“The idea that somebody came up with a product, we built it perfectly, and everybody loves it is just boring. There is no story there. And sometimes that's what we're asked to tell, a story of just an unimpeded march to greatness. It's like, that's dull. That's like the plane landed safely. Nobody cares, right? Except for the people on the plane.”
GeekWire · October 2026
Microsoft's departing communications chief, in an exit interview, on the reporter who once told him he was bad at his job for chasing positive stories. He says he came round to the view that good coverage illuminates the company in a memorable way, and that always comes with tension.
Transcript
…he said, like, you're bad at your job because you think your job is getting positive stories and you should be thinking about your job as having interesting stories that showcase something about the company. And sometimes those are going to be less positive, but they're going to be more memorable.
Whoa.
And I was like, you're so wrong. And then I went off and I thought about it. And I realized he was exactly right. And so if you're doing a really good job working with anybody who is reporting about the company in the broadest possible sense of the world, what you hope for is you hope that they are going to create something that illuminates part of the company in a memorable way. And that always comes with tension, 100% of the time, comes with tension. And you have to embrace that because the idea that somebody came up with a product, we built it perfectly, and everybody loves it is just boring. There is no story there. And sometimes that's what we're asked to tell, a story of just an unimpeded march to greatness. It's like, that's dull. That's like the plane landed safely. Nobody cares, right? Except for the people on the plane. So if you stop and you think about that a little bit, it's like, what are you doing to illuminate a piece of the company in a memorable way? It opens you up to much more interesting conversations. Give
us an example. Like, what's a story that you feel like it was risky, but we did it. And we feel like even though it wasn't completely positive, it did do a good job reflecting the company.
There's just so many of them. You know, I think about the New Yorker story that broke about OpenAI with Kevin Scott just after the blip happened. The
blip meaning Sam Altman's ouster.
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