CEO SPECIAL..... GOING TO BAT WHEN YOU ARE 18|4 IS VERY DIFFERENT THAN GOING IN AT 200|1

GOING TO BAT WHEN YOU ARE 18|4 IS VERY DIFFERENT THAN GOING IN AT 200|1





Microsoft's Hyderabad-born CEO, Satya Nadella, spoke at length to the TOI's Editorial Board on a range of issues ­ from his abiding passion for cricket to the absolute need for empathy in business; his lack of envy at the success of a Google or an Apple to the opportunities offered to India by the digital revolution. And, of course, his delight at having Bill Gates on call

Not long ago, the big tech giants were differentiated, Microsoft with enterprise, Google with cloud and Apple with devices.In the age of mobile and cloud, everybody is trying to do the same thing. How will you differentiate Microsoft?

I actually think we are all very different. We create technology so that others can create more technology . We don't celebrate our technology for technology's sake. We are a tool maker, platform creator, whether it is Word or any of our tools. Even if it's a game like Minecraft, we want a girl who is going to school to be introduced to STEM education because of the open world nature of Minecraft. Our business model is, in fact, dependent on others succeeding in creating something of value as opposed to some two-sided market and getting in the middle of it. So we may have some similar capabilities but we are different.

As someone of Indian origin sitting in Silicon Valley, how do you look at the big digital transformation happening in India and the role of Microsoft within that?

One of the things I am very eager to see is how this fourth industrial revolution plays out in terms of creating economic surplus in countries that didn't benefit as much in the second industrial revolution. India is a great case in point. You now have a new factor of production in digital or software which is most malleable and it can impact health, education, manufacturing.Every part of Indian society and the economy can be more productive. What is important, though, is the intensity of usage of the new technology . Just having a smartphone doesn't do you much good. Only if it is being used for a lot of things that are core to the economy and society can it make a huge difference. When I think of our job, we are mostly focused on how we can empower Indian companies, small, medium, large, public sector, become more efficient.

Talking of your passion, cricket, we heard you had a great time at Lord's recently?

It was fantastic. I had never been to Lord's. It's one of those things you read about so much and then you ultimately show up, and then you say, `Wow, this is the Long Room, and this where you can hear the sound of the spikes.' It was awesome.

Did you account for the slope at Lord's?

That slope is immense. It's something like 5 feet or something. I never realised that for all the Indian cricket greats, very few ever scored centuries at Lord's. I went to the visitors' dressing room. They have the names of players who scored centuries at Lord's up there. Vengsarkar's name was there. So was Azharuddin's. And, of all the people, I found Ajit Agarkar!

Do you still follow cricket as passionately?

I do. I read. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to watch. I love Test cricket. The new forms of cricket that have come, they all became popular much after I left.

You don't follow IPL much, we guess?

No, I don't.

Who is your favourite cricketer in this generation?

I think Virat Kohli is someone who is very, very special. It is awesome to see the Indian pace attack. Even the variety of somebody like Ashwin, I cannot believe... a guy who can bowl six different balls in an over. Their fielding, their athleticism, their professionalism is something else. It is fantastic to see Indians play like Australians. Also, I love watching Rohit Sharma play. That follow through of his, after he cover drives, for example, he reminds me a lot of, say, VVS. The amount of time he has is tremendous. When he is on song, he is just glorious to watch

Do you play cricket now?

No longer. Anil (Kumble) was visiting Seattle the other day and he was telling me of the large number of teams in Seattle...that they even had an IPL coach to come this summer because there are so many South Asian kids learning to play cricket.

In your book `Hit Refresh', you talk about how cricket has taught you life lessons... Would you please elaborate?

There was one incident that I recounted in the book which has been the most interesting. R S Swaroop, who played both for Hyderabad and Baroda, was my school cricket captain. He was a good off-spinner and I was a trashy one.One day, I was bowling real trash so he switched me, took the wicket, got the breakthrough and gave the ball back to me. I always wondered why he did that.Subsequently, I talked to him. And he said, `Hey, you would be more useful to me if you have your confidence back', and I thought for a high school captain to be that enlightened was something else. That's what leadership is about.Obviously you have got to make the hard calls and make the changes when you have to, but there is such a thing as being able to persist, and I think you learn a lot from team sport.

Switching to education, it's increasingly felt that single specialisation is not good enough. Gary Hamel (American management expert) once said that if he has a student doing mechanical engineering, he would suggest comparative religons as a second subject, to somebody doing electrical engineering, English literature...

I remember one of the guys I travelled with in my first week at Microsoft, he brought along a whole lot of computer trade rags, and then he had TS Eliot. I asked him, `What is this?' He said he read one for information and the other for inspiration.

Looking at the curriculum in higher education, do you see scope for a big change in terms of a multi-disciplinary approach?

More than curriculum, one thing that is not emphasised enough, and which makes all the difference in real life, is team work.Take any great product at Microsoft, it's a combination of people coming from design, electrical engineering, computer science, all the disciplines that are required. But what is common across all of this is not just the discipline depth, but the ability to work in teams. Can you come in with that open mind to be able to be influenced and influence? That is a soft skill that is under-emphasised all over the world in terms of skills.

In Texas, 26 people were killed. We find it incomprehensible that gun control is still a non-issue in the US.

All senseless violence is abhorrent, and we should, as a global community, do everything we can (to stop it).Every country has its own particular set of issues which they have to work through. The democratic process of our country, the United States, will help us move forward. The sources of violence have to be tackled front-on.

Such incidents in the US are happening with such depressing regularity. Is there something more immediate that ought to happen but is not happening?

Each tragedy has to be viewed for both what it is and what are the root causes, versus jumping to complete generalisations. Yet, every one of those challenges has to be tackled.And they are complex. This senseless violence is happening not just in the United States but every part of the world. The good news is we don't have the big wars that we had in the early 20th century . But we still have this violence, civil wars in some countries.As someone said, how do we ensure we are not just repeating history? We've got all the knowledge, all the progress, what can we do? That's the real challenge in democracies. We do need social consensus in order to tackle a lot of these.

Are you a Republican or a Democrat?

(A big smile) I would rather say I'm a believer in democracy .

You are here during the first anniversary of demonetisation, which split the country deeply.

In all fairness, I'm not an expert on the specifics of how it played out, the impact on the economy . But if I step back and look at the idea that on a long-term basis you are going to bring down transactional costs by using digital technology, I think it's fantastic.For a country like India, it will create more economic surplus. If I look at the core courage of the legislative process of this country, I admire that. It's always hard for democracies to take non-linear steps, but sometimes these are the steps you need to take by building consensus so that the country as a whole can move forward.

You talk a lot about culture.How difficult was it for you to change a culture that had leadership in its DNA into that of a challenger?

The fundamental thing that I have come to realise is that organisations that have been around for a while have by definition been successful. They have gone from being a startup to a successful company . You build your capability and culture around that success.Now, the challenge is any new concept you've had ultimately runs out of gas and that's when culture matters the most.Is the culture that got built around your first idea capable of birthing a new idea? When somebody says here is a new, admirable company growing 20% or 30% but they have never gone through the cycle -there's not much I can learn from it. If a company's been able to, time after time, hit refresh, that, to me, is impactful.

That's why culture is not about whether I'm a leader or a challenger at any given point in time. If you can have both those thoughts, you're going to be better off. It's not a one-time transformation and it has to be a continuous process of renewal. That's where I took inspiration from (psychologist and author) Carol Dweck, about the growth mindset. Most people think growth mindset means all new capability, but it's more us confronting the DNA, so to speak, which means confronting our own fixed minds.

Were there times when you felt incredibly lonely in attempting a difficult transformation, both business and cultural? And who did you confide in?

A lot of people say that when you become a CEO it's a lonely job, and there is a lot of truth to it. The one thing that I had not understood, even one step removed, was how as a CEO you see things 360 degrees and unlike anyone else who works for you or for whom you work. Neither your board, nor your people see essentially the same playing field as you do as a CEO.Yet both those constituents are going to pass judgment on your judgment, which is a fascinating challenge.

I think that I've benefited a ton from being able to talk to people outside and inside the company, learning from Bill (Gates) and Steve (Ballmer) and Kevin Johnson (former Microsoft staffer who's now CEO of Starbucks).

I've benefited from my friends from my high school in India who happen to be CEOs--Shantanu Narayen was a few years senior to me and he is CEO of Adobe and has done a fantastic job there; Ajay Banga, who is the CEO of Mastercard, and Syed Ali, CEO of Cavium Networks. The tough chal lenges are always going to be the things that you have to decide -no one can decide for you, but being able to sort of look at what other leaders have done when the chips are down...I always think about what it means to go and bat when you're 18 for 4 and that's when it matters ­ your mindset.If I walked in when it was 200 for 1, it doesn't really matter.

You've written on how a majority at Microsoft were disheartened but brilliant just before you took over. Were you one of them?

No. I've always felt that we were victims of the caricature the world had of us. In fact, if anything, I felt that we were much more capable.When we were “doing well“ everybody and everything we did was great, and when we are not, everything and anything we touched was not good.The reality is there are a lot of things that are good and a lot of things we need to fix. Borrowing from Nietzsche, which is courage in the face of reality, what is more important is courage in the face of opportunity . Both of those have to be there all the time, and that, I think, is one of the challenges.

You use the word empathy a lot. Is that a new lexicon you're trying to bring in? Are you saying there wasn't empathy earlier or the present world needs more? How is it different from the traditional `consumer is king argument'?

They are all very connected in my mind. What's the source of our innovation? It comes from our ability as designers or product creators; our ability to meet the unmet and unarticulated needs of customers. You're not going to do that unless and until you have some deep sense of empathy .You can't go into work, say you're going to switch on the empathy button and somehow start exhibiting that. In my case, it's not that I was born with it. It's that life teaches you increasing levels of empathy . I fundamentally believe in that concept ...Somebody said anthropology divides us and empathy unites us.

A few years ago Microsoft and empathy would have sounded like an oxymoron...

It's sort of again the caricature versus the reality . I didn't drop from the sky . I grew up in Microsoft. In fact, it's practically the only company I have worked for. And having grown up there, how did I pick up all of these? I didn't from the outside.

Does it bother you that you're not in the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) brigade? Would you like to be there?

I want us to stay true to our identity and I don't want to have any envy for anybody else's success and any other model of innovation. Take any one of the four companies you mentioned, they are very different. We are not a luxury goods manufacturer, we don't try to put our brand in front of you, we are not a two-sided market that's trying to extract rent. We are a tool maker, and that to me is the identity of the company . I want us to be proud of us as opposed to defining our success by others' success.

Delhi has played an interesting role in your life. You romanced and proposed to your wife Anu here. What are the recollections from the Lodhi Gardens days?

I have grown up in and around Delhi multiple times. When I was very young, my dad used to work in Mussoorie and we used to go through Delhi. I first watched television in Delhi in 1971 or '72 and I lived in Delhi in the mid-70s. My first Test match was between India and England in Feroz Shah Kotla. I remember Dennis Amiss getting a century . India lost badly . I remember leaving and seeing Tony Greig on a Lambretta. He was a character! I lived in Meena Bagh, right opposite Vigyan Bhavan, and distinctly remember attending a lecture by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (future Nobel laureate). It was a beautiful time. Then much later, Anu and I split.She came to Delhi and went to DPS and much later is when we met again and I proposed in Lodhi Gardens.

As a CEO, how do you see India as a marketplace? Indian SMBs (small and medium bsinesses) are finding it difficult to cope with GST. Can Microsoft help?

To the second part, one of the things that is helpful is if you have a digital record, as it helps you keep track. If you look at the revolution that has happened in a lot of the developed countries, whether in manufacturing or healthcare, they were able to afford the IT sophistication which helped them gain productivity . Unfortunately, the expense of IT sophistication for small business in a country like India was just too immense. Now, the cloud has fundamentally transformed it. You can just buy something on a subscription basis where they can essentially have all of the same capability that the largest MNCs enjoy for the price of pay-per-use. It is transformative in terms of the access and business model. I do believe that SMBs have every ability to consume new technology and they can deal with any opportunities and challenges.

As far as the first question goes, we care about the long term. In the short term, we will have challenges: some of them are structural challenges which is where the GDP itself has to get to a certain point where the country is ready to consume some of the technologies. I feel much better about that in 2017 than I ever did. And now it's a question of us being able to do our part and policy frameworks that are more conducive to technologies coming in.

Do you have any recollection of your first interaction with Bill Gates? In the book, you mention that you would like him to be a little more involved in product and tech. Is that happening?

In fact, I distinctly remember the first time ­ there was an email exchange when someone put me on a thread with Bill. It was something on XML transformation and Bill, like all things, had a strong opinion about some work that was happening around my team. It was fantastic to engage with him. It was more like a telegram. It had these one-liners and then you kept going back and forth.He is one of the most intellectually honest human beings you can ever run into. He has strong opinions, but if you push back and you're right, he will be the first to admit it. His involvement with the company is something that I encouraged. I feel very good that Bill at this point in his life is still willing to engage as deeply as he does. But I realise that it's for us to run the company. He is very happy to contribute.