Exit interview: Microsoft’s comms chief on CEOs, reporters, what he got wrong, and stories that stuck

Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s longtime communications chief, in the GeekWire studio. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) The name Frank X. Shaw isn’t as well known outside the company as those of Microsoft’s other senior leaders, and that’s the nature of the job. But behind the scenes, the company’s longtime communications chief has shaped its public image for nearly three decades, working for all three of its CEOs and handling its biggest stories along the way, from antitrust to AI. Shaw announced in September that he’s leaving Microsoft at the end of the year. On this week’s GeekWire Podcast, he sits down for what amounts to an exit interview. We’re joined in the conversation by longtime Microsoft beat reporter Mary Jo Foley , editor in chief of Directions on Microsoft and a GeekWire contributing writer. Shaw talks candidly about working for Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella, and about the situations he’d handle differently. He describes his behind-the-scenes dealings with some of the top reporters in tech, from an executive’s objection to a single word to the heated argument that changed how he saw his job. He also reflects on how communications and media are changing in the AI era, and explains why trust still comes down to a belief in the person telling the story. Listen below, and continue reading for highlights. On Microsoft’s three CEOs: Shaw says intensity is what the three have in common, expressed differently: “Steve was outwardly intense. Satya is quietly intense, and Bill is cuttingly intense.” Ballmer was the hardest to explain to the public, he says, because the loud-salesman caricature hid a thoughtful, detail-oriented leader who often played the boisterous public role because Microsoft’s sales force needed it. On the clarity of hindsight: Big decisions look obvious once they work out, Shaw says. His example is the board’s choice of Satya Nadella as CEO. It’s seen as a no-brainer now, but at the time there was a lot of debate, there were other candidates, and it was a hard, complicated decision. “When you get a decision right, it always looks easy afterwards,” he says. “If you get it wrong, you were just an idiot all along.” On speaking up: A communications leader should weigh in when a decision could damage the brand, Shaw says, and he learned that the hard way. When Mary Jo asks how he decides when to push back on executives, she raises the Kin as an example. …