Apple was founded as the two Steves was Niak
and jobs obviously similar thing in a garage coming up
with a pretty cool idea. You had Oracle, I think
seventy seven. Yep, a little bit earlier, the chip makers,
(08:48):
Intel and AMD early seventies, but you've got this cohort.
All of those companies are still around and a number
have gone by the wayside. But what do you think
it is about Microsoft, which basically had the same CEO,
Bill Gates for thirty years, then Steve Barmer, and now
Satya in terms of being able to pivot when needed
(09:11):
and adapt and innovate over such a long period of
time to still be around and be one of the
biggest companies in the world. What's in the DNA of
the company that allows them to do that?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I honestly think it's the concept of being a learned
or stay curious really, you know, try things like you're very,
very supportive to innovate. But of course we had some
years where we did store. You know, probably we're not
seeing that we were in that mover market. And you know,
you do look back over the history of companies and
(09:45):
I think you know it is different leaders, different age
and stage. You know, certainly the Bill Gates was so
about the development and being a very engineering led business.
Then I think with Steve Barmer was a very sales
driven company, and now Satia, who's been with the company
for twenty odd years, is bringing the combination of the both.
(10:07):
So we've still got the roots, have been absolutely and
engineering firm and believe that we've got to have the
most secure products that've got to work for everybody. But
he really embraced that we have to be open. We
can't have just our things working with our things, and
so I credit a lot of our exponential growth since
Satia about stepping down the silos within Microsoft truly co
(10:33):
working together to innovate faster. And boy, oh boy, haven't
we seen that over the last ten odd years that
he's been at the Helm.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, and over the fifty years, I mean there's been
a heck of a lot of hits ms dos, which
I don't go hands on with anymore. But I remember
in the nineties that was Windows existed, but if you
really wanted to get into the height of a computer
and do cool things, you were on the black screen
putting in prompts and commands, and that fundamentally that openness
(11:06):
that allowed you to basically do anything on the on
the operating system, off the computer, So it was the
flexibility it offered. Then, of course the Windows operating system
itself and really hit its stride. I think with Windows
three that was I remember that being a game changer,
and then obviously Windows ninety five was huge. I was
(11:27):
at the midnight launch of that in Auckland, Yep. The
first time and the only time I've ever queued for
a piece of software at midnight, I know.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And that's the thing, like these incredible moments that you
do remember, And I think it's that constant ability to
keep innovating. Don't sit there and go, Wow, we're onto
something great. Everyone loves it. I think that's you just
got to keep, you know, pivoting and moving and just
not sitting still. And I think that's that's certainly the
(11:58):
opportunity I see now in this era of AI and
what the art of the possible is going to look like.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, and we're going to talk about AI because it's
such a big focus on that at the moment. But
just looking back at some of those milestones in the company.
Obviously the Office Suite, so you had this operating system
which was great and flexible way to put programs on
a computer. And then Bill's thinking what's the key thing
that people want to use, and it's productivity. He was
selling computers mainly to businesses. First they wanted word processing,
(12:27):
they wanted Excel spreadsheets. We had Lotus one, two, three,
I think at the time, but a more user friendly
approach using that Windows interface and the mouse to access productivity,
and those products, those three alone, Word Excel, PowerPoint used
by billions of people still all over the world.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Extraordinary. I mean yeah, I remember again, you know, my
first ever job with a startup and selling software, and
it was either word against word perfect or loadus against Excel.
And truly it was I think that platform play that
Bill wasn't necessarily stating it, that wasn't about a platform,
but it was the same gooey interface, the same look
(13:10):
and feel, the same You didn't have to go and
learn something completely different. And I think that that DNA
is still through all of our products. And you know,
to me, that's the secret sauce of why did people
continually not just pay for those upgrades every time they came,
Because remember Peter, how difficult that was, right, You had
(13:31):
to go around with the floppy discs and I had
to upgrade everything and it certainly, you know, many years
before Cloud came along, people did because the next version
absolutely gave you that productivity. And I think that's the
that's the word that still underpins Microsoft. If you want
true productivity, you really want to save time, and you
want to do it well, you know, and not always
(13:53):
you know, companies that wanted to pay those licensing fees,
but it became core. You remember Exchange. I remember a
customer I was looking after they had a massive outage.
They just didn't realize that actually that was the number
one thing that that company needed to run. Like it
was such an aha moment, you know, the company couldn't
run without email, and no one really thought that until
(14:16):
it went down because it wasn't getting maintained. Their storage
just blew out, the board couldn't function like it was
a real wholly. This thing has become bigger than ben hur.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, and I think that's being the key to Microsoft's longevity.
As you said, there's been various phases off the business,
and there's been some phases that haven't been as successful
as others. You know, arguably, Microsoft was late to the
Internet revolution, missed the mobile revolution. Really when it tried
with Windows Mobile didn't quite work, arguably was late to
(14:51):
the cloud, but is now killing it with Azure. But
throughout all of that, the thing that I think saved
Microsoft when it took a wrong turn was it was
still the best company in the world for productivity software.
And that's ultimately what the average company user or someone
at home needed in their life.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And the fact, you know, I
see it with my own children using the Microsoft product
suite at school. You're going to then go into that
job and it's primarily what you know, what corporate businesses
are leveraging. And I think that's always underpinned. You know,
I think some of those market making moments that we
did miss boy have we learned. And I think that's
(15:31):
also you know, kind of calling us and growing up
now at age of fifty, really seeing those moments of
you know, you know, we missed Mobile, we miss search.
We were slower with Azure, but we did it incredibly
strategically and tactically, and now being you know, number one
in most markets, certainly Australia and New Zealand because it's
(15:52):
the most secure you can rely on it We're not
going to stand up the next day and compete with you.
We want your business to thrive and survive. And I
think that's it also underpinds what Microsoft's all about.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, and the one area that's really topical at the moment,
which is artificial intelligence, which is artificial intelligence, Microsoft was
actually early into. The one time I did actually speak
to Bill Gates was a long time ago. He'd stepped
down at CEO. I think he'd gone into the CTO role,
so Steve Barmer was in the hot seat and Bill
(16:27):
was working on product development and R and D and
that sort of thing. And the only thing I remember
from that conversation I think I asked him, you know,
what's the next big thing? And he said, artificial intelligence?
Is that really okay? And he went on and talked
about what Microsoft's research division was doing with AI, and
(16:47):
so he was talking about it way way back then.
It took a while for that really to manifest itself
into what we know as AI today, but definitely, you know,
that visionary thinking was there.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
One hundred percent. And I think, look, artificial intelligence has
actually been around a long time, and like you said,
it's more the sci fi movie where you know, all
those things now we can do. It's a bit like
everything in life. We needed the compute power, you know.
I remember listening to James Cameron about, you know, the
making of Avatar, and he's like, I dreamt that up
(17:21):
twenty years ago, but there just wasn't the compute power
to actually design, you know. So I think a lot
of these visionary thinkers where now the convergence of you know,
platforms like asure, you know, in the most secure way,
the compute power that you need, and now overlaid with
all of the AI tools. Holy, I mean, we're you know,
(17:43):
to be right in the middle of that and know
that you're in it, because I think for me, I
remember the Internet being launched. I was like, oh wow,
how did that happen? With this, you feel like you're
right in the center of it, and every day there's
some new way that we're using the tool set, and
I think it's quite quite extrame ordinary to be in that.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So the New Zealand of Microsoft operating about thirty four
years Yeah, what was the You obviously were there in
that company at the time, you were around the industry, though,
what was the real impetus for the arrival here. Was
it government driven or was a business community saying that
we want Windows on our computers. There's a number of
(18:24):
Wang and others were selling computers at the time, Compac
and IBM. We want really good access to expertise from
Microsoft here underground.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well again, back in the first startup that I first
worked for, essentially software, I remember we had to buy
Microsoft product through Brian Moore, Brian and Eddie Wilmot, who
were really incredible industry leaders back thirty five forty years ago.
And I think it was actually just New Zealand such
an incredible country that our early adopters, quite frankly, and
(18:54):
I think from a Microsoft perspective because I didn't work there,
they said, wow, what could we do with this really
amazing sovereign country that's extremely secure about New Zealand becoming
an earlier dopter and I think that's when I moved
to Wang. Actually Microsoft was right behind our building, and
you know, just seeing I think that the takeop as
(19:16):
a country for the products, and you know, it was
such a great thing to have a big global you know,
really decide to rout down in New Zealand. And I
think that's that's been amazing for our country because we
have been able to get our hands on the software
and also have many of our people part of the
development up in Seattle. In fact, I met with Maurice
(19:38):
Williamson and hopefully won't mind me saying, but he was
really key as a minister back all those years ago
talking to Bill Gates about you know, hey, imagine if
we did this and did that. So I was really
surprised to hear. And I found a couple of old
photos actually in l clearing out a storage unit of
when Bill Gates even came to New Zealand. So a
lot of it was about what is this really innovative
(20:01):
country doing and what could they do?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and a lot of kiwis in the tech industry
really cut their teeth that Microsoft went to Redmond did
a stint up there. I remember, I think it was
Windows Vista, which wasn't a great release of Windows for Microsoft,
but I remember meeting several kiwis who are involved in
the development team preparing for that launch. And it's just
(20:24):
been throughout the decades people go into a stint up there.
Some of them have gone and started up their own
companies as well. It's sort of a mini university for
tech talent.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh, like the best. In fact, all of our interns
that come and join us, I say, mate, this is
going to be the best NBA you could ever get
because what you get access to, Especially now, Peter, I
think there's about two hundred and twenty thousand people work
for Microsoft, and I say, they're your closest friends. There
are a ping away on teams, they'll help you, They're interested,
(20:55):
And I think that's what's really blown me. My mind
away is is just how helpful people are within Microsoft,
no matter what level where they are sharing what they're doing.
And yeah, boy, it's the best university I could ever
imagine going to.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and obviously Sacha Nadella has been down to New
Zealand and I think really inspired by some of the
stuff Microsoft has done with Mari around translation and that
sort of thing. And I guess on your watch, the
biggest development really potentially in the New Zealand Division's history
has been building all of that data center infrastructure in
(21:32):
New Zealand. Huge investment. What was it like trying to
convince Satya and the senior executive at Microsoft to actually
invest big dollars like that in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, Peter, it's one of the reasons I came to
Microsoft seven and a bit years ago because I just
you know, thinking, imagine if we had this year, what
could it do for startups, for New Zealand, for the
health industry, for education and so part of that plan
was definitely getting so to come to New Zealand. So
about five years ago he did, and just him meeting
so many of our incredible startups and kids, and it
(22:10):
really started from there. And of course we then had
to go through lots of gymnastics to get the business
case forward. But actually the relationship and the strong relationship
we have with the likes of Fonterra, many of the banks,
they worked with us because they could see what this
could do for their business and true transformation with data
in country and so we're really fortunate we weren't sort
(22:32):
of doing this alone. And it wasn't about them committing
to money, Peter. It was about designing what we could consider.
And none of us knew that this AI movement would come.
I mean, talk about perfect timing. Right we opened in
December last year the AI movement was starting. You know,
(22:53):
I kind of look again and think we can be
so much more forward thinking because of this, you know,
movement of both of these things coming together. So I'm
immensely proud and I just think, you know what, I
speak to a lot of ex leaders of Microsoft New
Zealand and they said they never ever thought it would come,
but actually we're an incredible country. We've got sustainability, renewable energy,
(23:16):
the contract that we've signed with Contact Energy which enabled
them to expand geothermal, Like that's what New Zealand's about.
And I think, you know, we've got to promote it
more and more and more and have more of those
investments coming into this country.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, and AI is going to be integral to the
future of Microsoft. We see that in the massive investments.
For instance, it's made in Open AI and soft Bank
has just invested forty billion in that company, so that
and Microsoft's own internal AI capability is growing as well.
(23:53):
What's your reflection on where we're at in the sort
of the AI revolution. I just wrote a report for
the AI fours. I'm looking at how businesses are using it,
and the vast majority said it's mostly generative AI and
it's mostly off the shelf tools. So although AI has
been around for a long time. Our businesses have latched
(24:14):
onto these tools which are relatively cheap, quick to adopt,
and they can get runs on the board very quickly.
But you know, about half of the company sort of said,
we're still not seeing the return on investment yet, and
maybe they don't understand that yet. It's early days. But
at what point you think we are really going to
(24:35):
see those particularly those productivity gains that so many reports
have been written about the fact we need advanced technology
to improve our productivity because we have other challenges like
an aging population, our workforce has peaked. We can't rely
on China commodity prices going up and up and up.
Growth is stalled in China, so it's got to be
(24:58):
technology driven productive. What's the next step in that journey.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Well, you know, look, we we had a report done
by a censure which it was incredible because it said
we can realize seventy six billion of increased DUDYP by
twenty thirty eight, and that was incredibly conservative. Peter, And yes,
I'm hearing you about the ROI, but we're really starting
to see a clock now because I think, yeah, it's
(25:22):
like you dip your toe's it's going to be a fad.
You know, can we afford the ten dollars a month
per person? In fact, i've heard companies now say if
they if we're not given it, we'd like the mobile phone.
Remember when that came out and companies weren't going to
pay for it. Well, I'll pay for it myself. So
I think there's always the starting point. And we truly
are seeing the gains now for the innovative companies that
(25:44):
are grabbing hold of it. And you know, recently, you know,
just seeing the Ministry of Social Development partner on an
incredible project where we can leverage all of these tools
that are actually going to help people find jobs, like
cannnecting them with the right people. I mean, and again
it was a really quite simple project. NDPGG rights and
(26:06):
counting livestocks sounds simple, but the money it's saving them.
You know. Vista Group on product personalizing podcasts. So these
are the cinemas. Every morning, the lead the owners of
the cinemas are driving to work. The podcast tells me
how much popcorn did we sell? How many seats were filled?
Like these are really really tangible and they're slowly coming along.
(26:27):
I think my worry Peter is that New Zealand wants
to sit back and wait. We say we're fast followers,
and I'm like, please start on anything that you hate
spending money on, like get a project around that. Just
prove that out because you are spending money and I
know it will have a difference. And I really hope
that these tools one day will save, you know, solve
(26:50):
cancers that we could never have even thought possible in
our lives. And fell para here in New Zealand about
what they do with breast cancer. Now they're looking at
moving it into brain cancer. It's like this stuff we've
got to celebrate. So we are definitely seeing it more
and more bigger companies going okay, we're all in with
co pilot because it's not going to take over your job.
It is a co pilot to help you. And then
(27:12):
seeing the back end compute power, especially with NZ North
now live watch the space. You're going to see some
incredible stories coming out.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, and one of the key things to really being
able to leverage AI is having that capability and that
capacity in companies to understand it. You've committed to training
one hundred thousand New Zealanders in AI and digital skills
over the next two years. It's a lot of people.
How practically, how are you going to go about that?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So we're scaling through our partners and you know that's
my other role as well. I'm fortunate to run New
Zealand and I'm also the partner leader across Australia and
New Zealand. And so we're scaling through our partners and
we're investing in them to roll it out. We've got
incredible tools that are now monitoring and checking that. We're
signing up incredible opportunity unities with some other government agencies
(28:03):
which are going to be phenomenal. I'm you know, mentioning
the Ministry of Social Development with the AI tools we're
going to connect into this incredible project, which is going
to make it easier and literally just funding it, you know,
I think making it so much more available where these
courses used to cost money, Your certification used to cost money.
(28:26):
So you're going to see a lot more open opportunity
where people can go and do these courses. And the
next thing we want to do it is infusing it
in schools because I think that if you can start
skilling and I talked to my own children like, yeah,
we haven't even this stuff's not even available to us.
We're doing that as well, and with the university, so
you attach this while you are studying. So yeah, we're
(28:49):
going to be tracking progress. You know. We truly believe
that this is New Zealand's opportunity to get more of
those high paid jobs. We lift everyone up and immensely
proud of our relationship with the likes of Tubatoa where
we aligning with them to upskill more Mani Pacifica through
their programs. So yeah, we've got a very very clear
plan which we're executing. It is a lot of people,
(29:10):
but we believe we can get there.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, and I think as we look to the next
fifty years, you know, hopefully Microsoft will be around. It's
one hundredth anniversary, and part of it is having a
sort of an equitable relationship with the people of the
country that you're operating in. Some argue that big tech
has got too big. There's too few companies that have
(29:33):
concentrated power. So what's the key do you think for
you for the future of Microsoft New Zealand Building that
really healthy relationship that allows innovation to thrive without being
too dominant in people's lives.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, and it's a tough one, right because we've also
seen over the last fifty years organizations go with every
single other company and get nowhere. And so it's a
real double sword. And I think the only thing I
can say, and this is to quote starting Adella, we
know when you're not happy with us, you can simply
turn us off. You know, the whole cloud movement, you
dial it down, moving to CSP now rather than big
(30:13):
complicated licensing contracts. It's up to you. And we believe
competition is a good thing. We have to earn the
right every single day and for me, it's that means
continue innovating, be the most secure, have investments like we've
done an ENDZ North that will show that we will
be here for the next fifty years. Believe you me
with the size and scale of that. But it's great
(30:36):
for all New Zealand, like it puts us on the map,
it connects us to the rest of the world. It
enables you know, businesses like Contact Energy to bring forward
projects they could never have done otherwise. And we've got
to embrace this. But everyone has choice, Peter, and that's
what we know, and that's why every single day. We
(30:57):
have to prove that.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Out absolutely well. Look, thanks so much. Congratulations on fifty
years and over seven and a half years of you
at Microsoft. That's been a pretty whirlwind sort of ride
as well. But thanks so much for coming on the
Business of Tech.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Thank you for having me. And yeah, I can't wait
to maybe I'll come on the next one for fifty
years or we far too old them, Peter, but thanking
forward to it. Enjoyed it, see you.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Thanks so much to Vanessa Sowrenson for coming on the show.
I've got to say a slightly subdued birthday celebration. I
think for Microsoft that fifty years quite a big one.
They did get the three CEOs back together last week.
That was great to see because I don't think Bill
and Steve Barmer are particularly close these days. I don't
know if they ever really were, but it really was,
(31:52):
and you know, Bill Gates acknowledges this. It was Barmer's
sort of natural ability to hustle and get deals over
the line, and just his natural enthusiasm and intensity. And
if you've ever been to a Microsoft conference, you've seen that,
you know, twenty years ago when he was on stage
literally sweating he was so worked out about all of
(32:14):
this stuff, so he was integral to it, but he did,
you know, pass the baton to Sacha Adella. And I
guess Satcha's big success really has been cloud computing and AI.
You know, Microsoft had been a player in service software,
very successful there, but Satua really saw the future off
the business being cloud centric and he picked that up
(32:35):
and ran with it. Now it's one of the biggest
cloud companies in the world with its Azure platform, and
it's a leader in AI too, through open Ai and
its own internal efforts as well. So I hope you
enjoyed the chat with Vanessa. Show notes are in the
podcast section at businesses dot co dot nz. You can
stream the podcast on iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast app.
(33:00):
Next week, how could we do doge properly here in
New Zealand. I've got a fantastic panel lined up to
talk about how we need to make government more efficient
and transparent, but how we could do it without all
the craziness that's gone hand in hand with Eli Musk's
Doge in the United States. That's next week's episode, dropping
(33:21):
on Thursday, and I'll catch you then
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