Never Far from Home
My Journey from Brooklyn to Hip Hop, Microsoft, and the Law
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Microsoft’s associate general counsel shares a story that is “as nuanced as it is hopeful” (Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader) about 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. At the age of fifteen, he witnessed the homicide of his close friend. 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 an offer. That offer set him on a better path, off the streets and eventually on the way to Georgetown Law, but not without hard knocks along the way.
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 is “an important story, extremely well told, that should serve as a lesson on how we got here and where we need to go” (Fred D. Gray, activist and civil rights attorney).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this earnest debut, lawyer Jackson recounts his rise from living in public housing to becoming associate general counsel for Microsoft. Growing up in 1970s New York City, Jackson developed his drive after his high school history teacher told him that he wasn't "college material." After graduation, he attended Hofstra University, where he experienced the "culture shock" of being around "so many white folks," and, later, he declined accounting job offers to attend Georgetown Law. Jackson recalibrated his career aspirations after two years of being "the only Black attorney at an otherwise all-white law firm" and forged a decade-long career in entertainment law before he was recruited by Microsoft. Jackson is incisive as he describes the isolation he felt at predominantly white universities and law firms, and at Microsoft, which compelled him to advocate for inclusion and diversity in the workplace. He pulls no punches when discussing the racism he's experienced throughout his life, but he remains determined to rise above the "unfairness in the DNA of our society": "If you want to move forward in life, there's no option: you've got to keep moving." Readers will be inspired.
