Satya Nadella is the Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, appointed in February 2014. Since joining Microsoft in 1992, he has worked in various leadership roles where he helped transform several key lines of products. He was the Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise group and led the transformation of Microsoft to cloud services surprisingly successful transition that made the company lead in cloud market share. Before that, he managed the R&D for the Online Services Division and was Vice President of the Microsoft Business Division. He used to work at Sun Microsystems earlier in his career.
Satya Nadella, born on August 19, 1967, in Hyderabad, India, is an Indian-born business executive who became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014. He grew up in Hyderabad and graduated in electrical engineering in 1988 from MIT Manipal and graduated with a Master of Science degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, in USA, in 1990. After his studies, he joined Sun Microsystems, Inc, after which he moved to work at Microsoft in his later career.
Nadella was born in a well-educated Telugu family in 1967. His father, Bukkapuram Nadella, was an Indian Administrative Service officer, and his mother, Prabhavati, was a Sanskrit lecturer. He completed his schooling at Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet and pursued his B.Sc. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from MIT Manipal in 1988.
After graduating in India, he flew out of the country and enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue a master's degree in computer science, which he completed in 1990. Initially, he worked with Sun Microsystems on the technological aspect of organization and later his career began with Microsoft in 1992.
Satya Nadella led the enterprise and consumer divisions of Microsoft before assuming the position of chief executive. He was the company's Executive Vice President over the Cloud and Enterprise group, responsible for computing platforms, developer tools, and cloud services for the firm. He was instrumental in helping transform Microsoft into the world's largest provider of public cloud infrastructure. He now heads Microsoft's Server & Tools business, with $19 billion in annual revenues, where he is overseeing a massive pivot from traditional client-server software to cloud infrastructure-as-a-service, the core business of Microsoft.
Nadella has built AI at the core of Microsoft's strategy and spent heavily on AI infrastructure, partnerships, and skilling programs to make the company a leader in the AI revolution.
In May 2024, Microsoft announced a US$2.2 billion investment over four years to accelerate Malaysia's digital transformation and make it its largest investment in the country's 32-year history. It included the infrastructure of cloud and AI, training of 200,000 individuals on AI, collaborating with the Malaysian government in establishing a national AI Centre of Excellence, and enhancing cybersecurity as well as boosting the growth of Malaysia's developer community.
In May 2024, Microsoft unveiled its largest investment in France to date in acceleration of AI use, skills development, and innovation. It aims to invest €4 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure to train 1 million and assist 2,500 AI startups by 2027
In May 2024, Microsoft announced a significant investment that will position Southeast Wisconsin as the hub for growth in the economy, innovation, and jobs by AI. The package includes $3.3 billion in cloud computing and AI infrastructure, the nation's first manufacturing-focused AI co-innovation lab, and an effort to give critical AI skills to more than 100,000 residents.
In April 2024, Microsoft announced a US$1.7 billion investment over four years in Indonesia to enhance cloud and AI infrastructure, including AI training for 840,000 individuals and helping the country's growing developer community. It biggest investment made by the company during its 29-year stay in Indonesia. These are government steps toward realizing its Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which will place the country in a towering position as a world leader in all dimensions of powers.
In February 2024, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at an event in Mumbai that the company will train 2 million people in AI by the end of 2025. There would be engagement in partnerships with governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, corporate partners, and local communities to equip future workers in support of the promise of AI
Microsoft 365 Copilot was announced by Microsoft in March of 2023 as an AI assistant to apps such as Word, Excel, and Teams aimed at the amplification of creativity and productivity. It also unveiled Business Chat, which, through natural language prompts, would interact with users' calendars, emails, and documents, allowing them to generate updates based on recent communications.
In January 2023, Microsoft made a multibillion-dollar, multiyear investment in its partnership with OpenAI to accelerate AI advancements and ensure benefits for everybody. This program builds on a series of previous investments targeting improvements in AI supercomputing, increasing infrastructure on Azure, and the OpenAI models to be deployed across Microsoft's products. The two firms are committed to the responsible development of AI so that it is accessible to as many people as possible.
In January 2023, Microsoft introduced VALL-E, which is the text-to-speech synthesis model capable of reproducing any voice by audio input where it uses a neural codec model tokenizes speech to generate waveforms that accurately depict the speaker's timbre and emotional tone. This model produces quality customized speech without much engineering or fine-tuning to support contextual learning and prompt-based approaches for zero-shot TTS.
In June 2018, Microsoft announced its agreement to acquire GitHub, the leading software development platform with over 28 million developers collaborating to innovate. This partnership aims to empower developers throughout the development lifecycle, enhance enterprise adoption of GitHub, and extend Microsoft’s developer tools and services to new users.
As of 2024, Satya Nadella's net worth is estimated to be more than $1.03 billion. He possesses more than 78,353 Microsoft shares, amounting to approximately $365.6 million. He sold more than $625.4 million worth of Microsoft shares during the last 13 years. Apart from his stocks, he receives compensation worth around $42.9 million per year as an annual salary in his role as both Chief Executive Officer and Director of the giant, Microsoft.
He has at least reported 21 trades of Microsoft stocks since 2011 from SEC filings. His latest trade was on 4 Sep 2024 when he sold 78,353 shares worth $32.01 million. In a single trade, he sold 838,584 shares for more than $285.4 million on 22 Nov 2021. His average trade is about 40,575 shares in almost every 64 days.
Satya Nadella worked his way through the ranks of Microsoft's management. He was by 1999, VP of the Central small business service, and by 2001, Corporate VP of Microsoft Business Solutions. In 2007, he became SVP of R&D for the online services division. Between 2011-2013, he was President of the Server and Tools business, which generated some $19 billion in annual revenue. While in this role, Nadella also oversaw Microsoft's cloud computing platform as the Executive Vice President through which services such as Bing, Xbox Live, and Office 365 are delivered.
US-China Rivalry: Microsoft announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42, the UAE's leading AI firm, amid rising competition from tech giants like Amazon and Google in the Middle East, last month, and that's early August 2024. The region offers advantages such as abundant data, huge financial resources, and a regulatory environment, but challenges come along with the U.S.-China rivalry to dominate AI and national security concerns.
Internal Diversity: In July 2024, Microsoft was criticized after downsizing its internal diversity, equity, and inclusion team citing "changing business needs," as a team leader called this a retreat on previously core initiatives. It has sparked concerns about the commitment of the company to its diversity-related commitments.
Microsoft and Mistral AI Controversy: The strategic partnership between Microsoft and French AI firm Mistral AI drew flak from European parliamentarians in February 2024, most of whom felt upset by changes to the EU AI Act which seemed to play into companies such as Mistral's favor. This is said to thwart the French government's drive for European tech supremacy independent of Chinese or US companies.
Data Privacy and Ownership: In February 2024, Elon Musk criticized Microsoft's account requirement for his new PC, stating that this may allow the company's AI to access his computer. His words reignited the discussion on the control and leverage of AI technology, as well as data privacy and ownership in the digital age. Vendors vented anger at Microsoft by citing recurring security vulnerabilities in 2023, this includes issues of lack of transparency, frequent patch bypasses, and inconsistent communication practices.
Security Practices: In 2023, Microsoft faced intense criticism for its security practices, particularly concerning Azure, with Tenable's CEO labeling the company as “grossly irresponsible” amid allegations of a “toxic obfuscation” culture. These followed revelations of severe vulnerabilities that allowed state-backed hackers to access sensitive data, raising concerns over Microsoft's response time and transparency in addressing these critical security issues.
Foreign Bribery Case: In July 2019, Microsoft's subsidiary in Hungary agreed to pay $8.7 million in criminal penalties to settle a case of foreign bribery that involved improper payments. This resolution was focused on addressing issues related to corrupt practices in their business operations.
Corrupt Practices: In July 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Microsoft Corporation agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle charges for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to its operations in four foreign subsidiaries.
In June 2019, Microsoft removed its extensive facial recognition dataset, MS Celeb, after privacy concerns arose regarding its use by military researchers and surveillance firms. The dataset, which included over 10 million faces, was criticized for featuring images of non-celebrities who were unaware their photos were used.
Facial Data: In June 2019, the company removed its large facial recognition dataset, MS Celeb, offline following concerns over its intended use for military researchers as well as surveillance firms. Some 10 million faces had been collected in the dataset, which contained pictures of not just celebrities but also many unknown persons whose pictures appeared without their knowledge.