Satya Nadella - The Man Driving Success At Microsoft

After five years at the helm of Microsoft, Satya Nadella has transformed the technology giant in more ways than one. Here he talks about value creation, online privacy and the impending robot revolution.

-  James Titcomb

When Satya Nadella took charge of Microsoft in 2014, the company was hardly on its knees. But the software giant, responsible for Windows, Office and Internet Explorer, had undoubtedly lost its way.

Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer, in one of his last acts as Chief Executive, pushed through the €5.4 billion (US$5.98 billion) acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business, in a desperate attempt to take on its old rival Apple.

The deal was announced after Ballmer had already revealed plans to retire. It looked very much like a parting shot, a combination of two businesses past their prime and who had lost their way in the iPhone era. Ballmer, a supercharged, highly competitive brawler, had inherited the Chief Executive’s seat from Bill Gates 13 years earlier, when Microsoft was on top of the world.

“Because of the success we had, we felt that we were the know-it-alls, [that] we were just great,” Nadella says. “Except none of that was true. We had a successful business, we had successful products, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a perpetual great. I think that is when you go from confidence to hubris, and that’s brought down everybody, from empires in Ancient Greece to Silicon Valley companies.”

Nadella is in many ways the opposite of Ballmer. He is wiry, studious and measured. He is a passionate cricket enthusiast, thanks to a childhood spent playing around his hometown of Hyderabad (one of Ballmer’s first acts after leaving Microsoft was buying the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team).

Under his command, Microsoft has changed too. The company, once defined by its ruthlessly competitive nature, has become friendlier, more willing to team up with those who were once deemed enemies. Employees carry copies of The Growth Mindset, a book by the psychologist Carol Dweck about constant improvement.