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Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO
- DunbarTrout 13y agoSatya Nadella's Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
- suprjami 13y agoWhat an article. "It could be this person. Or this one. Or this one or this one or this one or this entire list of people."
- 0A0D66 13y agoWhat? It mentions one name for CEO and one for chairman. The last bit is just names that were looked at during the process.
- jonhohle 13y agoFrom one former Milwaukeean to another, I hope this kicks more recruiters to the area. With three major universities in the city, there was a dismal number of national recruiters dropping by when I lived there (about a decade ago now, maybe things are different).
- swalsh 13y agoI grew up in the Milwaukee area, but eventually moved to Boston. I think it produces a decent amount of talent (my school had a great technical program) but there's not a lot of interesting employers there.
- billpaetzke 13y agoI grew up in Milwaukee and (in 2002) applied only to California universities because I thought the tech industry/opportunities out there were much more substantial, and I'd have a leg up on professional networking. Has worked out well. YMMV
- owenwil 13y agoThat's disappointing. I was really hoping that it would be someone external to the company who would be visionary enough to take them to new heights. Instead, they're picking the safe, enterprise bet, who won't change things too much. I would say Microsoft's consumer facing days are numbered.
- swalsh 13y agoAs a Microsoft Developer, I don't want a Microsoft with new vision. I want a Microsoft that will continue to build a great platform to build business applications on. We moved away from WPF after Windows 8. We gravitated towards ASP.NET MVC, but increasingly started using Angular JS. While I love these new javascript libs, I miss the great tool set that Microsoft always provided. Without that, I think we can eventually move completely off Microsoft without looking back.
- amaks 13y agoYou do realize that you're confirming the previous point of the "consumer side days are numbered". Platforms for business applications are not good for consumers.
- angersock 13y agoThey basically own the entire PC market, and most of the enterprise market. What more do you want? It's like bitching that Walmart hasn't cornered Starbucks. Jesus.
- MartinCron 13y agoWhat more do you want? Tablets, phones, and portable media devices that aren't just punchlines and/or punching bags, maybe?
- mikeash 13y agoThe thing is, the "PC market" is rather artificially defined to be that market in which Microsoft dominates. If you take the generic concept of "personal computer", what people were using those for five or ten years ago, people are now often using smartphones and tablets. Due to how the market is segmented for analysis, this isn't counted against Microsoft, but the money doesn't care how we segment it. The PC, in the long term, is going to be a niche market. Not today, not tomorrow, but in 5, 10, 20 years, a Microsoft that owns the entire PC market and little else will be a tiny, broken Microsoft. If we count tablets in with PCs, then MS's "PC" monopoly is already gone. Tablets are selling around 1/3rd of what PCs are selling, so that gives MS a 75% share. If we count smartphones in with PCs, then PCs almost disappear. Smartphones make up about 60% of the combined smartphone+tablet+PC market, with tablets making up another 10%, giving PCs 30%. I'm sure you'd point out how PCs are still very popular, how MS still makes tons of money off them, how they're not going anywhere soon, etc. And I completely agree. But in the long term, it's not going to last, not in the form it exists now. I'm sure MS could do decently well for a very long time as they are, but they will stagnate and they will eventually shrink if they do so. They might remain powerful, but not to anywhere near the same degree. For your Wal-Mart analogy, imagine if Wal-Mart totally owned retail sales, but "retail" was defined to exclude all online sales, and Amazon was selling 3x as much stuff as Wal-Mart once you counted online. Even as Wal-Mart owned the "retail" market and remained profitable, it would be completely reasonable to think that they might need to change.
- jedmeyers 13y agoMy personal opinion is that for Microsoft this is a much better solution than to hire an external CEO with an MBA and no background in software/technology. If the news are true then I wish all the luck to Mr. Nadella.
- zdw 13y agoWhy? My experience has been that handing the reins tech companies over to accountants or "business people" has been fair to disastrous more frequently than handing them over to tech people with some business training.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Touche 13y agoWere those the only choices?
- dm8 13y agoI don't think BillG would have allowed hiring someone with an MBA and no background in software/technology. He is still the majority shareholder (from what I've read) and sits on the board.
- alienfluid 13y agoWould it have been better to hire someone from the outside with no experience in software/technology AND no MBA? Just trying to see if you (parent and g-parent) consider an MBA an overall negative signal, regardless of someone's background.
- jmspring 13y agoAll the talk of needing a turn around specialist, I personally don't see it. Really, a visionary or someone who can actually come up with a constructive, actionable plan that grows market share (in realm of focus) and revenues makes sense to me. I would like someone less steeped in the monoculture that is Redmond, but Satya will be a solid choice. Tony Bates would be my preference for "internal candidate". Of course these are just my personal opinions. If Bill Gates is removed as Chairman that will be a major change.
- keithwarren 13y agoI think an interesting side effect of this; his vacating of the Cloud/Enterprise role provides a natural succession up the chain for Scott Guthrie. It also gives Scott (who has more of an effect on the Microsoft dev community than any other person) a direct pipeline and solid personal relationship with the CEO.
- abuqutaita 13y agoIf Satya is indeed promoted to CEO, Soma -- not Scott -- will be promoted to EVP.
- keithwarren 13y agoI imagine that Satya would know the people well and where he wants them so we may see some shuffling in the next 6-9 months. Scott is a great public persona and clicks with developers far more than Soma. Soma is stronger operationally and there are going to be other ops critical roles to fill because Satya's elevation to CEO will certainly cause some high level people to leave. Going to be an interesting next couple years.
- amaks 13y agoBig mistake IMO. I can't imagine Satya "the enterprise guy" being CEO of the devices company (he's probably qualified to be CEO for the "services" part of Microsoft). I'm wondering if him and Elop would work as co-CEOs, but history shows that's not a good idea either.
- graving 13y agoHe was a lead on Bing and was working on Windows earlier. That's hardly enterprise.
- hueving 13y agoNobody uses bing and Windows is largely enterprise. The entire value of Windows is enterprise management.
- sirkneeland 13y agoI use Bing. Voluntarily, mind you.
- cdh 13y agoI like Bing, I've found it to be excellent. I've been using it for about a year now, and there's no way I'm going back to Google now.
- nivla 13y ago>Nobody uses bing Not sure if you are trying to pull out the old faded joke or being truly serious. Bing has about 18%-27% market share depending on Organic vs Powered By. No I am not nitpicking a specific blog article, infact its the first summarized link on a Google search for "Bing market share". Bing also powers Siri, which is another major contributor. >Windows is largely enterprise. Its revenue may be largely enterprise but its still a monopoly in the consumer side. Infact I can blindly bet that majority of users here on HN is using Windows. [1] http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2307115/Google-Fails-to-Gain-Search-Market-Share-Bing-Steals-From-Yahoo http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2307115/Google-Fails-to...
- dredmorbius 13y agoObservations: ⚫ This spot's proving very difficult to fill. Both in terms of finding the right person, and in getting them to accept. It's been 160 days from the initial announcement of Ballmer's retirement. ⚫ Given Ballmer's long-standing deficiencies and publicly-voiced dissatisfaction with his performance, this also speaks to very poor succession planning on the part of the Board. This would be they: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx ⚫ Enterprise + cloud is probably a safe pick for now. It suggests a de-emphasis of consumer and mobile, and a retrenchment to core strengths, if not enduring ones. ⚫ I'm not sold that bringing in external talent solves problems that insiders can't tackle. The insiders will be well aware of strengths and weaknesses, the challenge is in acting on them given existing internal relationships and politics.
- rbanffy 13y agoEnterprise is the high-inertia segment in Microsoft's product portfolio and the one most at risk of disruption by SaaS players. Emphasizing it makes a lot of sense. The problem of insiders is that they may embrace the culture that brought the company to where it is now. It's not always a good thing.
- mastermojo 13y agoI'm pretty sure Microsoft is a pretty big player in Enterprise SaaS already.
- rbanffy 13y agoThey are, but that's also the market where their lock-in has least effect.
- dredmorbius 13y agoQuite. The biggest lock-ins are from Office formats, and Active Directory integration with network and communications services. Crack either of those and the bulwark starts to crumble rapidly.
- keithwarren 13y agoBackground != Direction All this banter about it being a bad choice or a good choice because Satya's current role is enterprise focused is just goofy. Had Elop been chosen we would not be acting as if Microsoft is only a phone company now and is abandoning the enterprise.
- chc 13y agoI think the unspoken logic here is that Microsoft is already doing great in the enterprise and poorly on devices, so hiring somebody with the same distribution of strengths and weaknesses will just exacerbate the weaknesses without helping the strengths all that much (since they're already strong there).
- philwelch 13y agoOr maybe it will signal that Microsoft is serious about being an enterprise software company and might stop wasting money and mindshare on chasing trends it can't ever catch.
- gtirloni 13y agoDoes a CEO have to have a long background in all areas a company as big as Microsoft has a foot in? Aren't we looking for the magical unicorn that has excelled in the enterprise, consumer devices and who knows, green energy all in a single lifetime? I think it's a fallacy to think a CEO with an enterprise background wouldn't (or couldn't) let the consumer division prosper. That he/she would hinder it or something.
- cwp 13y agoThe observation that Satya's division is doing well is an argument against him?
- chc 13y agoAs much as saying "I think this person should keep doing what he's doing because he's really good at it" can be said to be speaking against someone. This isn't my own opinion, mind you. I don't know enough about this whole issue to have an opinion of my own. I'm just explaining where I think the disconnect is. I think the people who don't like the choice of Satya dislike it because they feel Satya is doing as well as he can do in his current position, and Microsoft needs to bring in a different skill set in order to make the company good in areas where it isn't already.
- nl 13y agoAs I said 50 days ago[1] Nadella was always the most likely internal candidate. It's a choice that makes some sense to me - he's a technologist, which I think is important (note that at some point the Ford CEO was tipped). However, his background is all in Enterprise software. Microsoft's most successful products recently have all been in the Enterprise field, so that reflects well on him. But there have to be questions about his experience with consumer software. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6871957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6871957
- exelius 13y agoMicrosoft really isn't a consumer company: they make all their profit from enterprise software. Ballmer's biggest mistake was trying to convince an elephant to become a mouse. What he left was a mess that needs a lot of cleaning up. It doesn't help that he reorganized the company 6 months ago, effectively preventing his successor from making any substantial changes from the Ballmer way. Given the number of people that were mentioned as front runners in this CEO search over the last few months, this seems to be a job that nobody outside Microsoft wants. Nadella was always the most likely internal candidate, and it really feels like they're settling on him because everyone external candidate they wanted turned them down.
- blah32497 13y ago"Microsoft really isn't a consumer company" yeah, except the video game market and the whole hardware market... It's definitely the most obvious area for growth that they have available. The enterprise market is more or less saturated by them already. They're sorta trying to push their cloud solution, but they're late to that game. They aren't going to sell a whole bunch more of MS Office... It's a segment that will continue to develop organically, but the place where they really wanna be dumping cash on is definitely the consumer market. I know everyone hates on Balmer, but he seemed to follow a very sensibly strategy and there seems to have been a genuinely big effort to integrate their different platforms and services into something that pleasant to use and develope for. At least stylistically, Windows RT, 8, Phone and Xbox are identical. The underlying "meat" is in wonderful languages (C#/F#), with a great IDE (VS13), with - from what I understand - and well made new libraries. They've also aggressively tried to cut out the old moldy stuff, and have paid for it in the short term (ex: Windows RT not supporting Win32 & Windows Phone 7 not being very compatible with Windows Phone 8)
- sirkneeland 13y agoA lot of Nokia employees are probably happy it isn't going to be Stephen Elop. I know this one is.
- rbanffy 13y agoI'm personally sad. Elop has much better comedic value. Nadella can even turn the company around and save it from irrelevance.
- sirkneeland 13y agoIndeed, but it is less comedic when you watched the destruction from within...
- rbanffy 13y agoI have to admit it's much more fun to watch from the outside. Good luck with the change.
- nokia_chi 13y agoAs a former NOKIAn I am sad. I want to see MS go down in flames and without Elop it's gonna be difficult. However Indians are also very talented at destroying the spirit of their own companies and alienating their users (see Harman or Adobe) so there is a hope...
- kyberias 13y agoI'm sorry that you're sad. It's also sad to create a new account just to bash people.
- sirkneeland 13y agoAs a current Nokian I find your attitude to be unrepresentative of what Nokia stands for, and unfair to the great many Nokians of Indian descent who helped make Nokia the incredible company it was.
- 13y ago
- brudgers 13y agoThe selection of an internal post IPO candidate makes the most cultural sense. If Sinofsky had not incurred a billion dollar fine by failing to include browser choice in the EU version of Windows 8, it might have been him.
- katherat 13y agoAmid suspicions that Microsoft is having trouble finding the perfect person to fill this role, Satya makes sense. I've always thought of him as an incredibly talented administrator rather than a brilliant general. He's a known person within Microsoft who can be a caretaker for the organization while the hunt for a CEO who can lead the next charge can continue.
- spiralpolitik 13y agoIt's a bit of a poisoned chalice for someone outside of Microsoft as if Gates and Balmer remain on the board as any new CEO will be continually undermined by people "going to Bill/Steve". To appointment someone from inside Microsoft is simply rearranging the deck chairs. Best thing for Microsoft would be to hire an outsider who will come in with an unbiased eye and clear out the deadwood to give new growth a chance or to milk the cash cows to their inevitable conclusions. To be able to do this you need Bill and Steve and their old guard out of the way.
- hardwaresofton 13y agoOn topic: I do not think this guy (or any CEO) of Microsoft is going to be able drive Microsoft in any true sense of the word. Gates is not going anywhere. Off topic: I might be the only one who came in here excitedly expecting to see a Female CEO of Microsoft. Kind of disappointed when I saw the picture and it's just another balding dude. No I'm not female or a feminist, just kind of excited for drastic progressive change that I personally favor (I think more girls should be in tech, especially in leadership)
- umeshunni 13y ago> excitedly expecting to see a Female An informal search seems to indicate that around 1/5 of Satyas are female, so I can see why you thought so.
- computerslol 13y agoI'm looking forward to learning more about him in the coming weeks. I'm glad it's a tech guy.
- barce 13y agoHis twitter seems to suggest he really is into keeping up with the latest trends. https://twitter.com/satyanadella https://twitter.com/satyanadella The article states there was a 5 month search. I'm glad they are hiring within the ranks.
- alienfluid 13y agoIs there a strong correlation between being active on Twitter and being a successful CEO?
- onezeno 13y agoI think the point was "keeping up with the latest trends".
- ScottWhigham 13y agoI agree. But, that said, I don't know that "people who are active on Twitter" and "people who are up on the latest trends" are always connected (which is what was implied).
- GBond 13y agoHis last tweet was in 2010 so there is room for both interpretations
- gesman 13y agoNadella is a perfect fit for MSFT CEO. MSFT's power and potential is in everything enterprise and Nadella understands this (or rather passionate about this) universe from top to bottom better than any other candidate.
- shanselman 13y agoTotally. He's wicked smart, very nice, and both a techie and a business guy. Note: He's my boss, 4 bosses up.
- Maarten88 13y agoScott, Good to see you comment positively on this. Does he share your views on openness? Does he listen to the opinions of forward-thinking Microsoft devs? Do you think he'd read Hacker News?
- shanselman 13y agoI know he reads voraciously, so it's possible he's reading HN. He totally listens to forward-thinking devs. ScottGu works for him, so he's been leading us as we've been doing all this open source work on Azure and ASP.NET.
- HashThis 13y agoThis won't end well. Microsoft is a bubble with an echo-chamber internally. Their employees are in the 1990s era, which is making DVD application software (Word, etc.). The problem is that they still think that way. Senior managers are from the 1990s. Or they hired from colleges and sheep dipped people in the same thinking. People from startups and industry don't last long there, and definitely don't rise in management. The reason startup or industry people don't rise in Microsoft is that they are rejected as not matching the 1990s way of doing things. Examples: Their UI innovation was in WPF because someone forgot to tell them that UI dev now happens on web pages and iPhone. Hotmail is a joke. MSN is a joke. Web hosted office 365 is a joke. Exchange web UI and client main usage is for 1990s customers and not 2010 customers. C# is charging in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms. (aka, they were late to MVC, Hadoop, Linux server hosting, etc.) They push Windows OS lock-in to win (but that fails). The right leader comes from Silicon Valley in a startup gone big. That right leader will then replace many of the other leaders in MSFT with Silicon Valley highly strategic leaders. When the CEO is a Microsoft person, they will keep the same Microsoft 1990s style internal leaders and nothing will change in the category of what needs to change.
- droopybuns 13y agoI like all of your thoughts except that the leader has to come from a Silicon Valley startup gone big. I just don't agree. There's too much risk of a culture clash. At the altitude that MS flies- you need someone who knows how to pilot gargantuan ships. I'd way rather see someone from a fortune 50 company take the reigns. There's a huge difference between developing a horse to be an olympic competitor and riding a horse to multiple championships.
- kbutler 13y agoHave any examples of a startup leader taking over a large, mature company and doing well? Seems like the skill sets of driving a race car don't necessarily transfer well to locomotives. People who thrive at building a startup often are not particularly successful taking over a mature business. Meg Whitman comes to mind, though HP has its own world of hurt.
- Locke1689 13y ago
- data_app 13y agowhat? After all this ruckus..
- sytelus 13y agoSatya is no Steve Jobs or Larry Page. He is typical corporate ladder climber who took 22 years in the company to get to where he is. Before you credit with all the profits in server & tools, make a note that he was in Bing and did not had any major impact in direction or turnaround. Microsoft divisions are setup in such a way that if you put a monkey on the top (or even Steve Ballmer, for that matter) for a year or two, it will still make same amount of profits because of licensing deals. Satya also hasn't brought anything dramatic or revolutionary in his current job. Azure is still irrelevant and Dev Tools still has little impact on Windows or vice versa. So Satya would be your choice if you want "stability", no fear of any dramatic changes and "easy as she goes" attitude. Honestly that is the least what Microsoft needs right now. Microsoft is currently pretty much in same situation as Apple was when Steve Jobs arrived. I know, I know, I see you jumping off your chairs quoting last quarterly results and telling me it is far from bankruptcy like was Apple. But have noticed a chart of PC sales for last 3 years? Have you noticed a giant slump in Office that is only matter of time to eat away the growth in server and tools? In any case, I really think Micosoft needs a bold bet, not someone conservative. It needs someone who would come in and say, this size of 100K employees is bullshit, who has courage to remove about 60% of crud that has been accumulated in form of MBAs, PMs, "Business Managers", GMs and their 13+ levels of hierarchy. Someone who would have balls to say managers are overhead, less important and there needs to be 30 reports per manager (instead of current 3-7). Someone who can personally deeply dive in to products and send out "30 things to fix and improve" every Friday night. Someone who will go to end of the Earth to get the best talent in industry. Someone who insist on best customer experience and signs off his/her name on each product release saying that he personally has tested and used every customer facing aspect of the product and is happy with it. Someone who would never let crapeware like Windows 8 get through the door. Someone who insist on same OS for Phone and Tablets. Someone who would not hesitate to move org charts if things don't work out as intended. As far as I'm aware Satya is neither of these. He is your regular MBA with tech experience who can keep the ship steady in good weather.
- ct 13y agoThe biggest priority for new CEO is to get the two major divisions OS and Devs on the same page instead of bickering and reinventing the UI several times over from other groups. Secondly, he needs to put focus on UI design and usability instead of having engineering lead the way.