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The rise of Satya Nadella, the game-changing CEO of Microsoft
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
When Satya Nadella first took the reins as Microsoft CEO in February 2014, the company was losing steam — fast.
Windows 8 had been a disaster. Microsoft employees were constantly battling behind the scenes for supremacy. And all the while, consumers and developers alike were losing the faith.
Times change.
Now, as we come into the final months of 2016, Microsoft has found its groove again as a company that provides software and services to everyone, on any device — and is even starting to convert some Apple fans to Windows.
There’s still a lot that Microsoft needs to do. But we thought it’d be fun and interesting to take a look back at the life and career of Satya Nadella, the CEO who’s making it all happen at one of the biggest, most valuable technology companies on the planet.
Satya Narayana Nadella was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1967. His dad was a civil servant and his mother was a professor of the ancient language Sanskrit.
From a young age, Nadella wanted to be a professional cricket player, and played in school. But he realized that his athletic talent was outmatched by his passion for science and technology.
Nadella received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1988. “I always knew I wanted to build things,” Nadella once said.
But the Manipal Institute of Technology didn’t have a real computer-science program, so he traveled to the US to attend University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he graduated in 1990.
Now in the US, Nadella would go on to work for Sun Microsystems, the legendary Silicon Valley computer-server company.
In 1992, Nadella joined Microsoft. At the time, founder Bill Gates was still CEO, and Windows had just begun its march to world domination.
Nadella was one of only around 30 Indian immigrants working at the company. His first projects included Microsoft’s ill-fated interactive-TV product and the Windows NT operating system.
During his first years at Microsoft, Nadella impressed his coworkers and managers alike by commuting every weekend from Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, all the way to the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business to finish his MBA. He’d finally graduate in 1997.
In 1999, Nadella landed his first executive role as vice president of Microsoft bCentral, a set of web services for small businesses that included hosted website-hosting and email.
In 2000, Microsoft got its second CEO: Steve Ballmer.
In 2001, Nadella rose to corporate VP of Microsoft Business Solutions. The group had been formed through a series of acquisitions, including Great Plains, which made accounting software for small and mid-size businesses. The group was also building a cloud-based CRM system to compete with Salesforce. Eventually all these products would be rebranded as “Dynamics.”
Nadella’s star just kept rising: By 2007, Nadella was senior VP of Microsoft Online Services, which meant he was in command of the Bing search engine, as well as early online versions of Microsoft Office and the Xbox Live gaming service.
In February 2011, Nadella would get another promotion, this time to president of the Server and Tools Division. At the time, that group oversaw cash-cow products for companies’ data centers, like Windows Server and the SQL Server database. But it also hosted one of Ballmer’s boldest gambles, the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
When Nadella took over the server and tools business, it was doing $16.6 billion in revenue. By 2013, that was up to $20.3 billion.
By this point, Microsoft was running into trouble. On the PC side, Windows 8 was a disaster, the iPhone and Android were outrunning Windows phones by leaps and bounds, and Bing just couldn’t make a dent in Google’s search dominance. And Ballmer took the heat.
In August 2013, an embattled Ballmer announced that he’d be stepping down, prompting a search for a new CEO. The search committee included Ballmer and Bill Gates.
In February 2014, after much rumor and speculation, it was announced that Nadella would get the nod as the new CEO, with the support of Ballmer and Gates.
To entice Nadella to take the role, Microsoft’s board approved an $84 million first-year compensation package.
Nadella sent an email to employees when he first took the job.
It said: “I am 46. I’ve been married for 22 years and we have 3 kids. And like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experiences. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me. “
Nadella has also compared programming code to poetry.
“You’re 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, so it’s that compression. The best code is poetry,” he said to Politico.
Nadella quickly won over Microsoft employees by making big changes, quickly, in an effort to right the course and win back customers.
That includes once unthinkable things like embracing the rival Linux operating system by joining the nonprofit Linux Foundation…
… releasing Microsoft Office for Apple’s iPad …
… spending $2.5 billion to buy Mojang, the studio behind the hit game “Minecraft” …
… releasing first-class iPhone and Android apps like Microsoft Outlook …
… skipping Windows 9 and going straight to the actually super great Windows 10 …
… introducing the Microsoft Surface Book, the company’s first laptop ever …
… and, oh yeah, revealing the Microsoft HoloLens, the company’s super-futuristic holographic goggles.
Nadella’s whole philosophy is about partnering and making sure that Microsoft software and services are available wherever customers are — even if that’s not Windows. That’s why his first big hire was ex-Qualcomm exec Peggy Johnson, now Microsoft VP of business development, to help partner up with outside companies.
In fact, in 2015, Nadella used an iPhone on stage at an event to show off his favorite Microsoft apps.
So, yeah. Nadella’s been busy. But investors love it: In late 2016, Microsoft stock hit its first new all-time high since 1999.
Source: Business Insider
Employees love him, too, talking about how he’s brought the company together to tackle tough and worthwhile issues.
It’s been a busy 2016 for Nadella, In June, Microsoft followed through with its plan to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, in its largest single deal ever.
And in October, Microsoft revealed the Surface Studio, its first-ever PC.
There are still challenges ahead: The Microsoft Windows business is flattening out, as people buy fewer PCs than they used to. And the company’s smartphone marketshare is a measly 1%, globally.
But after a long period of slowdown, Microsoft is finally moving in the right direction.
The post The rise of Satya Nadella, the game-changing CEO of Microsoft appeared first on Business Insider.
