Only 20 people at Microsoft have the job title of distinguished scientist. Among them is Stevie Bathiche, the co-inventor of the Microsoft Surface.
Could the title of distinguished scientist be the best job at Microsoft? For Stevie Bathiche, it’s a job he says “is tailored for my skills and who I am”.
He is one of just 20 people at the technology behemoth holding the designation, and yes, that is a real job title. His role is no less unique.
The 41-year-old mop-haired whizz-kid, who is of Palestinian-Lebanese origin and holds 95 patents to date, created the Mothmobile – a hybrid robot that uses an insect as its control system – while still in graduate school.
After three separate internships at Microsoft – during which he created language software that went into Word’s grammar check, the Sidewinder 3D Pro gamepad and a smart remote – he has been working there for the past 17 years.
“I’m a very creative soul and I like to find my own way and invent my own way,” he says. “I like undefined. I don’t like walls.”
A lot of his career has been spent trying to break down the fourth wall; Mr Bathiche wants to make the computer “break out of the screen and perceive the audience”.
He’s been working on 3D technology and virtual “mixed” reality recently to do that. He shows me a video of a Microsoft employee interacting with a 3D hologram of his daughter in the next room, then reducing it down to a miniature version, just like Princess Leia in Star Wars.
“Mixing the physical world and digital world has been our motif for some time,” he says, “blurring the physical and the virtual. That’s a lot of where 3D is going – mixed reality.”
And although he won’t put a timeline on when we can expect the fourth wall to be shattered, he says it’s “not out of reach”. “It’s in our future and it’s relevant to start thinking about it,” he adds.
Originally written for The National and published in December 2016.