Microsoft Courts Rural America, And Politicians, With High-Speed Internet

Microsoft is announcing a new effort to connect more people to the Internet. Not people far away, in the so-called emerging markets — where other American tech giants have built Internet balloons and drones. Instead, Microsoft is focusing right here at home, on the 23.4 million people in rural America without broadband access. The largest companies in the U.S. — by market value — are the Internet giants. But these companies have a bad reputation when it comes to American workers. Tech is known for sending jobs overseas, and now for racing to automate — that is, kill jobs still here.That said, something is changing in the zeitgeist of the tech industry. "We perhaps looked less than we should have at what was happening in rural America," Microsoft President Brad Smith says. "We went overseas, and that's a good thing. We should be around the world. But we should also be focused on our own backyards." Or farmlands.