The Datapreneurs: The Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Intelligence

A leader in the data economy explains how we arrived at AI--and how we can navigate its future

In The Datapreneurs, Bob Muglia helps us understand how innovation in data and information technology have led us to AI--and how this technology must shape our future. The long-time Microsoft executive, former CEO of Snowflake, and current tech investor maps the evolution of the modern data stack and how it has helped build today’s economy and society. And he explains how humanity must create a new social contract for the artificial general intelligence (AGI)--autonomous machines intelligent as people--that he expects to arrive in less than a decade.

Muglia details his personal experience in the foundational years of computing and data analytics, including with Bill Gates and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and others that are not household names--yet. He builds upon Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics to explore the moral, ethical, and legal implications of today’s smart machines, and how a combination of human and machine intelligence could create an era of progress and prosperity where all the people on Earth can have what they need and want without destroying our natural environment.

The Datapreneurs is a call to action. AGI is surely coming. Muglia believes that tech business leaders, ethicists, policy leaders, and even the general public must collaborate answer the short- and long-term questions raised by its emergence. And he argues that we had better get going, because advances are coming so fast that society risks getting caught flatfooted--with potentially disastrous consequences.

Bob Muglia is a data technology investor and business executive, former CEO of Snowflake, and past president of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Division. As a leader, Bob focuses on how innovation and ethical values can merge to shape the data economy’s future in the era of AI. He serves as a board director for emerging companies which seek to maximize the power of data to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.

Steve Hamm is a journalist and documentary filmmaker based in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1989, he began writing articles and books, including many that reflected his passion for innovation and the tech industry. His most recent work, The Pivot: Addressing Global Problems Through Local Solutions, is published by Columbia University Press.