How Satya Nadella Became The CEO Of Microsoft

In 2020, Satya Nadella walked away with a solid $44.3 million as compensation for being the CEO of Microsoft. This makes Satya one of the highest paid non-founder executives in the world, only beaten out by the likes of Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook. Satya did not join Microsoft with high-level connections like Steve Ballmer, nor did he join particularly early as he didn't join until 1992, or 16 years after Microsoft was founded. So, here's how Satya Nadella slowly worked up the corporate ladder and became the CEO of Microsoft. Satya was born on August 19, 1967 in Hyderabad, India. His father was an Indian Administrative Service Officer, or an IAS officer, and his mother was a Sanskrit lecturer. Satya would end up attending a local public school called the Hyderabad Public School, and it seems like Satya was more or less an average kid. No biography about Satya really points out particularly interesting characteristics about him. He wasn't noted for having an insane memory, nor was he known for being an overachiever. In fact, in an interview with David Rubenstein, Satya reveals that he never had ambitions of becoming a top executive. He preferred to just go with the flow and approach life one step at a time. Satya recalls that he just wanted to study economics and get a respectable job at a local bank. Meanwhile, his parents just wanted Satya to stop playing cricket and start taking his education more seriously. It was actually Satya's father that pushed Satya to major in engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology, which ironically has the initials MIT. Satya graduated with a bachelors in electrical engineering in 1988, and after that, Satya's father would push Satya to get an education in the US. So, Satya started applying to master's programs in the US. Satya would be accepted into the computer science department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He would graduate with his master's in computer science two years later in 1990, and he would subsequently land a job at Sun Microsystems. It's unclear what exactly Satya did at Sun Microsystems, but we do know that he worked on the IT side. He didn't stick around for long though as he would jump ship to Microsoft in 1992. At Microsoft, Satya worked on the Windows NT operating system and the interactive TV system. That same year, Satya married a girl named Anupama, who was the daughter of one of his father's friends. A couple of years later, Satya pursued an MBA from the University of Chicago while working full time at Microsoft. Satya would secure the MBA in 1997, and this helped him move up the ranks within Microsoft. At the turn of the Microsoft underwent a massive corporate restructuring as Bill Gates retired from his position as CEO. Steve Ballmer would become the new CEO, and everyone underneath him got the chance to move up. This allowed Satya to score his first executive position at Microsoft as the vice president of Microsoft B-Central. This division was a rather unknown part of the company that focused on providing professional web services to small businesses. Nonetheless, this was a achievement for Satya given that he hadn't even worked at the company for 10 years at this point. His personal life however wasn't progressing nearly as smoothly. In August of 1996, Satya and Anu had their first son named Zane. Satya describes that he was so caught up in the little things before Zane's birth. Apparently, he was trying to figure out when Anu could go back to work and how they could enjoy their weekends while taking care of their baby and so on and so forth. When Zane was born though, Satya's entire life would be turned around. Zane had been suffering from undetected asphyxiation, which basically means that Zane wasn't getting enough oxygen. This resulted in severe brain damage and eventually cerebral palsy and quadriplegia. For many years after Zane's birth, Satya struggled to find answers. Why did this happen to him and what did he do wrong? But over time, Satya came to a realization with the help of his wife. While Satya was understandably feeling sorry for himself, Anu had completely changed her outlook on life. She gave up her career and focused all her time and effort on helping Zane live the best life possible. This helped Satya realize that nothing happened to him. What happened, happened to Zane. And Satya had to understand and accept that reality in order to be the best father he could be. As you would guess, this experience not only altered Satya's approach to parenting, but also his approach to life as a whole including his career. Satya became more grounded, empathetic and modest than ever before as he entered the new century. In the early 2000s, Satya was promoted to Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions and just a couple of years later in 2007, he would be promoted to Senior Vice President of Research and Development. Once again though, Satya's personal life was lagging behind his professional life. Satya's second daughter was born with a severe learning disability. Satya and Anu were much more prepared to help their daughter due to their prior experience with Zane. But raising their daughter would still prove quite difficult. The closest school that would best suit their daughter's needs was across the Canadian border in Vancouver, which was about 2-3 hours away from Seattle. So, Satya and Anu decided to split their family and live in different cities to accommodate for their daughter. Satya and Zane lived in Seattle while Anu and their two daughters moved to Vancouver. The family would only meet on the weekends. Anyway, Satya continued to move up the corporate ladder at Microsoft, becoming the President of Microsoft Server and Tolls Business in 2011. Satya's pivotal promotion would come a couple of years later when Steve Ballmer retired from his position as CEO. At the time, Satya was one of the contenders for CEO, but he wasn't the top pick per se. During the interview process with the board however, Satya quickly became the top pick. As we discussed throughout the video, Satya never had a super big ego or super ambitious dreams. He was a pretty modest guy and his experience as a parent had just grounded him even further. As a result, when the board asked Satya if he wanted to be CEO, Satya replied, only if you want me to. The board was visibly confused by this response. Usually, people who wanted to be CEO knew it and they were generally very confident in their answers as to why they should be the new CEO. Satya's unique approach resonated with the board and Satya would become the CEO of Microsoft on February 2, 2014. Since then, I think Satya has grown Microsoft using three core avenues, with the first one being embracing competition. For the longest time, Microsoft placed great emphasis on being as dominant as possible. They went to great lengths to ensure that this was the case, whether that be forcing consumers to use Internet Explorer or bailing out Apple to save themselves from a monopoly lawsuit. Steve Ballmer tried to continue this approach. Steve pushed Microsoft into the smartphone market, despite it being quite clear that they had missed the train. Similarly, Steve oversaw the launch of Windows 8 that attempted to merge mobile operating systems with Windows, which was just a massive mess. Satya however, was able to come to terms with the fact that Microsoft had lost out on some sectors. And instead of pouring billions into lost opportunities and trying to buy themselves to the top, Satya conceded in these markets and looked for ways to collaborate with the winners instead of trying to take them down. For example, Satya oversaw the release of Microsoft Office on iPad, and Satya launched Microsoft apps like Outlook on Android and iOS. Satya even embraced the use of the Linux operating system on the Azure cloud. Aside from working with the competition, Satya reduced Microsoft's focus on Windows and Office. Microsoft had already won the computer operating system space and instead of trying to milk consumers by launching a new Windows every few years, Satya decided to take it easy. Satya oversaw the launch of Windows 10, which brought back the familiar feelings of Windows 7 and XP. He also made it pretty easy for consumers to get Windows 10 for free. While this may have not been the best financial decision short term, Windows 10 was essential in winning back consumer trust. At first, there were even rumors that Windows 10 would be the last major version of Windows and that Microsoft would simply provide updates every once in a while. Microsoft obviously changed their mind given that we have Windows 11 now, but the approach has stayed the same. Microsoft did not try to overhaul the Windows experience with Windows 11. Instead, they opted to keep everything pretty familiar while making the experience more fluid and reliable. By taking it easy in terms of Windows, Satya was able to expand Microsoft into sectors that still had opportunities left, specifically cloud computing and Surface Books. Azure is credited as being Satya's biggest contribution to Microsoft's business. While Apple and Google honed in on their control over the consumer cloud market, the enterprise cloud market was still more or less dominated by AWS, which is quite an expensive option. Satya cleverly leveraged this gap in the market and promoted Azure as the cheaper alternative to AWS. Once again, Satya did not try to take over AWS or outperform AWS. He opted to capitalize on what AWS wasn't doing as opposed to what they were doing really well. Satya also picked up on the trend towards lighter laptops pretty early on. Google had come out with their Chromebooks, which were quite attractive to light users and students. Satya leveraged this trend by launching the Surface Book, which has proven to be extremely attractive to a niche group of people. Outside of these 3 fundamental changes to Microsoft, Satya also oversaw a couple of major acquisitions. In 2014, Microsoft bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion. In 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. And in 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion. All of these acquisitions have just further propelled Microsoft forward, allowing Microsoft stock to explode 700% since Satya became CEO. So, what can we learn from Satya Nadella? Well, more than his intelligence, his execution and his level-mindedness, I think the biggest trait Satya brought to Microsoft was character. Satya brought humility, modesty and empathy to Microsoft. A leader cannot change a company by himself. Leaders need the support of their employees. And Satya's character was able to win over the employees of Microsoft more than basically any CEO in the world. In fact, Satya ranks as the 6th most approved CEO in the world according to his employees, with an approval rating of 97%. To put that into perspective, Tim Cook ranks as 32, Sundar Pichai ranks as 90 and Elon Musk doesn't even make the top 100. Considering this, I don't think any of you guys would be surprised to hear that Satya Nadella was promoted to chairman of the Microsoft board as well in June. What do you guys think about Satya's modest rise? Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if you think Satya's success is more than well-deserved. And of course, consider joining our discord community to suggest future video ideas and consider subscribing to see more questions logically answered. But until then, I'm Hari and I'll see you guys on the next one.