By Todd Bishop
Publication Date: 2026-02-23 16:23:00
“And the thing about games is, if you get good at one game, you can be good at any game. … They’re all hand-eye coordination and observing patterns.”
That’s a line from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin’s 2022 novel about two friends who build a video game company from nothing — struggling with the tension between art and commerce, and ultimately with the challenges of operating a business at scale.
This describes almost perfectly what Asha Sharma will be attempting to do in her new role leading Microsoft’s Xbox and video-game business: She’ll need to take all the patterns she’s observed as an executive with Facebook, Instacart, Seattle startup Porch, and Microsoft’s AI platform, and apply them to a world she hasn’t played in before.
And get this: it’s one of her favorite books.
Speaking last…
