Book to provide insider's view of Microsoft

Microsoft President Brad Smith will provide a behind-the-scene look at the multinational technology company and tell some of the biggest stories to hit the tech industry in the past decade in his new book coming out next month.

"Tools and Weapons: The Promise and The Peril of the Digital Age" will release on September 11, publishers Hachette announced.

The book comes at a time when the company finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These include privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of AI, big tech's relationship to inequality and the challenges for democracy, far and near.

Smith, responsible for the company's corporate, external, and legal affairs and serves as the company's chief legal officer, has a simple core belief: when your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create.

Bill Gates, who has written the foreword, terms the book a "clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today".

Smith has co-authored the book with Carol Ann Browne, a director of communications at Microsoft.