How Microsoft's culture shifted from Bill Gates to Satya Nadella
Under its current CEO, Microsoft became the world's most valuable company. In an interview, one of its top executives explains what makes Nadella different from his predecessors.
What is at stake
Very few people have experienced Microsoft under Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella. Yusuf Mehdi is one of them. The head of consumer product marketing has been with the company for more than thirty years and has watched the cultural transformation from sharp-elbowed start-up to restrained AI frontrunner at close quarters. In an interview in Redmond he told me how the three CEOs differ – and why the company, fifty years in, operates differently than it ever has before.
Three eras, three types
Gates was the founder-visionary. “Incredible – a genius who invented so much from scratch,” says Mehdi. Ballmer followed as salesman and structurer. “A phenomenal chief executive who professionalised the company and built a strong sales structure that still exists today.” Other employees are less generous: they describe Ballmer as a choleric boss who occasionally threw chairs at meetings. Under him, Microsoft missed the smartphone era.
The difference under Nadella
Nadella has not only changed the strategy – he has changed the tone. Listening has replaced domination. Partnership has replaced paternalism. Microsoft cooperates with competitors again when it benefits the customer. The Build conference this week is the most visible evidence: AI is centre stage, but the vocabulary has softened. Nadella speaks of enablement, not market control.
What follows from this
The cultural shift explains why Microsoft is today the world’s most valuable company. But it also explains why Nadella’s succession planning will one day become the most critical personnel question in the tech world. Gates shaped the founding years, Ballmer the expansion. Nadella rebuilt the company for the AI era. What comes next?
I wrote the full piece for Handelsblatt.