2024-05-23 Ben Thompson.Interview with Satya Nadella About Aligning Microsoft and AI
Microsoft’s Alignment
微软的一致性
Satya Nadella, welcome back to Stratechery.
Satya Nadella，欢迎回到 Stratechery。
SN: Thank you so much, Ben.
SN：非常感谢你，Ben。
Although I guess I’m in your neck of the woods here, it is transformed to say the least.
虽然我想这里算是你的地盘，但怎么说呢——这里已经焕然一新了。
SN: You bet. Who would’ve thought here we have a new campus and a cricket field in there.
SN：当然。谁能想到我们现在这儿有了一个新园区，里面还有一片板球场呢。
(laughing) Yeah, did they build that just for you?
（笑）是啊，那是不是专门给你建的？
SN: In fact, this is the first time this morning I walked up there, I had not seen it actually, and man, it’s just beautiful. On a spring day in Seattle, it feels just right.
SN：事实上，我今早是第一次走上去看，我之前还真没见过，说真的，太美了。西雅图的春日里，这感觉刚刚好。
You took away my precious soccer field.
你把我心爱的足球场给占了。
SN: We have soccer too! We even have pickleball, courts, I believe.
SN：我们也有足球！我记得还有匹克球（pickleball）球场。
Excellent. Well, I’m referring to the fact I worked at Microsoft. I was actually here for the first Build in 2012, which was a very dysfunctional event. I’m not sure if you remember, it was sort of competing with another consumer-focused event put on by the Windows team in New York City. Today, Microsoft seems like a much more unified company. What would you say has changed culturally and organizationally over that time, which obviously corresponds with your tenure as CEO.
太棒了。嗯，我是说我在 Microsoft 工作过。我确实参加了 2012 年第一届 Build，那是一场非常“失调”的活动。不知道你还记不记得，当时它几乎是在和 Windows 团队在纽约市办的另一场面向消费者的活动“对打”。而如今，Microsoft 看起来统一多了。你会如何描述这段时间在文化和组织上的变化？显然这与您担任 CEO 的时期一致。
SN: Well, let me put it this way, Ben. For me, my memories go back to the PDC \[Professional Developers Conference] in ’91, when first we talked about Win32. That’s when — in fact, I was working at Sun at that time, and I’d not even joined Microsoft, and it was very clear to me as to what was going to happen, the PC and what it was going to do and then the server architecture for me was pretty clear even in ’91.
SN：这样说吧，Ben。对我而言，我的记忆能追溯到 1991 年的 PDC \[Professional Developers Conference]，我们第一次讨论 Win32。那时候——其实我还在 Sun 工作，还没加入 Microsoft，但对我来说未来将发生什么已经很清楚：PC 的发展以及它将带来的变化；甚至在 1991 年，我对服务器架构的走向也已经有了相当清晰的判断。
That’s what I feel is super important for any tech company, which is to have what I describe as a complete thought, when for me, the complete thought starts with, “What’s the system innovation?” — whether it’s silicon, the operating system, the app platform. Then why is this going to be desirable for any consumer or any app developer? So to me, that’s what it takes, whether it’s on the Azure side or on Windows side, and even this morning, the Windows Copilot+ PC, it’s been a long time since we had that complete thought where we have — the Arm stuff, it’s been a journey and I feel like we got that. We’ve got the application platform. Microsoft itself building applications, and third parties developing applications. So to me, culturally what allows you to build complete products is what I think one has to strive for.
这对任何一家科技公司都至关重要——我称之为“完整的思考”。在我看来，“完整的思考”首先要问的是：“系统层面的创新是什么？”——无论是硅（芯片）、操作系统，还是应用平台。然后要弄清楚，为何这会让任何消费者或应用开发者感到向往？对我来说，不管是在 Azure 端还是 Windows 端，这都是必备的。甚至就在今天早上，Windows Copilot+ PC；而关于 Arm 的那一整套路径，我们走了很久，我觉得现在我们拿到了答案。我们拥有了应用平台，Microsoft 自己在构建应用，第三方也在开发应用。所以在我看来，文化上能让你构建“完整产品”的能力，正是我们应该为之努力的方向。
You mentioned consumers and developers. You didn’t say the word “enterprise”. Do you feel that complete thought is working on all of those three levels right now?
你刚才提到了消费者和开发者，但没有提到“enterprise（企业）”。你觉得那种“完整的思考”现在是否在这三个层面都奏效？
SN: That’s a great question. You see, one of the things I think about is enterprises are also end users. In fact, I feel like at Microsoft, whenever we’ve been at our best, we’ve been able to — if you remember, we’ve always been a knowledge worker company.
SN：这是个很好的问题。你看，我常常想到的一点是，企业本身也是终端用户。事实上，在 Microsoft，每当我们表现最好时——如果你还记得的话，我们一直是一家服务“知识工作者”的公司——我们都能把这一点把握住。
Right. But there’s that bifurcation between buyers and users that I think does make enterprise sometimes different.
没错。但我认为购买者与使用者之间的二分确实让企业场景有时显得不同。
SN: Not the company I joined in ’90, in the early 90s, quite frankly.
SN：至少在我90年代初加入时的那家公司并非如此，坦率地说。
That’s a good point because it was just developers back then.
说得对，因为那时基本就是开发者为主。
SN: And end users. So one of the things that I go back to is always that, where we really thought about the end user. To me, Excel was a consumer category or an end user category.
SN：还有终端用户。所以我总会回到那一点：我们确实是从终端用户出发去思考的。对我而言，Excel 属于面向消费者或终端用户的品类。
It was in the 80s for sure.
在80年代确实如此。
SN: Long before it became an IT thing. So therefore going back, it doesn’t mean that I want us to now somehow not do things that are really addressing IT needs. In fact, Paul Maritz once said, “Hey, the magic is about end users, developers, and IT”. That harmonization you’ve got to be great at, in order to be a great enterprise company by the way. That means if you take that equation of developers and end users, you can be a great consumer company, and in categories, right? Consumer is now such a broad thing. It may mean many, many things. We are not going to be doing Hollywood movies or a lot of other things, but when it comes to gaming, and I’ll call it productivity stuff, we want to do fantastic work.
SN：远在它变成 IT 领域的事情之前就是这样了。话说回来，这并不意味着我现在不想去做真正满足 IT 需求的事情。事实上，Paul Maritz 曾说过：“真正的魔力在于终端用户、开发者和 IT 。”顺带一提，要成为一家伟大的企业级公司，你必须在这种三者的协调统一上做到出色。这也意味着，如果你把“开发者”和“终端用户”这两个变量拿来认真对待，你就可以成为一家很出色的面向消费者的公司，并且在具体品类上做得很好，对吧？“Consumer（消费者）”这个概念如今非常宽泛，可能代表很多东西。我们不会去做 Hollywood 的电影或许多其他事情，但在 gaming（游戏）以及我称之为“生产力相关”的领域，我们希望做到极致。
It is fair, I will grant you that. Microsoft, people forget, was very much the disruptive entry both in the consumer space and PC space, but also in the server space and using commodity hardware, things along those lines. Was there a shift from which comes first? I think there might’ve been a period of time where Microsoft had great aspirations around the consumer space, but maybe what built the PC was people use PCs at work, then they wanted PCs at home and the phone obviously turned out somewhat different in that regard, but is that still sort of a sweet spot for Microsoft?
这说得公平，我同意。人们常常忘记，Microsoft 当年在消费者领域和 PC 领域是颠覆式的新进入者，同时也在服务器领域以通用硬件等方式切入。先后顺序是否发生过变化？我认为可能有一段时间，Microsoft 在消费者领域有很大雄心，但也许真正铸就 PC 普及的路径是：人们先在工作中使用 PC，然后也想在家里拥有 PC；而在手机上，这条路径显然有所不同。那么，如今这仍是 Microsoft 的“甜蜜点”吗？
SN: Yeah, I think that’s the sweet spot. Let’s take even just Windows, I want us to build great Windows PCs for the people who cross over between work and home, and even in the form factors. Let’s not even go fanciful about it, 200 plus million PCs are sold every year, and I want us to build the best PCs with the best battery life, with the best performance, and if this AI wave is upon us, then let’s redesign the operating system and the hardware. So that’s kind of what I want us to really do a good job of, and today was a good step in that direction.
SN：是的，我认为那就是我们的甜蜜点。就拿 Windows 来说，我希望我们为跨越工作与家庭场景的人群打造出色的 Windows PC，甚至在形态上也要如此。且不必过于天马行空——每年有 2 亿多台 PC 被售出，我希望我们打造续航最强、性能最佳的 PC；而如果这波 AI 浪潮已经到来，那就重塑操作系统与硬件。这正是我希望我们做好的事情，而今天就是朝着这个方向迈出的不错一步。
Copilot+ PCs
Copilot+ PC
Yeah, we’re talking just minutes after your Windows hardware event, I was pretty impressed, I’m not just saying that because I’m sitting across from you, I thought it was compelling, it seemed to deliver a real sense of why to buy Windows that has not seemed to exist basically since the browser came along and took applications off the table. How do you leverage that and lean into that? Is there going to be a big shift in your go-to-market? Is it just going to be leaning on OEMs and you think it’s going to sell itself? Are you going to heavily invest in a way you didn’t previously, or have you always been investing?
我们刚刚在你的 Windows 硬件发布会结束几分钟后就开始聊。我真的印象很深——不是因为我正坐在你对面我才这么说。我觉得发布内容很有吸引力，它似乎重新给出了“为什么要买 Windows”的一个真实理由——这种感觉基本上自从浏览器出现、把应用从桌面上拿走之后就不太存在了。你们会如何利用并放大这一点？你们的 go-to-market 会不会发生大的转变？还是主要依赖 OEMs，然后你们认为产品会自我驱动？你们会不会进行比以往更重的投入，还是说其实你们一直都在投入？
SN: We’ve been always investing, but the thing though is timing is everything right in tech, right? Which is we’ve been at it on Arm, we’ve been talking about NPUs for a long time.
SN：我们一直都在投入，但在科技领域时机就是一切，对吧？我们一直在推进 Arm，也谈论 NPU 已经很久了。
Yeah, a decade ago, you launched an Arm PC, I was there.
是啊，十年前你们就发布过一款 Arm PC，当时我也在场。
SN: So the point though is it’s coming together. Think about what’s just happened. With all these models that are out there and the ability for us to have, whether it’s from a privacy perspective or a latency perspective, COGS perspective, to have onboard models because when you use-
SN：关键在于，现在这些东西正在汇聚。想想刚刚发生了什么：在各种模型都已就位的情况下，我们能够——无论是从隐私、时延还是 COGS（商品销售成本）的角度——把模型放到本地设备上，因为当你使用——
You sounded like Apple up there, to be honest. Number one, you said “MacBook” more than Apple did in the Jony Ive era, so that was something, you’re leaning into the comparison, that’s for sure. But so much talk about local privacy, things along those lines, but you bring up the relevant point about these local models — COGS, if you’re using your customer’s energy, it’s effectively free from your point of view. How far do you think you can lean into this? For example, the AI PC, I was waiting for the specs, you did drop it, 16 gigabytes of memory, that’s good for Windows, still pretty small for AI.
说实话，你在台上听起来挺像 Apple。首先，你提到“MacBook”的次数比 Jony Ive 时代的 Apple 还多，这点挺有意思——你显然是在主动进行对比。同时你们谈了很多本地隐私之类的话题，但你提到的这些本地模型的关键点也很到位——COGS：如果用的是客户的电力，从你们的视角看几乎是免费的。你觉得在这条路上还能走多远？比如说 AI PC，我当时一直在等规格参数，你们后来放出来了：16GB 内存——对 Windows 来说不错，但对 AI 来说还是偏小。
SN: Now with the 45 TOPS, I feel like this Copilot PC takes, I love the first step we took with the AI PC, but with this Copilot+ PC, I think we are there. By the way, I’m a big believer that distributed computing will remain distributed, so it’s actually in concert. Take even Recall, which is I think a pretty killer feature which we’ve been working on again for a long time.
SN：现在有了 45 TOPS，我觉得这代 Copilot PC——我很喜欢我们在 AI PC 上迈出的第一步，但到了这款 Copilot+ PC，我认为我们已经到位了。顺便说一句，我坚信分布式计算会继续保持分布式，因此这些能力实际上是协同的。就拿 Recall 来说吧，我认为那是一个非常出色的功能，我们也打磨了很久。
I’ve been running Rewind on Mac, and it’s kind of a superpower for sure.
我一直在 Mac 上跑 Rewind，这确实算是一种“超能力”。
SN: Yeah and the point is now with Semantic Index, the fact that I can type in a natural language query and Recall, and even the fact that we forgot, I remember things visually, I remember things by association, and now to be able to not learn search, but to be able to just type in my intent and recall it. But here’s the interesting thing about Recall — if you notice it, it’ll not only come back to the content, but I can invoke this very moment because of the Semantic Index, so that ability requires a lot of onboard compute.
SN：是的，而关键在于现在有了 Semantic Index，我可以用自然语言去查询并调用 Recall。我们人本来就会遗忘；我常以视觉记忆、联想记忆来回忆，现在无需学习搜索语法，只要输入我的意图就能把它“召回”。关于 Recall 还有个有趣之处——如果你注意，它不仅能返回到内容本身，还能因为有 Semantic Index 而把“当时那个瞬间”也调用出来；而这项能力需要大量的本地算力。
The other fascinating thing is one of the demos I love and I was playing with it is you can be playing Call of Duty and taking the NPU, all 45 TOPS, and not damaging your battery for your gaming, that ability to have an operating system that knows how to use all the silicon and all the system appropriately, I think is going to be a real breakthrough for us.
另一个非常吸引人的点——我很喜欢、也亲自玩过的一个演示——是你在玩 Call of Duty 时可以调用 NPU、把全部 45 TOPS 用起来，同时又不会拖垮你的游戏续航。让操作系统懂得如何恰当地调度所有硅与整个系统资源的能力，我认为将成为我们的一个真正突破。
It’s easy to demo this, and you did a really cool demo with the drawing and the enhanced drawing on the Surface PCs. The eternal question, Android ran into the same thing that Windows did before — yes, you have this defined spec for these AI PCs, how do you though deliver that consistent experience?
这种东西很容易做演示，你们在 Surface PCs 上做的绘图与增强绘图演示确实很酷。但那个永恒的问题仍在——Android 之前遇到过，Windows 也遇到过：没错，你们为这些 AI PCs 规定了统一规格，可你们如何真正交付一致性的体验？
SN: That’s a great question, Ben. That has been one of the struggles of our ecosystem. I think we are all being schooled, quite frankly, on how to really, one, get the operating system right — it’s quite frankly the silicon, right? If I think about the amount of work we did with Qualcomm to get their silicon right. Now, what Intel is doing, what AMD is doing, this is the best — in fact, if I draw the parallel to what’s happening in the cloud, I’m thrilled to have some of the best folks who know a thing or two about silicon all putting their energy into building fantastic.
SN：这是个很好的问题，Ben。这一直是我们生态系统面临的挑战之一。坦率地说，我们都在被“教育”：首先要把操作系统做到位——说到底，这归根结底是“硅”的问题，对吧？回想我们为帮助 Qualcomm 把他们的硅做到位所投入的工作量。现在，Intel 和 AMD 正在做的事也是最佳状态——事实上，如果把这一切与云端正在发生的事作类比，我会说我非常兴奋，因为有一批真正懂“硅”的顶尖人才正在把精力投入到打造出色产品上。
Is it a lot easier when you’re challenging someone instead of when you’re sitting on top to sort of herd cats, get them going in the right direction?
当你处在挑战者的位置，而不是高居上方去“赶猫”，试图把大家带到正确方向时，事情是不是要容易得多？
SN: I think so. It’s all competitive, juices flow better, we are more disciplined, we execute with more rigor when you have something to go win and so therefore, that’s good and so we have the best silicon innovation. I don’t know if you noticed, the OEM innovation —
SN：我认为是。竞争会让激情更高涨，我们会更自律、执行更严谨，因为你有一个必须赢下来的目标；所以这是一件好事，也促成了我们在硅（芯片）方面做到最好的创新。我不知道你有没有注意到，OEM 的创新——
I’ll go down there afterwards.
我等会儿就下去看看。
SN: You should check it out. Dell’s all in, HP is all in, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo. Again, in terms of us, when was the last time we were able, and by the way, there’s Surface setting the tone, but this is not about Surface setting the tone and no one following, right? The fact that we were able to bring everything together, it’s actually a testament to the ecosystem quite frankly, and the leadership there to say, “Look, let’s take our shot, this is it, these things come once in a decade, once in a generation”.
SN：你应该去看看。Dell 全力投入，HP 全力投入，Samsung、Acer、Lenovo 也是。就我们而言，上一次能做到这样是什么时候？顺便说一句，虽然有 Surface 在定调，但这绝不是 Surface 定了调而无人跟进，对吧？我们能够把一切整合到一起，这坦率地说是对整个生态系统的证明，也体现了各方领导力在说：“看吧，该我们出手了，就是现在；这样的机会十年一遇，甚至一代人才一遇。”
But I think, even going back, on this very fields 30 years ago, we launched Windows ’95. You could say, “Oh, that was the height of Windows” — except you know what, even in the height of Windows, we forgot one thing called the Internet. In fact, it was SR-1, that December when we launched whatever the Internet, which was the browser. Here we are though with the AI age, I feel much better structurally, both I have more to win and the entire ecosystem is innovating with us.
不过我想，即便回到过去，30 年前就在这片场地上，我们发布了 Windows ’95。你可以说，“那是 Windows 的巅峰”——但你知道吗，即便在 Windows 的巅峰，我们也忽略了一件叫做 Internet 的东西。实际上，直到当年 12 月的 SR-1，我们才推出与 Internet 相关的东西，也就是浏览器。而到了今天的 AI 时代，从结构上我感觉好得多：我有更多可以去争取的东西，整个生态也在与我们一起创新。
AI Platforms
AI 平台
There is a question. You keep referring to AI as this platform opportunity. The question that I had, even when you were doing your introduction, I was preparing this, is to what extent can there be a platform opportunity that is not associated with hardware, that does not have that paradigm shift, whether it be that go-to-market or fully revealing those features? In that regard, this presentation was interesting because it was a very tangible, “Look, this makes Windows better, it’s a device you can buy that gives you access to these capabilities”. I’ve written about how I think one of your great triumphs was basically uncentering Windows in terms of Microsoft. Of course it’s important for you, but it’s not going to be the hub around everything which everything pivots. Is there a bit where you’re able to come full circle in a way you weren’t before? How important is Windows going to be as a driver for you going forward? Is it actually essential to realizing this platform opportunity, or can you still get that opportunity on iOS or Android?
我有个问题。你一直把 AI 描述为一个平台级的机会。我从你做开场介绍时就在想：在多大程度上，这种平台机会可以不依附于硬件？也就是说，无需在 go-to-market 或在功能充分呈现的方式上发生那种范式转变？在这方面，今天这场发布很有意思，因为它非常具体：“看，这让 Windows 变得更好；这是一台你可以买到的设备，它能让你获得这些能力。”我写过文章，认为你的一大成就是在 Microsoft 语境中基本上让 Windows 走下中心位置。当然它对你们仍然重要，但不会再成为万物围绕的枢纽。是否存在某种“兜转归来”的可能，让你们以往做不到的事情如今可以实现？展望未来，Windows 作为你们的驱动力会有多重要？要抓住这个平台机会，Windows 是否是不可或缺的，还是说你们仍能在 iOS 或 Android 上获得同样的机会？
SN: Oh yeah. I mean one of the things is I’m very, very grounded on where the world is today, versus just magical thinking. Second, I want us to also, at the same time, bringing every layer of our stuff together into a cohesive architecture in the interests of developers and end users.
SN：当然。首先，我非常强调立足当下的现实，而不是空想。其次，我也希望我们能够把自家各层面的能力整合成一个连贯的架构，服务于开发者和终端用户的利益。
One Windows, I think there was a memo about that right when I left Microsoft, it was perfect timing, I got to write about it. I thought it was insane, but now it makes more sense.
One Windows，我记得我离开 Microsoft 时正好出了相关备忘录，时间点恰到好处，我也写过。起初我觉得这很疯狂，但现在看起来更有道理了。
SN: Because at some level, I quite frankly feel like we have to really make sure we do our best work for these 200 plus million devices that are sold. That doesn’t mean the other billion devices that are sold are not important. The other billion devices, we need to do great innovation, and I’ll come to that, but first let’s take the 200 million Windows users and say, “Hey, what can we do with this platform shift that is magical for them?”. That’s where from silicon to experience to third party developers — and by the way, not in isolation, Windows just doesn’t live on its own.
SN：因为在某种层面上，我坦率地觉得，我们必须确保为那每年售出的两亿多台设备拿出最好的工作。这并不意味着另外那十亿台设备不重要。对那十亿设备我们同样要做出色的创新，我稍后会谈。但首先，先面向这两亿 Windows 用户问一句：“针对这次平台迁移，我们能为他们做出什么‘魔法般’的体验？”这涉及从硅到体验再到第三方开发者的全链条——顺便说一句，这不是孤立进行的；Windows 并不是独立存在的。
I don’t know if you caught that, but there was something today that was super key: take even AI. There are two challenges or two things I would love — I want my privacy and I want my safety. There’s no way to deliver safety on frontier models or latest models if you don’t have classifiers that are constantly learning based on all adversarial attacks that are happening like that last hour, and that is going to be done in the cloud. So I want to be able to call a cloud service. It’s kind of like Windows Defender, how do you have a Windows Defender if you’re not connected to the cloud? Same thing with AI safety. So you want the cloud doing what it does well and you want the client doing what it does well, and that’s, I think, the key.
不确定你有没有注意到，今天有个关键点：就拿 AI 来说，我有两点诉求——我要隐私，也要安全。如果没有能基于对抗性攻击（比如上一小时发生的那些）持续学习的分类器，你不可能在前沿/最新模型上实现安全性——而这部分必须在云端完成。所以我需要能够调用云服务。这有点像 Windows Defender——如果不连云，怎么会有 Windows Defender 呢？AI 安全也是如此：让云端做它擅长的事，也让客户端做它擅长的事——我认为这才是关键。
The other interesting thing is I’m really excited about this Copilot Runtime. To me, I wanted a real namespace — by the way, the WebNN thing, which is so cool, I can write some JavaScript and use WebNN to take a model, and then have the NPU go off locally. I can go to GAP.com or any website, and now I can start adding AI features and offload the AI locally. That’s the type of stuff that I think with the cloud, the web, and the edge coming together is a cohesive thought.
另一个有趣之处是，我对这个 Copilot Runtime 非常兴奋。对我来说，我想要一个真正的命名空间——顺便说一下，WebNN 这件事非常酷：我可以写点 JavaScript，通过 WebNN 调用一个模型，然后让 NPU 在本地跑起来。我可以去 GAP.com 或任何网站，现在就能开始添加 AI 功能，并把 AI 负载下沉到本地。这种基于云、Web 与边缘三者融合的能力，在我看来就是一个连贯的思路。
That, in fact, gives us a leg up on when we build for Android. In fact, one of the things you’ll hear us talk at Build tomorrow, which I’m excited about, is take Phi, right? You now as a developer can use Phi in the cloud on Azure AI as a managed model as service, you can use the silicon thing that is there, basically Project Silica, which is onboard on Windows, or you can wrap it into your app and then get it to Android and iOS as well. That’s how I think we’ll go about it.
事实上，这也让我们在为 Android 构建体验时更占先机。你会在明天的 Build 上听到我们谈到一件让我很兴奋的事：比如说 Phi。作为开发者，你现在可以把 Phi 作为托管的“模型即服务”在 Azure AI 的云端使用；也可以用那套“silicon”的方案，基本上就是 Project Silica，它已经板载到 Windows 之上；或者你把它封装进你的应用，再把它带到 Android 和 iOS 上。我认为我们会以这种方式推进。
The compliment to the presentation is I told \[Microsoft Chief Communications Officer] Frank \[Shaw] before, we’re not going to talk about Windows at all. I have some bigger picture things, but I thought it was that compelling where it felt like there’s actually something meaningful where to consider even the category in a different way.
对这场发布，我之前还跟 \[Microsoft Chief Communications Officer] Frank \[Shaw] 说过：我们压根不会谈 Windows。我本想聊一些更宏观的东西，但今天的内容足够有说服力——它让人觉得确实有一些有意义的东西，甚至值得用不同的方式来重新审视这个品类。
SN: We’ll get you back on Windows, Ben.
SN：我们会把你拉回到 Windows 的，Ben。
I have no obstacle to Windows, I just hate change!
我对 Windows 没有障碍，我只是讨厌改变！
The OpenAI Partnership
OpenAI 合作伙伴关系
Microsoft seems like a much more unified company, I mentioned that a bit before, how important is that when you go to organizations, to know they have the weight of a company that’s aligned behind them?
Microsoft 看起来统一得多，我刚才也提到过这一点。当你们走进各类组织时，让对方知道他们背后有一家高度一致的公司作为支撑，这一点有多重要？
SN: You mean inside Microsoft?
SN：你的意思是 Microsoft 内部吗？
No, going to external customers, like big enterprises, big companies.
不，我是说面向外部客户，比如大型企业、大公司。
SN: I think that what customers expect from us is, one, both, I would say, one thing that I’m very, very focused on. Just because we are one company and all these pieces come together, integration matters, but each layer also has to stand on its own.
SN：我认为客户对我们的期望有——我会说有一点是我非常关注的：虽然我们是一家公司、各个模块能够整合到一起，集成固然重要，但每一层也必须能独当一面。
So to me, the way I think about Microsoft is yes, ultimately we are not like a conglomerate, we have to have a real thesis that there is a cohesiveness to architecture. Customers care about us and bringing that integration value, but they also very deeply care about each thing being competitive. So yes, the customers care about it, and internally we have to hold ourselves to it. In fact, we are at our best when it’s just not integration, it has to be integration plus competitiveness of every layer of the stack.
对我来说，我看待 Microsoft 的方式是：没错，归根到底我们不是一个 conglomerate（企业集团），我们必须有一个明确的主张，即我们的架构具有内在的一致性。客户在乎我们带来的集成价值，但他们也同样非常在乎每一项能力本身是否具备竞争力。所以，客户确实在意这一点，而我们内部也必须以此自我要求。事实上，当我们不仅做到集成、而且能让技术栈中每一层都具备竞争力时，我们的表现才是最好的。
So when you talk about the integration of One Microsoft though, how do you resolve that with the OpenAI partnership? Has there been an increase in concern about that? Say, “Look, you as Redmond is great, you’re all moving in the right direction, but there seems like there’s this dependency here that we’re not sure you have control over, which means we don’t have control over it”, how are those conversations going?
那么当你谈到 One Microsoft 的整合时，这与 OpenAI 的合作如何协调？外界对此的担忧是否有所增加？比如有人会说：“看，作为 Redmond 你们很棒、方向也对，但这里似乎存在一种我们不确定你们能掌控的依赖，这就意味着我们也无法掌控。”围绕这些问题的对话现在进行得如何？
SN: To us, I would say the OpenAI partnership is at the same class as say the Intel partnership back in the day, or the SAP partnership when we were building SQL or what have you, because it’s industry-defining and a Microsoft-defining, so therefore we are very invested in that partnership. It’s simple logic which is, “Hey look, this is about compute”, so therefore—
SN：对我们来说，我会说与 OpenAI 的合作与当年我们和 Intel 的合作、或我们构建 SQL 时与 SAP 的合作等同等级，因为它既是行业定义性的，也是 Microsoft 自我定义性的，因此我们在这段合作上投入很深。逻辑很简单：“嘿，这归根结底是关于算力（compute）的”，所以——
He who owns compute runs the world?
谁掌握算力，谁就主宰世界？
SN: Right. The unconventional bet was back in 2019 when we said, “Wow, maybe we should throw a lot of compute”, because that was the thing that OpenAI was more convicted on than anybody else, even including people inside Microsoft, and so that’s why we took that bet and it’s worked for the last five years, and I’m all focused on making sure that for the next five years and the next five years and these partnerships are always, as you know, Ben — in fact, it’s that crucial period when both sides succeed, how to make sure that there’s long-term stability, which is long-term stability comes from both sides winning on a continuous basis and that’s how at least I approach it.
SN：没错。我们在 2019 年做了一次“非常规”的下注——“也许我们应该砸下大量算力”，因为在这件事上，OpenAI 的信念比任何人都更坚定，甚至包括 Microsoft 内部的一些人；这就是我们为什么要下注，而且这五年来验证有效。接下来我关注的是确保未来五年、再下一个五年，这些合作关系始终——你知道的，Ben——在双方都取得成功的关键时期，如何确保长期稳定性；而所谓长期稳定，来自于双方能够持续地共同获胜——至少我是以这种方式来推动的。
I think that for them, we are the infrastructure, they’re the model builder. They build apps, we build apps, third parties build apps, and so it goes. There’s going to be competition, and there’ll be some competition which is fully vertically integrated. Vertically integrated works beautifully until one layer of yours is not competitive. If you want to check, check Microsoft, you don’t have to go along in history. And so therefore, you have to be open-minded that at the end of the day, sometimes partnerships are the only way to get ahead.
我认为对他们而言，我们是基础设施，他们是模型构建方。他们做应用，我们也做应用，第三方也做应用，循环往复。竞争一定会存在，而且会有一些是完全垂直一体化的竞争。垂直一体化在每一层都具备竞争力时运转得很好，但只要其中一层失去竞争力，它就会失灵；要验证的话，看看 Microsoft 就行，不必回溯太久的历史。因此，你必须保持开放心态——归根到底，有时“合作”是唯一能让你领先的方式。
Integration vs. Modularization in AI
AI 中的集成与模块化
You mentioned that OpenAI had conviction about compute, and that’s something that Microsoft leaned into for sure, is there or should there be a sort of anti-Google alliance in AI, given their head start in models and especially infrastructure? Are we seeing that emerge, not just Microsoft and OpenAI, but potentially Apple?
你提到 OpenAI 对算力（compute）有强烈信念，而 Microsoft 显然也全力押注了算力。鉴于 Google 在模型、尤其是基础设施上的领先，是否已经存在或应该存在某种“反 Google 联盟”？我们是否正在看到这样的格局浮现——不仅是 Microsoft 和 OpenAI，也可能包括 Apple？
SN: I look at it and say, look, I think there’s room always for somebody to vertically integrate. I always go back, there’s what is the Gates/Grove model, and then let’s call it the Apple or maybe the new Google model, which is the vertical integration model. I think both of them have plays.
SN：我的看法是，总会有一些参与者选择垂直一体化。我常回到两个范式：一个是 Gates/Grove 模式；另一个可以称之为 Apple，或者说新的 Google 模式——也就是垂直一体化模式。我认为两种模式都有其打法。
I would say if you really think about in the long run, I’m more of the believer in the horizontal specialization. Just to take silicon, \[Nvidia CEO] Jensen \[Huang]’s sitting there really aggressively executing on some unbelievable roadmap. Today, guess what? He’s grounded on the fact that he needs to make sure that the leading AI model is trained on Nvidia. Guess what? Google’s not trained on Nvidia, Google sells Nvidia, but Google’s trained on TPUs. I think that registers with Jensen too. \[AMD CEO] Lisa \[Su] is there innovating. We are building our own chips. So everyone who says, “Okay, let’s go bring silicon innovation, let’s bring model innovation”, it’s OpenAI, there’s \[Meta CEO] Mark \[Zuckerberg] with Llama, there’s Mistral, there’s all these small language models, there’s a lot going on there.
如果从长期来看，我更相信横向专业化。就拿“硅”（芯片）这一层来说，\[Nvidia CEO] Jensen \[Huang] 正在非常激进地执行一条令人惊叹的路线图。现在的现实是什么？他的基本前提是必须确保领先的 AI 模型在 Nvidia 上完成训练。可你看，Google 自家的模型不是在 Nvidia 上训练的；Google 会销售 Nvidia（的产品），但 Google 的训练是在 TPUs 上进行的——我想 Jensen 也很清楚这一点。\[AMD CEO] Lisa \[Su] 也在持续创新。我们也在自研芯片。于是所有说“带来硅层创新、带来模型创新”的人都在行动：有 OpenAI，有 \[Meta CEO] Mark \[Zuckerberg] 的 Llama，有 Mistral，还有各种小型语言模型……这个领域正在发生很多事。
刻在骨子里的东西。
In any event, any application of ours, take Copilot, yes, we absolutely are going to use GPT-4o and mix it up with Phi and others. So I think any enterprise application, really what they’re most excited about is models-as-a-service. So I think this is going to be a much more diverse, at least my history lesson is there are very few winner-take-all, and to be very clear about that and make sure you play that for winner-take-all. But everything else, take that broad-tent platform approach.
无论如何，在我们的任何应用中——比如 Copilot——我们当然会使用 GPT-4o，并与 Phi 等模型混用。所以我认为，对于企业级应用，最让人兴奋的其实是 models-as-a-service（模型即服务）。因此我认为这个市场会更加多元化；至少从我的“历史课”看，很少会出现赢者通吃——要把哪些领域可能“赢者通吃”讲清楚，并按“赢者通吃”的方式去下棋；而在其他领域，就采取“大帐篷式”的平台策略。
That certainly makes sense, and you’re speaking to idea of models being commoditized. Microsoft has hired a lot of talent from Inflection AI, it seems you are going to make sure there’s diversity in the model offering on your side. But if models are going to be commoditized, why would the dynamics in the cloud be any different than they have been for the last 12, 15 years? Is this actually going to be anything new?
这确实有道理，你谈到模型“商品化”的趋势。Microsoft 也从 Inflection AI 招募了不少人才，看起来你们会确保自家模型供应的多样性。但如果模型会被商品化，云计算的竞争格局为什么会不同于过去 12、15 年？这真会带来新的变化吗？
SN: I think it’s a very good point. I think hyperscalers have a fundamental structural advantage in this, which is, in some sense, if you sort of say what does the world need more five years from now, I would say hyperscale compute utility available everywhere. If you think about it, the new formula of economic growth, I think is as clear as it has ever been, which is you need more power powered by renewable, a better grid, and better compute and if you have that, then every other sector of the economy can really benefit from these two things. Any country, any community that has that at the best frontier of efficiency just has a leg up and tailwind on economic growth. So if you take that high-level premise, then absolutely.
SN：这是个很好的问题。我认为超大规模云厂商在这方面有根本性的结构优势。某种意义上，如果你问五年后世界最需要什么，我会说是无处不在的超大规模计算公用设施。仔细想想，新的经济增长公式其实前所未有地清晰：需要更多由可再生能源驱动的电力、更高效的电网，以及更强的算力；如果具备这三者，经济中的其他所有部门都能从中受益。任何国家、任何社区，只要在这些要素上达到效率前沿，就能在经济增长上占得先机、享受顺风。因此，基于这个高层判断，答案是肯定的。
But what about the inter-competitive dynamics? Because Amazon got there first, they got basically the whole SaaS enterprise of companies you started on Amazon. Microsoft moved to the cloud along with their enterprise customer base. Google’s like, “Look, ours is the best, just try it out,” and they were kind of a distant third. Is that going to play out in a similar way? Is the data gravity just going to be predominant? Maybe AI is this big new thing, but the actual competitive dynamics are still-
那相互竞争的动态呢？当初是 Amazon 率先起步，基本上拿下了在 Amazon 上起家的整片 SaaS 企业生态。Microsoft 则是伴随自家企业客户群迁移到云上。Google 的态度像是“看，我们的是最好的，来试试”，但它们当时有点落在第三位。接下来会重复类似的剧情吗？“数据引力”会继续主导一切吗？也许 AI 是个全新的大事件，但实际的竞争动态还是——
SN: I think I have not met at least an enterprise customer who is single cloud. I remember when I first started on cloud, everybody would talk about it as if this was going to be like, “Oh my god, it’s winner-take-all”, and I always thought like, “Man, I grew up in servers”, and when people even say we won, I didn’t quite get it. Every category of the server, whether it’s the operating system, whether it was databases, whether it was web servers, and all of those middle tier things, all had two or three players.
SN：至少到目前为止，我没遇到过只用单一云（single cloud）的企业客户。我刚做云的时候，大家动不动就说“天哪，这会是赢者通吃”。而我的想法是：“我是在服务器时代成长起来的”，即便有人说我们赢了，我也不太明白。服务器领域的每个品类——不管是操作系统、数据库、Web 服务器，还是各种中间层——都有两到三个玩家。
So fundamentally, I think hyperscale has definitely room for two, if not three and there is distance. Revenue share, this is something \[Former Microsoft CEO] Steve \[Ballmer] used to always tell me about — revenue share versus market share are two different things in a multiplayer market, and so on and so forth.
所以从根本上讲，超大规模云肯定容得下两家，甚至三家，而且彼此之间会拉开差距。至于“收入份额”和“市场份额”的区别——这是 \[Former Microsoft CEO] Steve \[Ballmer] 常对我强调的——在多玩家市场里，这两者是不同的概念，等等。
But nevertheless, I do think that there’s room for all three and remember, we started with, Amazon had what, a six year, seven year run with no competition? Guess what, competition arrived and here we are, and I feel very, very good about this next phase. I’m not starting from behind. In fact, if anything, we have a start, and that changes. Take the B2C customers, whether Shopify, Spotify, whatever. Thanks to the OpenAI API, none of those folks were Azure customers. For the first time, they’re not all on Azure, but they’re also Azure customers, which is a massive, massive change in our fortunes.
不过话说回来，我确实认为三家都有空间。别忘了，起初 Amazon 有六七年几乎没有竞争的窗口期。后来竞争出现了，我们走到今天，对下一个阶段我非常有信心。这一次我们不是从落后起步；事实上，可以说我们反而占了先手，而这改变了局面。看那些 B2C 客户，比如 Shopify、Spotify 等等。得益于 OpenAI API，他们此前都不是 Azure 的客户。现在首次出现的情况是：他们并非完全在 Azure 上，但他们也成为了 Azure 的客户——这对我们的基本盘是一个极其重大的变化。
Capex and the Future
CapEx 与未来
Is there a bit about this competitive dynamics where, you’ve talked about you have visibility into revenue spend. There’s no question you have to invest in AI, but is there a bit where — your CapEx relative to gross profit has gone from 13% to 26% in the last seven years, a massive increase — what gives you confidence that will pay off, or does it not matter because the competitive dynamics are you’re going to invest regardless?
关于竞争动态这点，你之前提到你们对收入支出有可见性。毫无疑问你们必须在 AI 上投资，但是否也存在这样的情况——过去七年里，你们的 CapEx/毛利润比例从 13% 提升到 26%，增幅巨大——是什么让你们有信心这些投入会有回报？还是说这并不重要，因为竞争态势决定了你们无论如何都会投资？
SN: I think the laws of economics, I think you rightfully pointed out, we are a CapEx-heavy entity. Most people are focused on our CapEx just because of AI. But come on, just take out even AI, we are a knowledge-intensive and a capital-intensive business, that’s what it takes to be in hyperscale. You can’t just show up and say, “Hey, I want to enter the hyperscale”, if you can’t now at this point put \$50, 60 bill a year into CapEx, so that’s what it takes to be in the market.
SN：我认为这是经济学的规律。你指出的一点很对，我们是一家 CapEx 较重的公司。多数人关注我们的 CapEx 是因为 AI，但坦率说，即便把 AI 剔除，我们本身就是知识密集型且资本密集型的业务，这正是进入 hyperscale（超大规模）的代价。你不能说“嘿，我想进入 hyperscale”，但却拿不出每年 500 亿、600 亿美元的 CapEx——这就是留在这个市场所必须付出的成本。
BRK的再保险业务，前提是超大规模和资本密集型的假设是真实的，科技领域到处是破坏性的创新，真实性远不如保险业。
But then also, it’s always going to be governed by what’s happening in the marketplace. You can’t far outstrip your revenue growth. And so therefore, there is an absolute governor, which is yes, the training chunks go where there is step function changes to allocation of training compute, but ultimately inference is demand-driven. So if you take that combination, I feel like if there is something that happens cyclically even, adjusting for it is not that hard. As a pure business management thing, I’m not managing it for a quarter, but it doesn’t scare me.
但与此同时，这始终会受到市场实际情况的约束。你的投入不可能远远超出你的收入增长。因此，这里有一个“绝对限速器”：没错，训练阶段会随着训练算力分配出现“阶跃式变化”而迁移，但推理端最终是由需求驱动的。把这两点结合起来，即便出现周期性波动，做出调整并不困难。就纯粹的经营管理而言，我不会按季度来管理这件事，但它并不会让我感到害怕。
You’re not as worried as the Street is. One quick question because I like this one. Bill Gates said we overestimate what happens in two years and underestimate what happens in ten. Are those still the right units, because it feels like a lot has happened in two years?
你并不像华尔街那样担心。快速问一个我很喜欢的问题。Bill Gates 说我们高估两年会发生的事、低估十年会发生的事。这样的时间尺度现在仍然适用吗？因为感觉过去两年发生了很多事。
SN: I think those are probably the right units, except that maybe I could sort of say — here’s the biggest issue, if you take the Moore’s Law period, man, I love those 18 months. In fact, there’s this beautiful chart at Epoch AI I like a lot where they just talked about just machine learning, flops given to machine learning algorithms since basically whatever, 1950 or whatever and it just followed Moore’s Law. It was doubling every 15, 16 months and then 2010, it went up 3x, and it’s actually inflected even more, I think. So it’s doubling perhaps every six months, or even less than that, it’s hard to keep your head straight. Everybody says, “Oh, I get exponentials”, believe me, living in that world-
SN：我认为这些大概仍是正确的单位。不过我也想说——最大的变化在于，如果你看 Moore’s Law（摩尔定律）时期，我真是热爱那个 18 个月的节奏。事实上，Epoch AI 有一张很漂亮的图我很喜欢，他们统计了自大约 1950 年以来分配给机器学习算法的 FLOPs，基本上遵循 Moore’s Law：每 15、16 个月翻一番。随后在 2010 年左右又加速了 3 倍，而且我认为之后加速还在继续——现在可能是每 6 个月翻番，甚至更短，让人很难理清头绪。人人都说“我懂指数增长”，但相信我，生活在那个世界里——
You increase that exponent and it changes a lot.
把那个指数稍微提高一点，一切就会变化很大。
SN: Yeah, it’s very hard. So therefore, to your point about what happens when especially you have emergent capabilities, that’s why I think AI safety is a super important thing, we’ve got to keep that in mind, but we also have to keep in mind that there’s going to be new innovation that shows up. So how do you harness that new innovation for good, keep safety in mind? It’s a very different ballgame.
SN：是的，这非常不容易。所以，回到你关于“当涌现能力出现时会发生什么”的问题——这就是我为什么认为 AI safety 极其重要：我们必须牢记安全，同时也要意识到新的创新会不断涌现。问题在于，如何在牢记安全的同时，把这些创新用在善的方向上？这是一场完全不同的比赛。
Satya, I know we had limited time, but thank you, it was good to talk to you again.
Satya，我知道我们的时间有限，但谢谢你，很高兴再次和你交流。
SN: Absolutely, Ben. Thank you so much for having me.
SN：当然可以，Ben。非常感谢你的邀请。
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