Welcome to the Room: A lesson in leadership by Satya Nadella
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This is the same guy that shoved AI down the throats of millions of Windows users that forced me to just turn off Windows updates and add bazzite in dual boot.
I remember a long time ago I was talking to an executive that worked at a startup that was eventually acquired by Cisco. After the acquisition, the executive team got coaches to train them to be "inspirational" leaders. One thing that was common was adding a quote from say Marcus Arelius in the signature of their emails to make them sound wiser.
We need to stop this hero worship. Microsoft built a moat, and capitalized on it. They used their connections to block others from coming into the fray.
I don't care what their theory of success is, their definition is cancerous; a malignant one.
So he did his job.
In 10 years we may well look back at Nadela as the "the man who killed Microsoft" or at least "the man who destroyed Microsoft's position as a top 10 tech firm", and shareholders wont be too happy.
I laugh because if this guy had any foresight, he wouldn't have to beg users to love AI, it would sell itself.
But I wonder how many people will be using Azure once the market moves away from windows software. I don't think they have any edge other than windows tie-ins (e.g. Azure ID)
If there are no consequences to prioritizing shareholder value at the expense of product utility or ecosystem value, then we are going to get less value from the products that we purchase over time.
This is why the economy doesn't work anymore. We've been swimming in toxic waters for so long that we think it is completely normal to prioritize shareholder value at the expense of everything else; greed is good.
How does that improve things for customers? This ridiculous affinity for increasing the stock price at the expense of all else is why so many tech products are degrading. Google, MS, Apple, etc.
Hence why they spend so much time on vanity.
Please don't give it to them. They are not special. They are not unique. The vast majority of people on this Earth can do an equivalent job if you gave them the same amount of resources (in this case a monopoly worth trillions).
I wonder what this will look like in 20 years from now.
“Don’t come whining that you don’t have the resources you need. We’ve done our homework. We’ve evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities and allocated our available resources to those opportunities. That is what you have to work with.”
Right out of the gate they’re telling you that your judgment is irrelevant to the scope of the problem. Immediately the chances of success are reduced quite a bit because the SME is not trusted to help craft the terms of engagement. If you aren’t at the table to help draft the terms of engagement, to help define the scope and to help define the resources needed, you’re always going to be working from someone else’s plan. Success is defined by not by your ability to execute, but someone else’s ability to plan. They’re telling you that you may be the SME, but they’re the ones who will be making the judgement calls. Politics has risen above engineering and above business strategy.
“You only have 2 controls: 1) The clarity, culture, and energy you give your teams ; and 2) Resource allocation .”
Except we’ve determined you don’t get much of a say in resource allocation, they’ve allocated the resources you get. If you determine the way to win with the plan you were given is to change that, you have to convince other people why their planning was wrong, and that’s rarely easy.
And you, as a leader, have far more than “clarity, culture, and energy”, too.
This shows that some of the major flaws that drove me out of a cushy role in MS in 2004 are still there today. I think Nadella is a better leader than Ballmer in knowing how to respond to markets, but this speech explains to me with crystal clarity why the AI push has gone so poorly. They think they can still dictate the terms of engagement with the market.
Anyone could solve every problem in the world, if only they had the resources. However, it's also an extremely convenient and versatile excuse. I think removing this excuse is more important than any downside you mention.
At my company I see people hiding behind the "I don't have the resources" excuse literally several times a day.
My point isn't that the resources are fixed, I can do more with less than the vast majority of people, it's that the job holder had no say in what resources were allocated. When you're not part of the planning, you're not part of leadership, and that entire meeting was a fraud because no one there actually had the proper agency to succeed.
..and your job is to allocate the resources you have been given.
I can repeat things too! This means your success is not yours, that your job is to implement someone else's plan, so you're not really a leader.
https://archive.org/details/Microsoft_We_Set_The_Standard_We...
Like this was some deep insightful journey and not your entirely typical cheerleader corpo-speak.
I can't believe anyone actually wrote this.
Literally the only metric that’s been good has been market cap, but that will not last forever if they continue with their current trajectory.
Today? All anybody except for Microsoft’s C suite execs want Copilot to do is turn itself off.
He’s an idiot. Ballmer 2.0, except even Ballmer got some cloud stuff right.
Satya's speech is essentially the same one Steve Jobs used to give to new VP's at Apple[0].
[0]https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/steve-jobs-said-1-thing-separ...
Jobs may have been nightmarish to work for. But he had reputation for demanding excellence in his products.
MSFT? Not so much.
But this only serves to reduce my confidence that much more in the ELTs which have sired the modern incoherent shiny-object-obsessed ecosystem that is Windows and MS at large.
Revolting sycophancy is not a good sign for the leadership culture.
IME, it's the status quo. We all would do well to keep that in mind whenever we read something they write, listen to an interview or speech they give, or get their "wisdom" repeated to us second- or third-hand.
Given the dynamics here that could be the main selection pressure on them.
You seem to think this guy is going to go ask Nadella "hey, did you read my blog post?"
If this sticks, before long no one will be able to say anything other than flattery, and critical thinking is over.
Have you seen the recent windows update bugs, the enshitification of office, recall, bing, etc..
I don't know who else to blame but Nadella for all of that.
Seems more like the guy would be a great politician, great speech to inspire fresh employee, but delivers nothing in reality.
Satya has also completely fucked Windows and has been unable/unwilling/uninterested in making it a product that people love. Satya has led to people hating Windows.
Both things can be true. Paul Graham (bless the maker and his passing) declared MSFT dead, but it came back strong.
The copilot fiasco is classic Microsoft Bob territory. They have so much entrenched tech in govt and big corps they can shamble on for years.
Typical Microsoft, not great, not the worst but the overpriced fast casual hamburger of the tech world. An ok meal, somewhat disappointing leaving you feeling greasy with a feeling you paid too much but you know you’ll be back.
That is not someone you should not take advice from.
Now I'll probably get my kids MacBooks, despite how buggy MacOS has become. Or maybe a Framework laptop with Linux, if they're feeling adventurous.
His ass was a bit hairy, but damn, it was sweet. /s
I sure don't want to be led by these little girls.