Microsoft, Redmond celebrates 50 years of change: From small startup to AI trailblazer
SEATTLE — Lisa Dupar looks across her Redmond restaurant and catering business and makes an admission about the past.
"I was really concerned that I was out in the sticks,” she said about opening a restaurant and small catering business in the town 40 years ago.
Then, she started delivering food to a startup company with three buildings down the road.
“I remember serving food and hearing someone in the room say, ‘We're going to call it Windows,’” Dupar recalled with a smirk. “I just kiss the ground that Microsoft walks on.”
Dupar has grown as Microsoft has become a global behemoth, through chapters that have included Windows, phones, gaming machines, the cloud and a few tussles with the federal government.
On Friday, Microsoft officially recognized its 50th birthday in an invite-only event on the Redmond campus with about 1,000 employees on hand.
Actress Brenda Song helped to emcee the event, which brought together the company’s three CEO’s: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and current leader Satya Nadella, in between musical interludes from Allen Stone.
The two-hour talk show/presentation allowed the company to not only celebrate the past but emphasize where it thinks it is going: Artificial Intelligence.
Microsoft has invested $80 billion to build out the infrastructure for AI, including data centers in central Washington, to help streamline the product it has dubbed “Copilot.” The event highlighted how it can be used for research papers, planning a party, and even a podcast. Several of the features will be rolled out in the coming weeks and months, depending on a user’s location, according to the company.
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It all comes at a time when Microsoft is simultaneously arguing that it should not be the target of new taxes and that its growth in Washington state would be limited by a slew of proposals in Olympia.
Redmond Mayor Angela Birney said she’s been pleased with Microsoft’s partnership, specifically saying the company had spent to build a pedestrian overpass over Highway 520, and invested in Sound Transit’s LINK light rail to connect the city with the rest of the region.
“There's a lot of smaller companies as well that have been able to grow because of the impact of Microsoft, we get a lot of the gaming industry now,” Birney said. “I think that we would be living in a really different landscape had they chosen Albuquerque to set up shop versus this area.”
Gates and founder Paul Allen moved the company from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redmond in 1979 because, as Gates noted on Friday, the two men were concerned about attracting talent.
And while everyone acknowledges Microsoft’s presence changed traffic and affordability in the region, Dupar said she can’t imagine it any other way.
She now employs 250 people, and her sister restaurant Pomegranate Bistro has been in business for two decades. She’s catered weddings of high-profile execs and seen others meet their future spouses at the restaurant for dinner.
“I don't think I would be here. To be quite frank, I think Microsoft has been the reason I have been here 40 years,” Dupar said.
