World-Class

Mike Schmidt
Nov 3 · 2 min read

Last week I surprised my girlfriend with tickets to The New York Philharmonic where we saw Beethoven’s Symphony №7 and Mendelssohn. I was in an existentialist state, probably because I just flew in from a 15-hour flight from Shanghai. As I was sitting through Prokofiev’s first symphony I was reflecting on the moment and thinking that this was the best symphony orchestra in the world. The people sitting only 15 feet away from me have trained most of their lives for this 2-hour concert. As they wrapped up the first symphony, the conductor introduced a woman named Julia Fischer, a 36-year-old German classical violist.

The soloist.

As she began to play one of the toughest classical pieces I couldn’t help but thinking about all of the training and obsession it has taken to get to this moment. The next day I read her Wikipedia page. She received standing ovations for her performance of Brahms’ Double Concerto with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, she performed for the first time with the Berlin Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel as well as with the London Symphony Orchestra and she also performed with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Lorin Maazel, playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto in New York’s Lincoln Center when she was 20 years old.


Every Saturday I spend time at Microsoft with high school students that want to become the next generation of CEOs and leaders. The program is called The Knowledge Society and it’s arguably the most important thing I’m working on right now. Kids are taught tough lessons combined with technologies of the future (quantum computing, machine learning, gene editing etc.). One of the concepts we talk a lot about is what world-class looks like.

While Julia isn’t studying to be a CEO or world leader, in her own field she is the best in the world and has kept discipline throughout her early life to accomplish great things.

The best part of all is when my girlfriend noticed Philippe Jordan, the conductor, shake, hug and appreciate members in the back of the symphony (something that isn’t apparently done often). That is world-class.

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