“Our ambitions are bold and so must be our desire to change and evolve our future” - Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft)

The Then Status Quo

In 2014, Microsoft lost its lead and its mojo. The growth rate hunkered down in comparison to its competitors and its share price had barely budged for years. Ambitious new product pushes of the past decade had won skimpy market shares at great expense.

Beginning of a New Era

Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO from Steve Balimer, as outsiders questioned if the company will “make it to the other side”. “Innovation was being replaced by bureaucracy. Teamwork was being replaced by internal politics. We were falling behind,” said Nadella describing Microsoft's situation.

Dethroning Windows

Under Nadella, Microsoft set aside Windows operating system as its core product. He brought Microsoft's software and services to mobile operating systems dominated by Apple and Google. He also included “Open source” Linux, in its services like cloud and windows 10.

Catching Clouds

Nadella's masterpiece was putting Microsoft's cloud-computing arm, Azure launched in 2010 at the heart of the business. Today, Azure successfully competes with Amazon Web Services & Alphabet's Google Cloud in the market.

We are Partners!

With Nadella at the helm, Microsoft has tried to make itself out to be less of a treat and more of a collaborative partner and put aside the rivalries. It has formed partnerships with competitors like Dropbox, Red Hat, Salesforce and Amazon.

Major Acquisitions

Since Nadella took over as CEO in February 2014, Microsoft has acquired close to 90 companies over the years. He paid up big for acquisitions including $26.2 billion for LinkedIn in 2016 and $7.5 billion for GitHub.

A Philosophical Rebirth

Nadella devoted much of his first year listening to employees at every level and introduced the psychological concept of “Growth mindset” as a mantra at Microsoft. He made employees move from being know-it-alls to a culture of collaboration that best leverages diverse knowledge.

If you don't jump on the new, you don't survive

Microsoft in Numbers

During the Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella's tenure

• Shares of Microsoft stock are up 600 %
• Market Capitalization from $380 billion in 2014 to $2.2 trillion in 2021.
• Microsoft reported quarterly revenue of $46.2 billion in recent quarter.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity - Albert Einstein