Technology

Notes from the boss…

By Drew Atkins September 19, 2014

Satya__0

This article originally appeared in the October 2014 issue of Seattle magazine.

Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO in February, having previously served as vice president of Microsofts Cloud and Enterprise group. Nadella was born in 1967 in Hyderabad, India, and grew up there. He joined Microsoft 22 years ago and says very few companies have the talent, resources and perseverance to change the world. Microsoft, he says, has all three in abundance.

Heres more from the CEO:

Innovation
Our industry does not respect tradition it only respects innovation. … In order to accelerate our innovation, we must rediscover our soul. … We must all understand and embrace what only Microsoft can contribute to the world.

Courage
Nietzsche … said that we must have courage in the face of reality. Even more important, we must have courage in the face of opportunity.

Transformation

With the courage to transform individually, we will collectively transform this company and seize the great opportunity ahead.

Goals
Our passion is to enable people to thrive in this mobile-first and cloud-first world.

Downsizing
Having a clear focus is the start of the journey, not the end. The more difficult steps are creating the organization and culture to bring our ambitions to life.

Sport

I think playing cricket taught me more about working in teams and leadership that has stayed with me throughout my career.

Learning
I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things … you stop doing great and useful things.

Poetry

Its like code. Youre trying to take something that can be described in many, many sentences and pages of prose, but you can convert it into a couple lines of poetry and you still get the essence.

Follow Us