Never Far from Home: My Journey from Brooklyn to Hip Hop, Microsoft, and the Law

Microsoft’s associate general counsel shares the inspirational story of his rise from childhood poverty in pre-gentrified New York City to a stellar career at the top of the technology and music industries in this stirring true story of grit and perseverance. For fans of Indra Nooyi’s My Life in Full and Viola Davis’s Finding Me.As an accomplished Microsoft executive, Bruce Jackson handles billions of dollars of commerce as its associate general counsel while he plays a crucial role in the company’s corporate diversity efforts. But few of his colleagues can understand the weight he carries with him to the office each day. He kept his past hidden from sight as he ascended the corporate ladder but shares it in full for the first time here. Born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Jackson moved to Manhattan’s Amsterdam housing projects as a child, where he had already been falsely accused and arrested for robbery by the age of ten. Taken in by the criminal justice system, seduced by a burgeoning drug trade, and burdened by a fractured, impoverished home life, Jackson stood on the edge of failure. But he was saved by a concerned aunt’s offer: stay out of trouble, and she’ll make sure he gets the help he needs to get out of the projects. The open hand woke Jackson up and set him on a better path, off the streets and eventually on the way to Georgetown Law. With tenacity, and after a stint in corporate law that makes him all too aware of his rare status as a Black attorney in upscale Washington, DC, Jackson set out on his own. He cut his teeth representing hip hop artists in an effort to lift up talented young Black people he had seen exploited for profit by unscrupulous advisors one too many times. Jackson came to realize that the traumas of his past lend power. He related to the artists he represented and the music they created in ways his peers could never understand, and rose in his career alongside iconic figures in the early 90s hip-hop scene: LL Cool J; Pete Rock & CL Smooth; Heavy D; and a young entrepreneur named Puff Daddy among them. But even as he racked up professional accomplishments, Jackson was haunted by the unchanged world outside his office. The public housing where so many of his loved ones remained was still in chaos. People of color still chewed up by the criminal justice system, like he had been decades before. Even as a successful adult, Jackson was targeted for driving in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in too nice of a car. In a vivid replay of his childhood, he was once again thrown in jail on trumped-up charges. But his employer Microsoft showed more compassionate than most. They looked beyond the flawed record and instead to the heart of the talented colleague. It is a gift Jackson pays forward as he goes on to push for greater inclusion and equity in the tech industry. From public housing, to working for Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, and its founder, Bill Gates, to advising some of the biggest stars in music, Bruce Jackson’s Never Far from Home reveals the ups and downs of an incredible journey and the valuable lessons learned along the way.