The U.S. patent office opened on April 10, 1790. Over nine million patents have been granted since that early spring day 232 years ago, representing light bulb moments for individuals and teams of creative professionals who believed enough in their respective discoveries to brand them for public acknowledgment and use.
Fast forward to the last days of 2022, and today's ideas and technological advancements will become the outdated updates of 2023 and beyond. The knowledge of those initial innovators and concepts perpetually scaffold to influence and inspire generations on the rise.
This reporter recently was connected with an individual, who may not be known by name, but whose technology achievements are known through the daily keyboard activities of millions of users across the Microsoft landscape.
Krishna C. Mukherjee was in the middle of his university studies in India when Microsoft discovered him in 1988. Mukherjee’s storied career assisted Microsoft with several technological advancements that remain pillars of the company’s offering. The following is a condensed version of a one-on-one interview with Mukherjee.
Rod Berger: You are considered a pioneer of AI, and your initial work at Microsoft laid the groundwork for many applications used today. What do you think of your role in the advancement of technology?
Krishna C. Mukherjee: My goal has always been to provide leadership to the industry. I consider myself a combination of software architect and engineer, inventor, technology executive, and industry thought leader. I take pride in my accomplishments and the impact my work has had on ushering in the fourth industrial revolution.
Berger: Can you provide an overarching look at your work at Microsoft?
Mukherjee: Absolutely. So, I functioned as Chief Software Architect and Engineer for Microsoft. Over my career, I have been responsible for the architecture and design of flagship products, such as Microsoft Office, a suite of applications, Microsoft Windows, and Visual Studio.
I led the research and development of Microsoft Office on both Microsoft and Apple's operating systems. My team and I built popular features and functionalities such as Word Basic, that is, Visual Basic for Applications, dynamic data exchange, object linking and embedding, Component Object Model, page layout, formatting, and printing.
Berger: Take me back to those initial days of AI technology and the direction or path you decided to take.
Mukherjee: As the first step in this direction, I created the proofing tools for Microsoft Office. The spelling and grammar checker automatically locates misspelled words and grammatical errors and helps the users to correct those errors.
Additionally, I oversaw the design and development of the autocorrect opera format and the IntelliSense features. The mid-1990s marked the advent of these popular AI features that were bundled with Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. In the earlier graphical user interface, there was no clear separation between what an application looked like and how it behaved. The software developers programmed both the user interface and the behavior of the applications. So, making changes to enterprise applications to meet business requirements needed testing, retesting, and redeployment of that application.
And this hampered agility. Hence, I created AI-based architectures to separate the appearance and behavior of UI applications logically. My architecture was used to dynamically create powerful graphical user interfaces based on natural language descriptions specified by the domain experts.
Berger: Your professional legacy began with Microsoft in the late ’80s, correct?
Mukherjee: I was recruited by Microsoft directly from the university in 1988. I was doing my master's in computer science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur. Fast forward, and I have worked directly for Microsoft and associated partner companies for the last 35 years.
Berger: You have an incredible background, and you're probably someone that more people should be aware of, especially when we look at the foundation of technological advancements over the last three decades. Let's talk about your predictions for the industry's future. Have we even begun to scratch the surface of AI's power?
Mukherjee: This is a great question. We have only just scratched the surface. I mentioned that I created various AI-based functionalities for Microsoft products, such as autocorrect auto format, IntelliSense, the speller, and the grammar checker. I would consider them AI-based because they essentially try to interpret the user's actions with what the user wants and proactively do things to help the user. That's why I started utilizing my AI expertise to build these popular features.
I continued to work in the AI space, and at the same time, the demand for automated systems increased as companies found themselves buried in paperwork.
In the late 1990s, I invented the AI technology known as the intelligent ID Manager. Wolters Kluwer used this technology under my direction to create award-winning Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, such as keyadvantage.com, hq.com, medex.com, and Iansolutions.com.
Berger: Had the concept of cloud computing taken hold yet?
Mukherjee: Cloud computing was still evolving at that time, and there was no clear direction. As far as the internet was concerned, we hadn't fully embraced the idea of the internet at the time because we were still gazing at it.
My application programming interfaces were used by businesses to integrate their business applications. I came up with the concept of APIs, or application programming interfaces, to connect the dots.
Berger: Are you suggesting that you created the term API?
Mukherjee: I wouldn't say I invented it because APIs are something we have used since the very early days. For example, we relied on APIs when I created Microsoft Office for both Apple and Windows Operating systems.
When building Office, Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, I had to use a certain API provided by Apple.
On the other hand, when I was building the same application for Microsoft Windows, the API was provided by Windows 3.0. So, the idea of API existed, but I built API to integrate various applications. I'm referring to the SaaS environment, the cloud environment. That is where I used this idea of APIs to integrate applications. I utilized this approach when I created CTAdvantage.com.
Berger: Krishna, could you share your thoughts on how we might improve our educational system to support the next Krishna? We are fortunate that you came along with your talent.
In 1988, Microsoft recognized your talent, and as a result, we have Microsoft Office. When I put on my parent hat, I'd like to avoid relying on being fortunate. I'd like to know if our education system has the necessary elements to support the next generation and future software engineers.
Mukherjee: That's a great question. I believe education, as a sector, needs to first focus on the role empathy plays in technology. I have always developed and worked with technology, thinking first about my family and the power of possibility.
Secondly, there is dedication. There is no substitute for hard work. I understand that people need to work smart. But there is really no substitute for hard work. I work hard to improve my current skills and develop new ones. I'm disciplined and focused, and I've always gone the extra mile to build successful products and provide superior customer satisfaction. I've stayed overnight on multiple occasions to release products in time to debug critical issues hampering customers at major corporations.
I've never flinched at putting in extra hours to get the work done.
The third is perseverance. There is a saying that has guided my professional pursuits. Nobody trips over mountains. The small pebbles cause us to stumble. If we pass all the pebbles in our path, we will find that we have crossed the boundary, which the young generation needs to understand. They must demonstrate perseverance and lean into accountability.
Berger: You didn't lead with any technical skill set in responding to my question. You chose to focus on the emotionality of one’s work. How much of your Indian culture is expressed in your work?
Mukherjee: I was very fortunate to have excellent parents and teachers in India who recognized my talent and nurtured my capabilities. My parents taught me the importance of the Bengali proverb, “Waste not want not."
It's a fundamental lesson that has guided my career. This lesson taught me to be hands-on and incredibly careful with resources.
Humility has always been a part of my life and ingrained in me from my parents. For example, in India, wherever you go, you can say the standard greeting, namaste. People bring their hands together and greet. One hand represents that person's soul, the other represents your soul, and the two souls meet. It's a very humble way of welcoming somebody into your life. So, I've grown up with humility, thrift, and hard work as foundational principles of my life.
I grew up in an area of India that struggled to provide an infrastructure of consistency, and as a result, we did not have access to electricity or running water 24 hours a day. These initial hardships helped, in some small way, to build my character. Poverty is something that can make a man great. I believe that my Indian upbringing has helped me a lot.
When I first moved from India to the U.S., I was told that the Institute I graduated from was comparable to MIT and Harvard. That acknowledgment from my U.S. colleagues instilled a lot of pride in me when I was new to this country.
Technological developments and enhancements roll in daily and have relatively predictable timelines. It can be easy to assign credit to the iconic brands emblazed upon the products utilized across the globe. However, the advancements have authors, and those authors of technologies have rich histories filled with happenstance, intention, and sometimes luck.
Krishna C. Mukherjee may not be a household name, but his story feels familiar. A young man from a distant land is discovered and contributes to the world around all of us. This reporter experienced Krishna as a man comfortable with his path and the role he has played over the last three decades.
On the surface, technology can appear as mechanical and sanitized versions of an idea once conceived from a light bulb moment. The hope is that the people behind the ideas shine as brightly as the end products they produce to inspire the next generation.
Krishna C. Mukherjee is proof that talent exists in every corner of the world—we just have to be willing to expand our gaze.
Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity
0 Comments