/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57865025/brad_smith__1_.0.png)
The tech industry is trapped in its fair share of political battles. Brad Smith is fighting in almost every single one of them.
The Microsoft executive has emerged in recent years as a powerful, vocal public advocate for his company — and his peers — as the tech set tries to battle back government surveillance, seek beneficial changes to U.S. tax laws, address emerging threats from hackers and restore U.S. immigration programs, including DACA.
Under his watch, as president and chief legal officer, Microsoft repeatedly has challenged the U.S. government — particularly on privacy. Last year, for example, it sued the feds for the ability to disclose more information about law enforcement requests to users. By October 2017, the feds backed down.
Another lawsuit — this one over records stored abroad — is currently awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. That, too, could usher in key new limits on law enforcement’s ability to snoop on web users.
Meanwhile, Smith has emerged as one of the more vocal advocates for DACA, a program that spares young children brought illegally to the United States from being deported. He even delivered a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump earlier this year when he called on the White House and Congress to broker an immigration deal before moving on to tax reform.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:
First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.
Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.
So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)
If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.
-
1-10
10
- 1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon
- 2. Susan Fowler, Stripe
- 3. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, The New York Times; Ronan Farrow, The New Yorker
- 4. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
- 5. Tim Cook, Apple
- 6. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank
- 7. Sundar Pichai, Google
- 8. Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX
- 9. Katrina Lake, Stitch Fix
- 10. Margrethe Vestager, European Union
-
11-20
10
- 11. Satya Nadella, Microsoft
- 12. Reed Hastings, Netflix
- 13. Kevin Systrom and Marne Levine, Instagram
- 14. Adam Schiff, U.S. Representative, and Senator Mark Warner, U.S. Senator
- 15. Toni Reid and Rohit Prasad, Amazon
- 16. Patty Jenkins, director, “Wonder Woman”
- 17. Daniel Ek, Spotify
- 18. Ma Huateng, Tencent
- 19. Marc Lore, Walmart
- 20. Colin Kaepernick, quarterback and social activist
-
21-30
10
- 21. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, executive producers, “Game of Thrones”
- 22. Sarah Friar, Square
- 23. Maggie Haberman, The New York Times
- 24. Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective
- 25. Dan Schulman, PayPal
- 26. Aziz Ansari, actor and executive producer, “Master of None”
- 27. Brian Chesky, Airbnb
- 28. Jean Liu, Didi Chuxing
- 29. Jensen Huang, Nvidia
- 30. Wang Xing, Meituan-Dianping
-
31-40
10
- 31. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX
- 32. Emily Weiss, Glossier
- 33. Ryan Cohen, Chewy
- 34. Laura Weidman Powers, Code2040
- 35. Issa Rae, executive producer, “Insecure”
- 36. Stewart Butterfield and April Underwood, Slack Technologies
- 37. Raj Kapoor, Lyft
- 38. Cardi B, musician
- 39. Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds
- 40. Kylie Jenner, Kylie Cosmetics
-
41-50
10
- 41. Amnon Shashua, Intel, and Karl Iagnemma, nuTonomy
- 42. Todd McKinnon, Okta
- 43. Donald Glover, actor and executive producer, “Atlanta”
- 44. Kriti Sharma, Sage
- 45. Apoorva Mehta, Instacart
- 46. John Krafcik, Waymo
- 47. Evan Spiegel, Snap
- 48. Stephanie Lampkin, Blendoor
- 49. Joelle Emerson, Paradigm
- 50. Peter Thiel, Founders Fund
-
51-60
10
- 51. Julie Cordua, Thorn
- 52. Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission
- 53. Marc Benioff, Salesforce
- 54. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase
- 55. Anthony Tan, Grab
- 56. Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, Indivisible
- 57. Tobias Lutke, Shopify
- 58. Reid Hoffman, Greylock
- 59. Dinesh Paliwal, Harman
- 60. Jordan Peele, writer and director, “Get Out”
- 61-70 9
-
71-80
10
- 71. Tiffani Ashley Bell, The Human Utility
- 72. Kyle Vogt, Cruise Automation
- 73. Matt Murphy, Menlo Ventures
- 74. Marc Stad, Dragoneer
- 75. Jason Droege, Uber
- 76. Cliff Levy, The New York Times
- 77. Jonathan Greenblatt, Anti-Defamation League
- 78. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, Axios
- 79. Alex Zhu, Musical.ly
- 80. Peter Szulczewski, Wish
- 81-90 10
-
91-100
10
- 91. Kirsten Green, Forerunner Ventures
- 92. Tristan Walker, Walker & Company
- 93. Daniela Perdomo, goTenna
- 94. Amanda Rousseau, Endgame
- 95. James Freeman, Blue Bottle Coffee
- 96. Lauren Gross, Founders Fund
- 97. Alastair Westgarth, Alphabet
- 98. Chris Urmson, Aurora Innovation
- 99. Sarah Tavel, Benchmark
- 100. Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, executive producers, “Stranger Things”
- Also 2
Sign up for the newsletter Sentences
The day's most important news stories, explained in your inbox.