

Satya Nadella email to employees on first day as CEO - rfreytag
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail2.aspx

======
legutierr
> Today is a very humbling day for me.

The first sentence of the email, statement that seems entirely appropriate
given the circumstances.

Nonetheless, I find it curious that we expect people who reach the highest
levels of accomplishment to describe those accomplishments as humbling. It
seems natural to us for someone promoted to the heights of their profession,
such as Satya Nadella in this case, or the winner of a Nobel prize or an
academy award, for example, to describe the accomplishment as "humbling", when
logically speaking it should be anything but.

Is such a statement part of a defense mechanism against egotism that prevents
the honored individual from loosing the discipline that allowed them to excel
in the first place? Is it an attempt to say, "this doesn't change me, I am
still who I was before"? Is it just a manipulation, a defense against envy and
derision, an attempt to reduce the motivation of others to "take them down a
notch"? Or is it something else?

Without thinking about it too deeply, it seems right to read that Satya
Nadella is humbled to become one of the most powerful corporate executives in
the world, but why? And is it correct?

~~~
merry-year
> Today is a very humbling day for me.

When I read that I knew this guy would fail as MS CEO. It's a proper jungle
out there and a humble Indian guy will be eaten alive by the aggressive
confident westerners.

~~~
avenger123
I think most will ignore your comment for what it is but I want to respond.

He didn't become CEO because he played it nice. I'm sure he's been as
aggressive and mean when he's needed to be to advance himself and his work.

It's humbling because out of the many many top candidates he got the job. It's
humbling to be considered at that level among your peers and be picked.

I would venture to say that he mixes the best of east indian tradition and
western tradition.

The board is filled with very capable people, especially John W. Thompson. He
was the CEO of Symantec and took that company from its early beginnings to a
major player.

Time will tell if this was a right pick for CEO but I believe that most will
be very happy with the choice as its a good contrast to what Steve Ballmer
was.

~~~
overgryphon
It's humbling not to be chosen, but to look at the task set out before you and
realize how small you are in comparison.

------
kjhughes
I liked this part of his letter:

 _We sometimes underestimate what we each can do to make things happen and
overestimate what others need to do to move us forward. We must change this._

------
doppenhe
As an ex-MSFT employee and somebody who actually got a chance to talk to Satya
I found the letter to be very true to his personality. Excited to see what he
does in Redmond.

~~~
CmonDev
Is he a conservative type of manager who will try to come-up with completely
new kind of products or someone who will keep chasing Google in Apple in what
they do best?

~~~
potatolicious
I think MS's strategy thus far has actually been pretty good. It's a company
with good strategic vision mired in terrible execution.

WinPhone7 was a great product on paper - still is - that was released half-
baked missing a great number of features that consumers expected to be
standard. It was further undermined when Microsoft decided to cut the early
adopters and run (WP7 phones that never got the WP7.5 update).

Hell, even the much-maligned Kin I think was a great idea. In an era with
stupidly expensive data plans, the idea was to come up with a social-media-
only (Twitter, Facebook, SMS) device coupled with a kid-compatible cheap
monthly plan, based on the existing expertise of Danger. Then they decided to
rewrite the whole tech stack, pushed the product way out of its launch window,
and lost out on the core offering: cheap plans. What ended up launching was
nowhere near what was envisioned.

I believe Windows 8 and the merging of touch and desktop was, and still is, a
great idea. A platform that can seamlessly transform between mobile and
desktop contexts can be incredibly powerful and reflects the combination of
MS's traditional strengths in work-products and the newer consumer mobile
space. Of course, the execution there was well off the mark - Metro was
foisted upon the desktop context and was strictly inferior to what it tried to
replace, and key productivity tools were removed in the name of unification.

MS gets the big picture, but they keep fucking up the details. Here's hoping
Nadella can turn this around.

------
aytekin
Pretty weak when you compare it with Steve Job's “Fuck Michael Dell” talk when
he came back to Apple in 1997.
[http://lilly.tumblr.com/post/11230723028/steve-
jobs](http://lilly.tumblr.com/post/11230723028/steve-jobs)

~~~
mbreese
Different companies, difference circumstances. In 1997, Apple needed to be
scrappy just to survive. Microsoft in 2014, is still an enormously profitable
company that has been in a lull for most of the last decade. For an email to
start the process of waking a sleeping giant, I thought the tone was good.

------
robodale
As I read that email, I wondered - would the typical MS employee read this
with skepticism...or truly be inspired, hopeful, and ready to take action?

~~~
toggle
It seems like the usual "Hi, I'm the new CEO" letter can't be very inspiring.
I mean, it would be rude for him to slam Steve Ballmer _right_ after replacing
him -- he needs to have some tact. And, he can't be to enthusiastic and claim
that they'll be making devices with rainbows shooting out of their SD card
slots -- that'd make everyone say, "Who does this guy think he is?"

I'm sure everyone read it with a neutral response, because it was pretty
boilerplate (as it kind of has to be).

------
jinushaun
Boring generic corporate pep talk email. It would've been better with GIFs.
Doesn't give me much hope for the future of Microsoft. Seems like more of the
same. I was really hoping for an outsider with new ideas that could energise
the organization and make tough decisions.

I wonder what the sentiment is on the ground among softies.

------
sfermigier
"Who am I?

I am 46. I’ve been married for 22 years and we have 3 kids."

-> Who cares?

~~~
gregschlom
Are you American? I was wondering about this too. As a Frenchman, I had the
same reaction as you, but I think Americans care a lot about this. I've been
told for example that in the US it would be completely impossible for a
president to be elected if he didn't had a solid marriage and family.

I find those cultural differences fascinating

~~~
ims
> I've been told for example that in the US it would be completely impossible
> for a president to be elected if he didn't had a solid marriage and family.

That may be true now, but there have indeed been unmarried Presidents. Just
saying.

~~~
pcurve
Just 2 bachelors. Happened in 1857 and 1893. And I agree, it would never fly
in today's political environment.

------
jpessa
"Sent from my iPhone" xD

~~~
onedev
Go back to Reddit. You don't belong here if you can't make an intelligent
comment. Sorry.

~~~
minwcnt5
If you think HN comments are anything more than Reddit comments dressed up in
ostentation then you would be well-served by paying more careful attention to
the actual content of what you read in the future.

~~~
onedev
No I recognize that for sure, but at least in those cases, the poster took
time to dress up the comment and type original words.

------
lucb1e
> our core value of empowering users and organizations to “do more.”

Oh they are going to ditch Windows and Secure Boot and help develop Linux for
mainstream users? This must be the news of the year!

Every day they continue requiring Secure Boot on Windows RT, this lie
continues to get bigger.

