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How a culture of "growth mindset," cloud computing and AI revived the software giant
Satya Nadella is the chief executive and chairman of Microsoft, and only the third CEO in the company's history after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. When he took charge in 2014, Microsoft was seen as a fading PC-era giant. Under Nadella, it became a leader in cloud computing and an early, aggressive investor in generative AI — one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds of the century.
Nadella was born on 19 August 1967 in Hyderabad, India. His father was an Indian Administrative Service officer and his mother a Sanskrit lecturer. He attended the Hyderabad Public School and was a keen cricketer — a sport he still credits with teaching him about teamwork and leadership.
| Degree | Institution |
|---|---|
| BE, Electrical Engineering | Manipal Institute of Technology (Mangalore University) |
| MS, Computer Science | University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
| MBA | University of Chicago Booth School of Business |
Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992. Over two decades he held senior roles across:
Microsoft named Nadella CEO on 4 February 2014. He became chairman of the board in 2021.
Nadella replaced a famously competitive internal culture with a focus on empathy, collaboration and a "growth mindset" — learning over knowing. He also opened Microsoft up to partnerships with former rivals, bringing Office to iPhone and Android and embracing Linux and open source.
He made Azure and Microsoft 365 the centre of the business, turning Microsoft into one of the world's largest cloud providers.
| Year | Company | Approximate value |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Mojang (Minecraft) | US$2.5 billion |
| 2016 | US$26.2 billion | |
| 2018 | GitHub | US$7.5 billion |
| 2023 | Activision Blizzard | US$69 billion |
Microsoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019 and expanded the partnership after ChatGPT's success, building OpenAI models into Bing, Windows and Office through Copilot. After OpenAI's 2025 recapitalisation, Microsoft holds a stake of roughly 27% in the company. In 2026, Nadella has described AI as a defining shift for the software industry while publicly warning against too much of AI's value being concentrated in a few companies.
Nadella wrote Hit Refresh (2017), about Microsoft's transformation and his personal journey. He received India's Padma Bhushan in 2022.
Nadella married Anupama, a childhood friend, in 1992. Their son Zain, who was born with cerebral palsy, died in 2022; Nadella has spoken about how caring for him deepened his focus on empathy and accessibility in technology. They have two daughters.
On 4 February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer.
In Hyderabad, India.
He emphasises a "growth mindset," empathy and collaboration, inspired partly by psychologist Carol Dweck's research.
Microsoft is OpenAI's largest investor and cloud partner, holding roughly 27% after OpenAI's 2025 restructuring.
Satya Nadella revived Microsoft by changing both its strategy and its soul — moving it to the cloud, opening it to partners and betting early on AI. His tenure is now widely seen as a model of how a mature company can reinvent itself.
