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Microsoft's co-founder praised how Satya Nadella has since proved a top choice with his impressive AI and cloud computing stats. In 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that he'd never pictured Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates ever leaving the company while discussing his ascend to the top seat. The executive revealed he'd never considered sitting at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, running its day-to-day operations. Nadella admitted that he was reluctant to take the position when a board member offered it to him. He indicated he would only take the position if the board member genuinely wanted him to, but was informed that he "really needed to want to be CEO" to get the position. In a recent interview, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that Satya Nadella almost missed the opportunity to become Microsoft's CEO (via Fortune). Satya Nadella almost didn't become CEO Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (Image credit: Windows Central) Satya Nadella became Microsoft CEO in 2014, taking the mantle from Steve Ballmer and making the company among the world's most valuable companies with over $3 trillion in market capitalization. The tech giant's immense success can undoubtedly be attributed to its recent AI and cloud computing efforts. Interestingly, Nadella was backed by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to become the company's CEO. As you may know, Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2000 but continued to be a member of its board before fully transitioning to philanthropic efforts through the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." However, the billionaire is reportedly intimately involved in the company's affairs, with some insiders claiming "his opinion is sought every time we make a major change," including AI and recruiting high-ranking executives. Gates admits that he was haunted by intrusive thoughts about Microsoft's future after he stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Steve Ballmer: "I'll tear up on this, ’cause it meant a lot to me. I've had two successors, and boy, do I feel lucky because as I went off to do the foundation work, the one thing that plagued me was: Was I going to see the company fade in terms of its excellence?" The Microsoft co-founder indicated that when Steve Ballmer announced his planned retirement, the board of members faced the difficult task of finding the perfect candidate for what might be considered the most complex CEO position in the world. Bill Gates also took the opportunity to tout Satya Nadella's empathetic leadership style as Microsoft's CEO and its contribution to the company's overall success. "I’ve come to value empathy more over the course of my career," added Gates. "Early on we were speed nuts, staying all night [at the office, thinking], 'Oh, you’re five percent slower as a programmer? You don’t belong here.' It was very hard-core." Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft had some ups and downs during its last fiscal year of 2024, which ended on June 30. However, that did not stop the company from approving a big pay raise for its current CEO, Satya Nadella. It was revealed this week that Nadella had a whopping $79.1 million in stock and cash for the 2024 fiscal year. Microsoft revealed how much Nadella was paid via a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (via CNBC). The amount was much higher than the $48.5 million in stock and cash he received for the 2023 fiscal year. As with many CEOs of big public companies, the majority of payments made to Nadella in the last fiscal year were made in the form of Microsoft stock options. He was supposed to also get $10.66 million in cash incentives and bonuses. Still, according to the SEC filing, Nadella personally requested that part of his payment be reduced to "just" $5.2 million. That was due to Microsoft's efforts to hold itself accountable for a series of security breaches during the 2024 fiscal year. One happened in the summer of 2023 when a Chinese-based group got access to Outlook email accounts in the US and Europe. Later, in early 2024, a Russia-based group accessed the email accounts of some of Microsoft's top executives. Microsoft said it made sweeping changes to its security efforts following these incidents, claiming in May that security was the company's top priority above everything else. In June, Microsoft said that it would alter bonuses, even for its top leaders, depending on how they personally contributed to security improvements. According to this week's SEC filing, Microsoft said that while Nadella felt that the company's overall "performance was extremely strong" during the last fiscal year, it added that he requested that Microsoft's Board of Directors "reduce his cash incentive" so he could take some "personal accountability for the focus and speed required for the changes that today’s cybersecurity threat landscape showed were necessary." Even with that cut in cash bonuses compared to what it could have been without the security issues, it's clear that Nadella is still a very well-paid CEO for Microsoft. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Satya Nadella believes there should be a regime of control over AI. Satya Nadella traveled to the Axel Springer headquarters to receive the 2023 Axel Springer Award. While he was there, he sat down and had an interview with Axel Springers CEO Mathias Döpfner. The discussion covered a wide range of topics such as leadership, AI, the Activision Blizzard deal, and that canceling the Windows Phone was a mistake. Does Satya Nadella think AI is safe? I can't pretend to know what Satya Nadella's thoughts are on AI, but he gave a brief insight into his possible concerns in a response to an interview question in his recent meeting at the Axel Springer headquarters. In the interview with Mathias Döpfner the CEO of the Axel Springer company, Satya Nadella was asked a question as a follow-up to the ongoing issues with Western countries and China as well as the arms race for AI. "Will we see a duopoly of sorts, with two AI world powers competing against each other in a new AI arms race? Or do you think it is imaginable that we will one day have a kind of unilateral AI governance and infrastructure?" This was a very interesting response, especially on the heels of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster hit "Oppenheimer." Most of the world is more acutely aware in 2023 of the dangers and birth of the atomic program worldwide, and the regulations that followed it, than we collectively have been in several decades. On the 14th of September, several tech CEOs met together in Washington to discuss AI regulation, per the BBC, with U.S. Lawmakers. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai, as well as Microsoft's former CEO Bill Gates and Microsoft's current CEO Satya Nadella were all in attendance at the closed-door meeting. However, after the meeting, Republican Senator Mike Rounds and Democrat Senator Cory Booker both said it would take time for the congress to act on the decided need to enforce regulations. One of the few things both parties can agree on is how long important things take to get done. There have been so many voices asking for AI to be taken more seriously and treated more carefully, in fact the New York Times reported recently, "More than 1,000 tech leaders, researchers and others signed an open letter urging a moratorium on the development of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems." We also reported on the Microsoft AI chief warning of coming AI challenges and ethics risks. How can regulations help make AI safe? As the world looks to its leaders to find a solution to the threats and dangers posed by AI, there are few governments taking the appropriate steps. We reported back in April of 2023, that the Biden administration was finally considering rules to govern ChatGPT and Bing Chat, but to date, nothing seems to have resulted from those considerations. The European Union has started working on the first AI regulation aptly called the EU AI Act. This could be the catalyst that sets a framework for other countries to follow suit. More CEOs have also voiced their concerns, such as Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI and a long advocate for AI safety. What's unique about Satya Nadella's comments is the call for global regulation similar to the IAEA or the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is a unique body that's purpose is to try to regulate the entire globe. There are other such agencies, but they are not usually enforced as strictly, for obvious reasons, as the Atomic energy issue is. As the world becomes smaller due to the capability of data to travel the span of the globe in milliseconds, it becomes harder to effectively regulate a digital medium such as AI without full participation from the major players involved, in this case, as Satya Nadella mentions, China. The US government has made claims that China's IP theft is a major issue in the trade relationship with China, and has little recourse to prevent China from continuing this alleged practice. The same issue would be evident in any attempts to curtail the advancement of AI or regulate its use if one of the main players in the development of AI, namely China, decides to play by its own rule book. Looking at the past to save our future. The pressure for regulation of AI is immense, the recent open letter being signed by 1000 notable figures in tech and AI is reminiscent of the letter sent by Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt about the dangers of what would soon become atomic energy. The hope is that we as a species have learned from the mistakes of the 20th century. We should find ways to safeguard this new frontier of tech innovation and ensure that AI is developed safely and remains safe before a catastrophic event forces us to do so as was the case with the atomic program. With the current state of the world, more caution is needed as corporations put profits over safety and governments put military advantage over mutually assured preservation. Do you think AI needs to be regulated? Do you think it should be handled globally or on a country-by-country basis? Let us know in the comments. Source

AI is "bigger than the PC, bigger than mobile," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has laid out his hopes for an AI-powered future across personal and working lives for users everywhere. Speaking at an event in London, Nadella outlined how AI technology, primarily Microsoft's own Copilot and Open AI-powered tools, can bring in a new era for consumers and business alike. Nadella also revealed exactly which AI tools he uses in his personal life, and how AI could transform the lives of individuals in the future, with the hope of improving access to knowledge and healthcare across the world. AI-change "Something has clearly changed over the past year," Nadella told Microsoft UK CEO Clare Barclay in his keynote at the Envision London event. "Our understanding of this new generation of AI and what it can do to pretty much any software category, any industry or any business process has, I think, gone through a real change." “The idea that you can have a multi-turn, multi-domain and multimodal conversation with your computer is going to be perhaps the biggest change in computing.” “The age of LLMs (Large Language Models) is the greatest leveler in terms of going up the learning curve," Nadella said, highlighting Security Copilot as a particularly useful tool. "We have a shortage of security professionals, and we need people to become professionals to fill those gaps. On the job, with Security Copilot, your learning curve gets bent – and that’s exciting.” He likened the advent of generative AI technology to the initial launch of Windows by Microsoft back in the early 1990s and predicted it could have a similarly seismic impact. “It reminds me of the Microsoft I joined in ’92,” he recalled. “The reason I say that is because the PC - and Windows in particular - was transformative in the workplace and in the workflow. We all remember what work looked like pre-email, word processing and spreadsheets, and what happened after…At least I do!” (Image credit: Future / Mike Moore) Moving forward from Windows, Nadella also highlighted the role of cloud computing in helping make these huge technological breakthroughs possible, with Microsoft Azure playing an understandably key part. “The cloud is helping to make that possible,” he added. “Data is also already in the cloud. So, therefore, the adoption of AI is just the next step, and it has compounding effects. But we should also be very mindful that the rate of diffusion is so fast, that I don’t think there’s going to be a distinction.” In his personal scope, Nadella revealed that he was a regular user of GitHub Copilot to polish his coding skills, noting, "how can you be a tech CEO if you can't code?" But he also revealed that he was a big fan of the Copilot tools included within Microsoft 365, utilizing them to summarize long-form documents or meeting notes into a single, digestible document that he could in turn ask questions of. "I can really get to be very productive," Nadella laughed, "at this point, if someone took away my 365 Copilot, I wouldn't know what to do!" AI running your life? Looking forward, Nadella was understandably positive concerning the benefits that AI technology could bring to users from every walk of life - not just in the business world. "I'm glad we're all talking about both the capabilities as well as the opportunities of applying this technology, to drive societal benefits that are broad, whilst also being aware of the unintended consequences," he noted. “I think whether it’s in financial services, retail or even healthcare, it’s very exciting to see the broad swath of industries being reshaped,” Nadella added, before outlining his hopes of how AI could transform the lives of everyone on Earth. “The eight billion people on this planet could have, in their pocket, a tutor that is personalized, a doctor that can sort of give you medical advice, and even a management consultant...to tell you how best to run your life!” said Nadella. “If you take those three things, just think about what it could do to just the agency of an individual. A lot of us are afraid to venture into new domains because it takes a whole bunch of initiative, preparation and learning. But if you have something like Copilot to help you – an assistant that is going to walk you through each step – that is game changing. I think psychologically, that is the most exciting thing.” Source

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella now doubles as the company’s chairman One leader once again On February 4th, 2014, Microsoft found its new CEO in the cloud — Azure boss Satya Nadella took the top job, Steve Ballmer retired, and Bill Gates stepped down as chairman. Now, after growing Microsoft to become one of the most valuable companies in the world yet again, Nadella has now been unanimously elected chairman of the Microsoft board. It’s the first time in two decades that Microsoft’s chairman will also be its CEO, after Bill Gates originally stepped down as CEO in 2000 (Gates left the Microsoft board entirely in 2020), and it’s a testament to how much Nadella is now trusted to lead the company forward. When Gates stepped down as chairman in 2014, the board elected independent chairman John Thompson, who’d previously been CEO and chairman of Symantec and who’ll remain an independent director on the Microsoft board. We spoke to Nadella in 2018 about how he was changing Microsoft, and how Windows wasn’t the future of the company, but rather cloud services. Windows 10 was imagined as a ongoing service, too, but PC sales turned around in 2020 after Microsoft ended support for Windows 7, and started to see big growth in 2021. It sure seems like the company now believes in distinct versions again: Windows 11 is coming soon. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella now doubles as the company’s chairman