Podcast Review | Masters of Scale – Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO)

By Brendan York | Portfolio Manager at NAOS Asset Management

Podcast Review | masters of scale - satya nadella (microsoft ceo)

Companies don’t just need founders… they also need re-founders. As businesses scale, re-founders keep mission and culture on track, and responsive to a changing world.

To achieve massive scale, you don’t just need founders, you also need a re-founder – someone to come in at a later stage to keep the mission and culture on track. As Microsoft’s third CEO ever — after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer — Satya Nadella is doing just that. He’s fostered a culture at Microsoft that rewards new ideas and makes room for feedback. Satya discusses how, as Chairman and CEO, he has transformed Microsoft from a cutthroat culture towards embracing social networks, collaboration, and cloud.

This is an interesting discussion around the balance for second or third generation CEO’s coming into a business to both carry on the culture that had been created by the founder but then also bring new ideas and creativity to the business to keep it going and take it on its next strategic journey. The concept of the re-founder also needing to articulate things that had simply been implied by the founder or founders of a business is discussed as well. Satya also talks in depth about the process of “hitting refresh” for areas like culture and mission which is a remarkable achievement given the size and scale of Microsoft.

Link to podcast

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