I didn't catch that quote -- that's an
amazingly dumb thing to say. It's
so dumb that I'm inclined to believe it was a mistake, rather than something Nadella believes. Maybe the PR folks had a little too much say in that statement because more than a few BS meters exploded.
Ignoring the statement for a moment, Nadella killed "Windows First" thinking. It took me a long time to believe they were actually doing it, but SQL server, and then Teams -- a component of office -- along with the fact that SQL works better in Linux than on Windows (embarrassingly so in frequent cases), Outlook 365 in Firefox works better on any OS than Outlook on Windows, .NET Foundation/open source .NET core going from "a sort-of .NET for those of you who insist on using non-Windows stuff, to working better for nearly everything than the "Full Framework"[0].
Had that same sentence been altered by one, easy to slip on, word it would have been far more accurate ("ignoring" facts rather than outright lying about them): "The web, it grew up with Windows" or along side Windows. Accurate would be "dragged Windows with it kicking and screaming at times" and "Windows as actively hostile toward the web" but I don't expect the best CEOs of the least important companies to be that honest. I'd love it, but it might not fly on Wall Street.
Had Microsoft continued in its monopolistic behavior, it's arguable that MS tried to and possibly could have delayed the success of the Internet via its refusal to support internet protocols natively in the OS (Windows 95's earliest version lacked Internet Explorer, but also didn't include tooling -- IIRC -- to speak SLIP/PPP or anything outside of NetBIOS, including TCP/IP/UDP by default). The browser would could have done without the "kill Netscape at all costs" behavior, but even that produced tangible benefits at the end of the day.
I can't pretend to read his mind, but I doubt he doesn't recognize the stupidity in that statement -- it's possible, but it would be contrary to what I've experienced.
I'd love to know what Microsoft would have done with Nadella at the helm during that important time. I don't think what I know about Microsoft, today, would mean that they'd have embraced the open web back then. I'd take it as a strong positive if Nadella, today, believed he would have led Microsoft here all the way back then, but there's so much hindsight in that conclusion. Most major players at that time were looking to "lock in users, using the internet, somehow" at the time, that it wasn't an obvious, correct, choice that one could sell to shareholders at that time. None of those major players (save Oracle) made a hard turn at some point and look nothing like they do today, culture-wise (Oracle was negatively affected by it all but Larry Ellison's reality distortion field appears to be alive and well over there). In a lot of ways, the "locked in users" is the internet we have, today, but the companies from back then largely didn't become the winners in today's locked-in world (save Amazon).
[0] See my other comment for the variety of things that Microsoft at least owes to Nadella's willingness to reshape internal culture in a way I wouldn't have expected would be possible.