Human Agency With Marcus Fontoura - TWMJ #1038
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What is Marcus Fontoura’s role at Microsoft and why is his perspective on technology important?
Well, hey there and welcome to episode number 1038 of Thinking with Mitch Joel. It's Sunday, May the 31st, 2026. This is the show that used to be called Six Pixels of Separation. Let's get on with the show.
What happens when the technologies shaping our lives become so complex that most of us stop trying to understand them? I mean, it's so confusing to understand not just what they do, but how they're doing it and what that means. And it feels really impossible to keep up. And that is the core that sits at the center of this conversation with Marcus Fontura. Marcus is a technical fellow, but more importantly, He's the CTO Azure Core at Microsoft. He's helping to lead one of the largest cloud computing platforms in the world, and he has spent decades building the infrastructures that power much of our digital lives. So to me, what makes this conversation really compelling is that it's not really about technology, it's about agency.
We talk about why so many people feel like passengers in a Digital world increasingly governed by these algorithms and these artificial intelligence systems and recommendation engines and all of these invisible layers of infrastructure. Marcus also has an incredible new book that is worth checking out that's called Human Agency in a Digital World. Understand technology and make it work for you. In a moment when these conversations about AI often drift towards either utopia. or dystopia and I recognize I'm part of the problem here, Marcus offers something much rarer, and it's a grounded perspective from someone actually building these systems. It's also a reminder that the future is still something we have the power to influence.
Enjoy the conversation.
So who are you and what do you do? Hello, my name is Marcus Fontura. I am a technical fellow and a corporate vice president at Microsoft, where I work in Azure, which is our cloud service.
So yeah, I mean, one, pleasure to meet you, Marcus. And thanks for agreeing to do this. For those who don't know you, you are integral to how this whole thing now operates on the internet. For those who don't know, explain exactly what that this means in terms of being a CTO, senior Azure, obviously being the cloud service for Microsoft.
Yeah, so I am Microsoft has many CTOs. Like I am one of the CTOs for Microsoft and we all work together. But the area that I'm most concerned with is the cloud computing service. And I've been working in this space for a while now. It's like kind of fun because everybody uses the cloud and uh sure that outside the tech technical field, like a lot of people might not know what the cloud is, but like everybody's Using it. So it's kind of fun because like in conversations, people can relate to what we do. But basically, I'm working on the infrastructure. that provides computing resources, be it like CPUs, GPUs, storage resources, networking resources, so that we can run all the services that compose the fabric of society today.
So that that's basically
Yeah and it's a company that's had such a how long have you been with Microsoft?
Well, I boomerang back but I I joined originally in two thousand thirteen. So like if I count straight and be like a few years, like more than ten years. But for uh two and a half of those years uh I went to be a the CTO of ThinkTech in Brazil. I'm originally from Brazil, but I had never worked there. So I wanted to give back to the country and then I accepted a role as a CTO of payments. company there and they did the job for for two and a half years and then I came back.
When you're at Google, you're at IBM, you are somebody who is deeply versed in understanding the stuff that to most of us is not only understandable, but I mean, I think it's the spirit of your book, Human Agency in a Digital World, is that it's frustrating to a lot of people because we can't even come close to understanding it. And I want to start there a little bit. Can you give us some thinking as to perhaps why most people have this? frustration of like, I don't understand how it does this.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is Marcus Fontoura’s role at Microsoft and why is his perspective on technology important?
0:00–9:52
2
Why do most people feel frustrated and powerless when trying to understand modern cloud and AI systems?
9:52–19:07
3
How does the complexity of today’s digital infrastructure affect everyday users and their sense of agency?
19:07–28:55
4
What are the biggest challenges social media creates for mental health, misinformation, and polarization?
28:55–38:45
5
How can we empower the next generation to use existing technology for real‑world problems like healthcare and climate change?
38:45–47:05
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Thinking With Mitch Joel
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