MAGA and Microsoft

While America punishes allies, Microsoft buys GitHub

“We believe in the power of communities to achieve much more than what their members can do on their own. It’s our ability to work together that helps our dreams become reality, and we are dedicated to cultivating and growing communities to do just that.”

Something novel is happening in the world. Business is becoming more collaborative at the same time that international relations are becoming more confrontational. This trend is accelerating.

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This creative collaboration generates new ideas, new partnerships, new businesses, and new industries. If harnessed, it is the rocket fuel for business.

Microsoft believes in creative collaboration so deeply that its top acquisitions, totaling more than $42 billion, have focused on a single idea: connecting people.

While business inspires, public leadership — the hard work of peace and prosperity — has vanished. The problem with “peak persons”, as Finland’s president calls tough-guy leaders, is that they usually break things.

This latest example is over tariffs.

After MAGA hit Canada, Mexico, and the EU with tariffs, the diplomatic venom, as quoted by a Bloomberg reporter, started flying:

• “This is a very severe problem for relations between the European Union and the United States,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.
• “It has been a tense and tough G-7. I would say it has been far more a G-6 plus one than a G-7,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

For decades, Germany, Italy, and France have worked with America on issues of global stability — attempting to manage problems like, say, a nuclear North Korea, poison-in-the-well Russia, and ravenous China.

But things change. Microsoft now embraces open source and America no longer wants to lead the world.

What a time to be alive.