324. Extra: Satya Nadella Full Interview

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the C. E. O. of Microsoft, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C. E. O.”

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens,

• 0:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it, which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life, like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FDIC. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right

• 1:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves, like gym access or breakfast, just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you

• 2:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  create finished work. You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the Scheduled Tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.

• 2:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, this is Stephen Dubner. You are about to hear a conversation with Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. It was recorded in September, soon after Nadella published a book called Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone. The interview is done for our six-part series, The Secret Life of a CEO. And now, we are releasing, as special episodes like this one, our full, lightly-edited conversations. Some of the facts in here are already outdated. Microsoft's market cap, for instance, has grown a lot more than the $250 billion since we spoke. Hope you enjoy.

• 3:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hello, it's Stephen Dubner. Is that Satya?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yes, it is. Hi, Stephen. How are you?

• 3:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Great to meet you. Thank you. How are you?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Likewise. Thank you for having me.

• 3:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, great. So, first of all, if you would just say your name and what you do.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

• 3:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Very good. Now, Satya, the market cap of Microsoft has risen more than $250 billion during your three-year tenure. Microsoft employees are said to be happier now than they've been in quite some time. Everyone seems to love, or at least like, Satya Nadella. So, I want to know, are you enjoying yourself as well? Or are you just leading the back?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I mean, I think the time is right to hit refresh. Because, in some sense, the idea that a lot of progress has been made is not how I look at it. I think, if anything, at least, I hope, for us, we are clearly grounded in all the things that we can do better in terms of whether it's the products we build, the capability we create, or the culture we have. And on all three fronts, I feel there's a lot to be done. I'm proud of the progress, but it's not sufficient. If anything, my entire purpose of this book, at least, was, look, this process is a continuous

• 4:42Speaker 01

  process of renewal. It's not a destination that one reaches.

• 4:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's no secret, and you make no secret of it, that a lot of people were hoping for an outsider to be appointed CEO of Microsoft. But you're a lifer. I gather there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm internally when you were named. Talk about how that perception seems to have changed, at least as far as you can tell. Have people come up to you and said, you know, I wasn't so sure you were the right choice, but now I'm liking where we're heading? What do you hear?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  You know, when I think back at it, ultimately, I think anyone should evaluate people based on their ability to perform. And so I think that it is appropriate, whether it's internally or externally, to be skeptical. And I think the board also did the right thing of looking far and wide and then saying, okay, let's take the bet on this person. As you said, I'm a consummate insider, but the one thing that I've tried to do, being someone who's grown up in Microsoft, is have as objective an outside in view. And in the end, the combination of the two, I think, is what helped me lead Microsoft.

• 5:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah. Speaking of the board, let me just ask you one question I've really been curious about. Steve Ballmer, your predecessor, famously pushed to purchase Nokia, the fading mobile phone company, toward the end of his tenure. You voted against it, as you write in your book, but the deal wound up going through a few months after you were appointed CEO. So I'm just curious how this works. First of all, why did the board select a CEO who'd voted against this gigantic recent acquisition? I'm guessing they had asked, you had discussed with them in the interviews for the position, your position on Nokia, correct?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the things, I mean, I write about this in the book, but just to be, you know, put the facts and make them clear. I was not a board or director at Microsoft. I was part of the management team of Steve, so it's not like I had a vote. Steve just went around the room and wanted to get the pulse of his leadership team, and we had a good debate. And as I write in the book, I felt that it is important for us to do Things, given where we were in the mobile space at that point, which was the number three slot with a huge gap between the one, two and three, to do something that was more unique and different and differentiated. And so I was more in favor of that. The Nokia

• 7:14Speaker 01

  acquisition, quite frankly, did give us some hardware capability in, which we now deploy across the company in different ways. But I want to do, after becoming CEO in particular, focus our efforts on participating in mobility broadly defined. I, one of my, the vision that I had was, let's not think about, you know, after all, for example, this is again a lesson I learned, in fact, observing what Steven Bill did, even with Windows. After all, we built Office for the Mac before Windows was even there. So if you look all the way back into our own history, we have precedent for how we can think about our software on other people's endpoints. That's in fact the start of our journey on mobility. But

• 7:58Speaker 01

  mobility is, you know, is not about just the device, it's the mobility of the human experience. So at least I had a vision of how we can think about playing it differently.

• 8:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  And one more question about Nokia before we move, I guess, back in time, actually. So shortly after you were installed as CEO, you shut down Nokia, which resulted in a total write-off of the purchase and about 18,000 jobs lost. What was that? I mean, that's a pretty big deal to be handling, both, you know, the mechanics of it and the emotion of it. Shortly after you come in as a not obvious choice as CEO, just walk me through what that felt like on your way to accomplishing that.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  You know, first of all, I think these hard decisions around what to pick and focus on is something that I believe a CEO uniquely has to do. That's not something that you can delegate. That's not something that someone else can do on your behalf. I mean, ultimately, that's your core responsibility.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  And especially taking those decisions that impact people's lives and livelihood is not easy. It weighs very heavily on me personally. So therefore, I had to think it through. And then, having thought it through and made the decision, we had to execute on it, to your point, where what was of paramount importance was to make sure that the employees being impacted were treated with dignity and were given all opportunities to find their next play, whether inside of the Microsoft or outside. And that was my real concern and priority, and that's where I poured my energy.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  But I knew that I had to make calls on what is it that we are going to do and how are we going to define the core value propositions that we were going to create.

• 9:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  You grew up in India. Your father was a civil servant with a thirst for Marxist ideas to some degree. Your mom was a Sanskrit professor, and as you write, the opposite of a tiger mom. She was really interested in you having a balance between intellect and happiness. You write that you weren't the greatest student, and then you did immigrate to the US. And something you write in the book that really I found fascinating, you've noted that you benefited from good timing or good luck in a number of ways. You write, "The convergence of several tectonic movements helped you along: India's independence from British rule, the American Civil Rights Movement, which changed immigration policy in the US, and the global tech boom."

• 10:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  I know that's a lot to look back on, but for you, for just one person, when you kind of look at that arc and how unlikely it would have been on paper 50 years ago or so, I'm just curious how you assess this whole system and all these events that led to it. And I guess the natural next question would be, what are you trying to do to prolong or to, what are you trying to do to continue to create opportunities for people like yourself?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's... A very important piece here because I mean, I, I, I think I'm a product of two amazingly unique American things. The first is this technology that reached me where I was growing up that even made it possible for me to dream the dream. And then the enlightened American immigration policy that we like to debate, but it allowed me to come here in the first place and live the dream. So I think that that's what's unique about us. That's what is what makes us competitive. That's what I think makes us even be the beacon of hope

• 11:52Speaker 01

  for people who need it the most. And so I believe we should preserve it, we should promote it, we should debate it for sure, because there are things that we may want to change in how it goes, how our immigration policy is implemented, or how complicated it is, or can be simplified. But that said, I'm at least someone who I believe only in America would a story like mine be possible. And so therefore, I look at it and say, wow, if that's the case, then let's make sure. And I will at least do everything I can to make sure I advocate for that.

• 12:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  In addition to you, the CEOs of Google, Adobe, Mastercard, many other big American firms are Indian American, often immigrants like yourself. How do you account for that massive success? Is there anything you all have in common? I'm just really curious your view on that.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, of those companies, other than the Sundar at Google, we all went to the same high school either. So I don't know, maybe it was the water. But I, first of all, I think it's sort of one of those false positives that you can take too much out of, right? Which is, I think each of us have had our own unique story and a unique path. It's after all, a country with billion people.

• 13:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  But a relatively low immigration rate for most, for most of the immigration history, correct?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  That is correct, and I'm not in fact a very deep student, although I think there's been recently a book even written about high skilled Indian immigrants, which at some point, when I get the time, I will read and study. But I think what you're seeing here is that last part of that formula, which is there was this tech boom, especially in the early, starting in the early 90s. There was a good supply of engineering graduates out of the country, and I think market meets supply, demand meets supply, and the enlightened immigration policy, I think, is what made it possible.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  But, and people who've come here have contributed. I think when I look at the South Asian immigrant population, or any other immigration population, immigrant population, whether it's from China or Eastern Europe, when I look at Microsoft, the number of countries and nationalities that are represented, and what they have all brought to American competitiveness is something that I think is only possible in this country, nowhere else. When where else will you found a company and say, let people from 65 countries come here and all become great, well, you know, contributing employees and taxpayers?

• 14:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, but let me ask you to brag just a little bit, maybe more than you're interested in, or maybe be a little bit more jingoistic than you're interested in. But I'm just curious to know, as an Indian, is there anything about your upbringing, your culture, your family structure, your kind of appreciation, the familial appreciation for education and accomplishment and discipline, et cetera? I'm just, I'm really curious to know, because I think people listening to this, I, I understand that you kind of downplay it and say, you know, it may be a false positive and so on, but I think a lot of people listening, say, around the world will want to say, you know, I, whatever they are doing to succeed so brilliantly, if I could, you know, perhaps

• 15:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  mimic just parts of that within my own family and so on, I'm just curious to know if there's anything that you would identify as necessarily Indian.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know, quite honestly, Stephen, which is whether there is anything necessarily Indian. I do believe that there is a certain, you know, structure to the educational system of that country that I think would definitely I benefited from and all the others you mentioned benefited from, like the school, the high school I went to. I think was, I mean, whenever the four or five of us who went there, we all, you know, we were very fond of the place because I think it was formative in very different ways. Shantanu, you know, was a debater, I was a cricketer and we were all, you know, learned

• 16:21Speaker 01

  different things there, but both of us, you know, are fond of that institution. And I think more than anything else, it gave us the freedom to think, learn and pursue bold dreams. But I don't know whether there's anything uniquely Indian about it. When I start talk to people, for example, one of the things that I've, you know, it's amazing to see this generation of people who grew up after the Cultural Revolution. It is in fact, the first generation that went to college after the Cultural Revolution. They are the ones who immigrated and many of them who work as my colleagues at Microsoft, I've had a chance to learn a ton from them. Same thing from Eastern Europe. And, you know,

• 17:02Speaker 01

  when the wall fell and a lot of Eastern European countries started participating in our economy and they came. I think each one of these societies, some of the best and brightest, people with ambition, people in tech, that's, I think, the common thread here. And, in fact, the fact that the US was able to tap into it, that's the story that needs to be written, quite frankly, which is which other place, I mean, think about the timing, right? Oh, yeah, the Berlin Wall fell, but where did they all show up in the Silicon Valley? That's, I think, what we should learn from.

• 17:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, it's a great point. Let's talk about your own family for a bit. You and your wife, who's an architect, have three kids. The eldest, now in his early twenties, has severe cerebral palsy. One of your daughters has learning differences that required her to go to school in Canada. So that obviously had a huge impact on your family and on you as a person, especially as you were climbing the corporate ladder at Microsoft. Can you talk about how being a parent within that family changed your worldview as a manager? You write about the empathy that you learned to accomplish. I'm really curious to know what kind of contributions that parenting had to your ultimately becoming the kind of CEO you are.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  I think some of those moments and some of the learning from being a father, a parent, clearly have been defining moments for me or these hit and refresh moments for me, which I write in the book. In fact, it was hard for me to write because I wanted to write only the second and the third stanzas, which is about the technology and the future. But I had to look back and sort of ask myself like, okay, how did this come about? Even the books, like everything, whether it's Nonviolent Communication or Carol Dweck's Mindset were all books my wife introduced me to then.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  But when I think about my son Zane's birth, I mean, the thing that strikes me, quite frankly, ex post, is how, you know, naturally it came for Anu, my wife, what she needed to do. We were, you know, I was 29 years old. Both my wife and I were only children of our parents. So we were more concerned about, oh, how should we decorate our nursery? When will Anu get back to a job after our son is born? And yet, on, you know, the 13th of August in 1996 at 11:29, all our life changed.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Um, and uh it took me multiple years uh to even understand what had happened because in some sense um I was more about like, why did this happen to us, what happened to me uh and it's only by observing my wife um you know, really step up uh, give up her career uh and do all things she was doing to care for Zane, that that's when I realized nothing happened to me. In fact, uh really something has happened to my son and it's time for me to step up and see life through his eyes and do what I'm uh I should do as a parent and as a father. Um, so that's, I think, perhaps the biggest lesson for me

• 20:33Speaker 01

  around empathy. And it's not, and I write about this in the book as well, which is, I think empathy is only developed through your life's experience. It's not something that's really endowed on you. Uh, but as long as every day, but every passing year, with perhaps every passing mistake uh you make, uh you develop more of a sense of being able to see life through other people's eyes is going to make you more effective parent, more effective colleague, um and a more effective partner. Uh, I think that's at least what I've been able to learn from my own personal experience.

• 21:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  When you look back on your younger professional self, when you had less empathy than you later developed, do you see yourself as being kind of professionally selfish and overly critical, or were you always a relatively nice guy?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  You know, it's for others to judge, I guess. Uh, but um, I would say the the one thing that uh is hard, like, you know, uh, I don't think even that interview question I write about, uh, I always ask myself, you know, at at whatever, twenty five, when I was interviewing and somebody says, what would you do if you you see a baby on the street uh crying and after having fallen down, uh, I answered with, you know, thinking this is some trip question, maybe there's some algorithm that I'm missing, uh, and said, I'll call nine one one. Only to have that manager wake, you know, get up and walk me out of the room saying, you know, that's the absolute bullshit answer.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  And if you see a baby falling down, you pick them up and hug them. And I was devastated because I remember thinking about it and I say, how could I not get that? And that's when you say, well, you know what, you know, life has a way of teaching you. And the question is, you know, you just have to, when that lesson is thought, you know, you learn from it versus try and say whatever innate capability I have is the only innate capability that I will ever have.

• 22:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Your wife presumably would have picked the baby up instantly, correct?

• 22:43Speaker 01

  I, you know, presumably because after all, that's what came naturally to her with Zane's birth. But I think she would also be willing to admit that it is in fact through even her own life's experiences that her ability, for example, she was telling me even the other day about how much she has learned being a mother of a child with disabilities on how to relate to others and especially new parents with children with disabilities. It's not something that she grew up with or had an innate capability for, but it's something that now she has definitely a much more empathetic view on.

• 23:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up after the break, a hint of what Microsoft is working on right now.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  I mean, just imagine if your hologram was right here interviewing me as opposed to just on the phone.

• 23:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything? The perfect pair of pants? Or the tee you somehow always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture. Find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 24:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com/freak. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash freak.

• 25:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring, great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it, which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely-not-yolo type. PNC Bank: brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly Boring Since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 25:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves like gym access or breakfast just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.

• 26:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Back to our conversation now with Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft.

• 26:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let me ask you about the future and the kind of things Microsoft is working on, which I know you're very excited about and ultimately will probably all be. The idea is that we'll all be excited about it, whether it's for a person with disabilities, being able to engage with others or the world more, or whether it's for productivity, et cetera. I'm curious to know what you see the future really looking and feeling and smelling like. You write that "we," Microsoft, "are hard at work building the ultimate computing experience, blending mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing." So walk us through that a bit. What's it look like? What does it actually do?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is the real fun part, right? Which is, one of the things about computing, unlike perhaps any other medium, and especially software, is it's most malleable. In other words, you create something from nothing and it's always changing. And mixed reality, to me, is that ultimate blending of the human experience with the computing experience. I mean, think about it. Your field of view, right? What you see is a blend of the analog and digital. That's, I mean, what you get a glimpse of when you wear the hollow lens.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Uh, where, you know, I walk into my office and I put on my hololens, I have all of these dashboards I've created. Uh, with all these pie charts and what have you, that are just all floating around in my room, like it's, you know, an infinite screen room. Um, and I think that in the future, obviously, uh, what is now a form factor that is, looks, uh, like, uh, you know, a big set of goggles will become just like a set of eyeglasses. So I think, uh, the ability to blend analog and digital is, uh, what we describe as mixed reality. There are times when it'll be fully immersive, that's called virtual reality, sometimes when it is. You can see both the real world and the artificial world, that's what is augmented reality.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  But to me, that's just a dial that you set and, uh, we've taken a pretty unique approach in, uh, thinking about this, uh, space. And so that's one, uh, aspect. Uh, in fact, just to give you a good example, uh, and your listeners a good example, like you, you had a conference just earlier this week. We demonstrated how fundamentally mixed reality changes collaboration. I mean, just imagine if your hologram was right here, uh, interviewing me, uh, as opposed to just on the phone. Uh, we showed Ford using, uh, this mixed reality to change how they collaborate. Uh, in the past, Ford would create these clay models, uh, which weighed five thousand pounds that needed to be moved.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Uh, so that people can critique the new car. Uh, whereas now they have essentially these, um, sessions where people in the manufacturing, design, sales can all look at the model simultaneously annotated, leave voice comments. I mean, it's just a complete new way to collaborate. Um, in AI, I think that the ability to reason over data and create, uh, intelligence is another amazing, amazing breakthrough. Um, I'll give you again a very tangible example, uh, a group of people came together at Microsoft and created this new app called Seeing AI that anyone can download, uh, from the Apple app.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Store, in fact, it uses all of the cutting edge machine learning AI techniques around computer vision from our cloud. Uh, and brings about the capability for someone with visual impairment uh to be able to see. In fact, uh, one of the my colleagues Angela Mills, whom I ran into recently, was telling me about how. Uh, she has visually, uh, she has visual impairment and she uses that app now to confidently go into the cafeteria. Uh, order food, uh, she walks and I'd not even realized this to be such a challenge, which is she said. You know, I can now walk into a conference room at work, knowing that that's the conference room that I'm expected to be in.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Instead of barging into the wrong meeting uh for the first time and uh to know that. Uh, AI can actually help someone fully participate uh in her job. Uh, it's remarkable and um and to finish it off, the arc uh on quantum. Uh, we, in fact, uh, I brought up some, you know, fields medal winner in math and a couple of physicists and a computer scientist earlier this week. To talk about quantum and the progress we're making there. But ultimately, I believe in order to bring about some of these magical experiences and AI capability. We will have to break free of some of the limits we're hitting of physics, really. I mean, Moore's law, even though we have grown transistors exponentially.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Uh, that, you know, is becoming hard and even if when we grew the transistors exponentially, computing power was only growing linearly. Uh, but in order to reason over larger and larger amounts of data, I mean, think about the unsolved problems, right? We know we talk about global warming, what if there was a catalyst that could absorb carbon? We can't, I mean, that problem cannot be solved, the organic chemistry problem there cannot be solved. You know, it'll take a classical computer, the amount of time it has, you know, that has transpired between Big Bang to now. But a quantum computer can uh solve that, so I think we need to go after this bold new departure.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Um, or building out a a computer that's very different all the way from the math to the physics to the computer science of it.

• 32:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you think in computing that level, that next level is more reachable than in say, well, let me ask you another parallel batteries, right? Energy storage and batteries, do you, are you saying that quantum computing will attain the next level for computing faster than? Energy technology than battery technology will for energy storage?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  No, in fact, see, the computing is about helping every industry and every human endeavor of innovation get there faster. So for example, take the battery piece. I'm not an expert in batteries, but if it is about discovering some new material that can store energy better, then the ability to really discover that material is some computational problem that needs to be solved or modeled. That's where something like the quantum computer can help. So in some sense, computing is not about living in its own world. It's about being blended into the, you know, solving the most challenging problems of the day.

• 33:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, and it sounds like it's the engineering or the computer engineering version of your mission essentially now as you describe Microsoft as a platform company, really, correct?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  That's correct. I mean, you know, I, you know, if you think about Microsoft and our story of our birth, so to speak, the first product that Paul and Bill created was the basic interpreter for the Altair. And of course, you know, and, you know, this week I was talking about Visual Studio and what you can do with quantum computers. A lot has happened between the Altair and the quantum computer. But what has remained constant for us is that we create technology so that others can create more technology. And I always say we are in the empowerment business. We empower people and organizations

• 34:11Speaker 01

  all over the planet to achieve more. And that, to me, is at the core of who we are.

• 34:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm going to ask you a series of relatively short questions, hoping to get in as much as we can in the time that you've got. So let me start here. Satya, you've got over 120,000 employees around the globe. If we put them all together in one room, how many do you think you'd know by name?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Let's say 5,000.

• 34:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Wow, that's impressive, really?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, 25 years, 5,000, 5%, yeah, for sure.

• 34:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, are you sending copies of the book to every employee or maybe requiring all of them to buy it?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Uh, no, we are sending, um, copies to every employee and it's an annotated edition. Uh, so we have, in fact, it's called, uh, not Hit Refresh, but it's F5. Um, and so the, it's the browser command and, uh, it's fun. It's, uh, it was actually fun doing a really annotated version of it for, it's called the employee edition.

• 35:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, since we're not getting the annotated edition, um, give us a taste of what kind of things they'll be learning that we're not learning.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Uh, it's mostly just fun, um, comments on the side, uh, like even the title, uh, where, uh, it doesn't say Microsoft's, it says our. Um, and you know, it's not Hit Refresh, but Command F5, uh, those are the kinds of things.

• 35:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Gotcha. Okay, um, obviously the role of CEO is vast and there are many duties and obligations. There's deal making, you've acquired LinkedIn and, and Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, among others. There's strategic planning and customer relations and technical elements. You are, after all, an engineer and daily personnel management. Can you rank for me your different duties from kind of least favorite to most? I don't know how honest you're willing to be, but I'm really curious to know, uh, from least to most favorite.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I have to admit, the most favorite, uh, is when I get to meet, um, these engineers who know no fear or no conceptual boundary and can dream of the most impossible things, it's no question. I mean, uh, for me, that's when I get energized and, uh, that's my most favorite. And I'd say my least favorite thing would be, um, when someone says, uh, you know, come just do these ribbon cutting. Type of things, um, you know, they are, uh, you know, I think I, I wonder why like especially, you know, why does somebody care about a CEO of a tech company?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Um, you know, um, and, uh, but yet I think people think, uh, somehow there is some value we add. And, uh, I'm always astounded by it.

• 37:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  And would you say podcast interviews rank closer to the ribbon cutting or the meeting with engineers?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  You know, talking to you is one of my great pleasures.

• 37:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right. Now I know you're a good liar because that sounded very credible.

• 37:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let me ask you this. You write interestingly in the book about many reforms you've made at Microsoft, especially on the kind of executive and management level. Um, talk to me for a minute about meetings. Um, it's something that I think confounds a lot of people. Talk to me about what is the right number of people to have at a meeting? And when is the right time or what is the right occasion to have a meeting?

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Oh, it's such an amazing question. Uh, in fact, we've gone and analyzed this. In Office 365, we have something called, um, org analytics that comes with it, which helps in fact, organization understand the meeting habits. And continues just like, you know, how it's, it's so stunning, right? Which is we do all kinds of analytics around sales data and a lot of other pieces of information. What if we started bringing that same amount of rigor to how people spend time? So for example, one thing that we've realized is the more senior you are, the more careful you need to be in setting up meetings. Like, and I, this was big awakening to me as well, which is when I set up a review,

• 38:30Speaker 01

  it turns out that people will do at least five reviews, uh, before they show up, uh, to me, because that's kind of how it goes, right? They'll review with their manager, their manager will review with their manager. And so depending on the topic and the matrix organization, it could become an exponential growth thing. So being, you know, giving proper guidance that, hey, this is a discussion. You don't need to have pre meetings for essentially what is going to be a discussion. I think can help cut down the amount of time people spend on meetings. It's simple, yet it has a profound impact in organization. Just to give you another aspect of meetings, which is you buy a company.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  And you hope that the integration is going well. You can actually observe it. You can in fact see whether salespeople are talking to engineering teams. And if salespeople are not talking to engineering, that means the feedback cycle is broken. So some meetings are actually crucial. And so you can think of essentially your organization like a graph. And reason about that graph with the questions you have. What nodes are connected? How frequently are they connected? And so that's the kind of stuff that we are in fact building right into our products.

• 39:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Great. Microsoft has had an amazing run as a firm, as a tech firm. And it's had a very nice renaissance under your leadership. That said, history is not kind to most big firms. They tend to not adapt or not keep up. IBM is not a bad example of that trend, although they're still quite alive. They're diminished. What are the odds, do you believe, that Microsoft will still be a big player in 10 or 20 years? And what does it need to do to get there?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  I mean, you basically have captured the essence of why this book, which is. If there is anything that we can learn, I think. Whether it's for us as individuals, whether it is us as, you know. As institutions or organizations or as societies is hit refresh. Nothing can be taken for granted. And there's no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. What you have to do is be great at hitting those refresh moments. And know that not every one of those moments of refresh is going to work out. But that should not dissuade you from going after the next opportunity you get.

• 41:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  One last question for you. You have openly opposed many of President Trump's immigration policies, as well as his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. You also, at least judging from the photographs I saw and the reporting, didn't seem that enthusiastic about meeting with the President's Technology Council a few months back. What is it like for you to be, and I know that you're a kind person and a careful person, and you're the CEO of a multinational firm, so I'm not expecting fireworks here, but I am curious to know what it's like for you to be the CEO of a multinational firm and an immigrant in the age of President Trump?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  You know, I've had a chance to meet President Trump twice, once before he was inaugurated and once after, along with a lot of my industry colleagues, and had a rich dialogue around immigration, around investments in digital technology, in the public sector, and infrastructure. And it's a conversation, quite frankly, that we had in the previous administration, and it's a conversation that mirrors pretty much my dialogues with heads of states all over. And so I think that I am a great believer in the exceptional country that we have, that is the United States, and everything that we can do to make sure

• 42:26Speaker 01

  that we remain competitive, we create more economic growth and prosperity in this country, is something that I definitely would love to contribute to.

• 42:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's a pleasure speaking with you. I appreciate your time, and I congratulate you on all your good, hard work, and I hope we cross paths again.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  I look forward to it. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

• 42:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  In next week's special episode, you'll hear my full conversation with Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  I always looked for the brightest, most aggressive, self-confident people I could find. And the third one was important, because they speak back to you.

• 43:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  When you have a crappy idea, they tell you that.

• 43:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Also, please keep your ears out for our regular Freakonomics Radio episodes, which hit your podcast stream promptly at 11:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesdays. Thanks for listening.

• 43:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes Alison Hockenberry, Greg Rosalsky, Stephanie Tam, Max Miller, Merritt Jacob, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez. The music you hear throughout our episodes was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts or any number of podcast portals. You should also check out our archive at Freakonomics.com, where you can stream or download every episode we've ever made. You can also read the transcripts and find links to the underlying research. Our show can also be heard on NPR stations across the country. Check your local station for the schedule. And we can be heard on Sirius XM, Spotify, even your better airlines.

• 44:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  We can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, or via email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

• 44:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting, and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data, so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com.

• 45:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible. And when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic Pill does just that. Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 and 9mg, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit Ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic Pill.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  How's the new place? Get your Wi-Fi figured out? I got T-Mobile 5G home internet and I'm loving it. It's the fastest 5G home internet. My old provider was so slow. Mine is slow. And only 35 bucks a month. Do I need to try this? Try it for 15 days. Love it or get your money back. I love it already.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  There are over 250 reasons to join T-Mobile. Find yours and check availability at tmobile.com/homeinternet.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  This is according to Ooglu Speed Test Intelligence. Data second half of 2025 already reserved for T-Money Pay guarantee within 30 days of cancellation.

• 46:07Speaker 06

  This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Is there a right time to sell a stock? Are you taking the right risks with your portfolio? Financial decisions can be tricky. And often, your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Reapy as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Listen at schwab.com/financialdecoder.