Libraries, a Priest, and Million-Dollar Deals: My life as a Microsoft Program Manager
Not many of you know that in my 20’s I traveled to some of the most prestigious libraries in the world to negotiate business deals…
I also had the honor of speaking at Princeton and getting blessed by the Pope.
My job?
Microsoft Program Manager, in charge of ‘Book Search’ deals – we were digitizing the world’s information.
So here I am a 29 year old who grew up in small town Bothell, WA, no college degree, yet world traveler 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀.
Did libraries want me to visit? Um yes. They rolled out the red carpet.
𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗱…
The National Archives (Pictured from my recent trip to DC). The last time I visited I was walking around the private storage bookshelves looking through boxes - with some of the United States’ most historic artifacts that aren’t viewable to the public.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀: In the dark archives - viewing endless book shelves filled with giant, ancient books, and temperature controlled cold storage rooms with some of the world's oldest artifacts.
Truly a period of my life I will never forget.
Oh, and while those were two of my favorite visits, 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆…
The National Archives content was old, fragile, and odd shaped. We weren’t able to use our book digitization machines at scale - instead it would have been very manual to scan enough content without damaging it.
The Vatican Secret Archives - well, this was a deal that was dead on arrival. While I thought the Vatican knew what we were there for, unfortunately the person who set up the meeting likely told a lie or two to get us in the door because he ‘always wanted to do a deal with the Vatican’.
And I bore the brunt of it…
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻, 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲 - adorning his walls were all the seals of annulment the church had issued.
The Vatican annulling marriages? Yeah it doesn’t happen often so those were old AF and a pretty big deal. The priest also spoke Italian and we had a translator. It was intimidating to say the least.
The priest’s expectations were that we would write a $2M check, he thought it was a done deal. Now imagine how I felt when I realized in the first 10 minutes the deal was never going to work. Wrong technology. They weren’t allowing us to digitize any of the good stuff.
I let the priest know. He yelled at me a few times over the next 2 hours of the negotiation.
I’m not religious, but getting yelled at by a priest in the Vatican feels like your soul’s not on a great trajectory...
In case you’re wondering, 15 years later, my soul’s trajectory is fine. I think.