Exclusive Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella; Prospects for Democracy in Venezuela

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This podcast is powered by NetSuite. They say that every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. But how do you keep up? The competition is only moving faster. Fortunately, there's NetSuite Next. You may already know NetSuite is the number one cloud ERP business management platform that brings together finance, inventory, operations, CRM and reporting in one unified system. Now, there's NetSuite Next. Built with AI at its core, NetSuite Next helps you work in a more natural, intuitive way. Ask questions in plain language, get answers instantly, uncover insights faster, and automate everyday tasks across your business. It's everything you value about NetSuite, enhanced with the power of AI to help your teams move faster, work smarter, and stay ahead of what's next. For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to netsuite.ai.gps.
Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. netsuite.ai.gps.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:00)
Introducing Meta Glasses.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:03)
You have questions, they've got answers.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:06)
Hey Meta, what's the capital of Peru?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:08)
Lima.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:09)
How do you say, where's the restroom in Spanish?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:13)
Donde está el baño?
Hey Meta, is a hot dog a sandwich? Technically no, spiritually, yes.

**Satya Nadella** (1:20)
Hey Meta, what should I do with my life?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:23)
That's one of life's biggest questions. What do you think?

**SPEAKER_4** (1:27)
Ask anything with the new Meta glasses.

**Fareed Zakaria** (1:31)
This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.
Today on the program, I will talk to the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.
I want to know how he thinks about artificial intelligence. Is it a bubble or is it the Industrial Revolution times 10? Will it destroy most jobs and has China's technology caught up with the US? All that and more.
Also, Venezuela's opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado.
She won the Nobel Prize for her work promoting democracy and she's now living in exile.
Both say she would win an election back home in a landslide, but reports are that the Trump administration has barred her from going home.
What is going on? I will ask her.
But first, here's my take. This week, Britain installed its seventh prime minister in barely a decade. France has churned through almost as many in just a few years. Its next president may well be the once outcast, Marine Le Pen. In Germany, the far right AFD, tiny just a few years ago, now polls in first place. Even East Asian democracies, often viewed as stable, cautious, even boring, have seen governments in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan struggle in the midst of growing public anger. And where the populists are in power, the situation doesn't seem that different. Donald Trump now hovers near the lowest approval ratings of any modern American president at this point in a presidency.
Can modern democracies function? Across the democratic world, many countries tax, borrow and spend exorbitant amounts. Spending now averages more than 40% of GDP in the OECD countries, and the debt to GDP ratio in those countries has more than doubled over the last 30 years. But people don't seem to think they have benefited. Why has this happened? Some of it is economic, expensive housing, stagnant incomes, and a widening inequality problem have fueled public anger. But economics is only part of the story. America has enjoyed stronger growth than most other advanced economies. France under Macron has lowered unemployment, and it has attracted more foreign investment than any country in Europe for seven straight years according to an Ernst and Young analysis. South Korea is an economic success story. Japan was experiencing a comeback. Yet democratic governments almost everywhere are unpopular.
The larger explanation is that we are living through one of history's great technological revolutions, and these transformations always produce deep anxiety and fear. The last technological transformation on this scale came between roughly 1880 and 1920 Electricity, the telephone, railroads, the automobile and movies overturned entire industries and ways of life. Millions left farms for cities. Global trade disrupted local economies. New fortunes appeared overnight, while old occupations disappeared. In this turmoil, frustration and anger found political pathways. The left turned to communism, the right to fascism. What followed were new mass movements, cultural upheavals and world war. Our own revolution is digital rather than electrical, beginning with computers, then the internet, and then smartphones, social media and now AI.
The latter might prove more transformative. As DeepMind's Demis Hasaba said last week, we've essentially found a way to make sand think. Silicon chips are made of sand. The ability to mass produce intelligence that gets more powerful every month is surely the greatest technological triumph in history. But that means it could be the most disruptive. The great political scientist Samuel Huntington noted, the primary problem of politics is the lag in the development of political institutions behind social and economic change. Large-scale change causes anxiety, and anxious societies ask more of politics. Citizens want leaders to restore order, provide security, and help them regain a sense of control over forces that seem increasingly beyond anyone's grasp. But while today's technology dramatically increases expectations, it also makes democratic governments less capable by comparison. We summon a car these days in three minutes. A package arrives the same day. Artificial intelligence answers complicated questions in seconds, doing work that took people months in mere minutes. Naturally, citizens begin to expect similar efficiency from government. But democracy is not designed for speed, it's designed for legitimacy. It bargains, compromises, consults independent courts, protects vulnerable groups, and balances competing interests. Those safeguards are precisely what distinguished democracy from authoritarianism. Yet in an age shaped by technologies warp speed, these increasingly look like paralysis. Social media widens the gap. Every governmental mistake becomes instantly visible. Every disappointment becomes a viral controversy. Every frustrated citizen can mobilize thousands of others before governments have even begun to respond. This helps explain the strange trajectory of modern populism. Politicians such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Javier Millay and others rose to prominence, promising to bulldoze through institutional gridlock. Yet once in office, most have encountered the same reality as the leaders they displaced. Today's insurgents quickly become tomorrow's disappointing incumbents. People don't seem to have lost confidence in democracy. They have not turned their backs on elections, constitutions and independent courts. But they are deeply unhappy with democratic performance. Democracies must once again prove that they can build housing and infrastructure, modernize public services, manage technological change, reduce inequality and do so with urgency and effectiveness. History offers some grounds for optimism. Free societies often look weakest in the midst of great technological upheaval because they move slowly and argue constantly. Yet over time, they have usually adapted better than autocracies precisely because they can learn, correct mistakes and change course without violence or repression.