Nadella talks LinkedIn

Microsoft’s growing role as a data aggregator gets attention at Gartner conference. By Patrick Thibodeau

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (pictured) faced sharp questions from Gartner analysts recently about the privacy-invading implications of its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, and its all-knowing virtual assistant, Cortana.

Helen Huntley, one of the Gartner analysts questioning Nadella, was pointed about the fears. Cortana, she said, “knows everything about me when I’m working. She knows what files I’m looking at, she knows what I’m downloading, she knows when I’m working, when I’m not working”. Cortana is “big brother intersected... with productivity,” she added.

Nadella countered this with his own question: “How does one build trust in technology?” He called it one of the “most pressing issues of our time”.

Cortana will operate on ‘four pillars’, which include keeping data secure, as well transparency, meaning that users will “know exactly what Cortana knows”, Nadella revealed. There is also an ability to turn off data access. The fourth pillar is to be compliant with regulations, he added.

Microsoft’s CEO was appearing via video link from the firm’s Redmond headquarters. He was scheduled to appear in person, but a back injury kept him from flying. “When you turn 49 don’t act 19 in the gym,” he warned, to the amusement of an audience consisting mostly of people in their middle years.

With LinkedIn, Huntley, who was asking questions in tandem with fellow analyst Chris Howard, was pointed once again: “What are you going to do to our data?”

“We are just custodians of that data,” Nadella explained. The only data the company has access to is when users allow it for the purpose of adding value to it, he said. He gave the example that someone can be much more prepared for a meeting if their calendar includes LinkedIn profile links of attendees. A user’s news feed can also be shaped to include information about meeting participants. “Those are natural points of integration,” he explained.

This ability to integrate with LinkedIn, said Nadella, “will not be exclusive of Microsoft but available to everyone”. Allowing integration will help make LinkedIn grow.

The CEO also defended Microsoft as an open company. “Windows is the most open platform there is,” he argued.

But asked how the firm will work with competitors on platforms such as Azure, Nadella turned philosophical. That knowledge “comes maybe with middle age” – a point at which one becomes “comfortable with what I would say are complex relationships”. A gentle laugh rolled through the audience.

In response to questions about how Artificial Intelligence will interact with users, he talked about Microsoft’s pursuit of AI, but not the specifics.

“There is still a dark side,” said Howard, of AI. “There is a risk of an over-mediated life.”

But, as he did with privacy, Nadella worked to calm concerns and argued that AI will augment human capability, not replace it.

“It looks like they have a vision for the future,” said one attendee, Steve Edmonson, a CIO with a Chicago governmental organisation. But with respect to AI, Microsoft’s CEO didn’t talk about “where that is really headed.”