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Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft

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India is a land of talented people who are shining in the top positions of some of the top Tech companies. Microsoft, too, found a promising and energetic leader in Satya Nadella, when they were hunting for the replacement of its longtime CEO Steve Ballmer. After searching for about five months, Microsoft’s board members finalized Nadella as he had already showcased unbelievable progress in the other departments. When Microsoft was in crisis, facing stern competition from other top companies, like Apple and Samsung, Nadella sought a way out to keep Microsoft in business.

Early Life

Satya Nadella was born on 19th August 1967, to an IAS officer Nadella Yugandhar and was brought up in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. He completed high school from the Hyderabad Public School and further went to Manipal Institute of Technology to pursue Electrical Engineering in 1988. His interests lied in Computer Science but Electrical Engineering was a promising branch at the university so he took the course and soon found his true passion.

After completing his degree, he moved to the US at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue Masters in Computer Science, in the year 1990. Further, Nadella also pursued MBA from the University of Chicago and landed his first job at Sun Microsystems and, in 1992, joined Microsoft.

Journey within Microsoft

In his early period at Microsoft, Satya led crucial projects, related to cloud computing, and soon gained the name as a leader, with a potential to spread the technology and business, in transforming Microsoft’s products. He comprehensively worked on Windows NT, an operating system made primarily for business people.

Satya Nadella
Image Source: www.flickr.com

His vast, 22 years of experience, working in Microsoft has allowed him to know the company to its roots. He has served on about five different roles in the company and finally reached the highest position – Chief Executive Officer. In the year 1999, Nadella was promoted to Vice President of Microsoft bCentral and General Manager for Microsoft’s Commerce Platforms group.

Nadella was responsible to lead the growth of numerous Microsoft products like Microsoft Office Small Business, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, and Dynamics and ERP servers too. Apart from these products, he has lead Microsoft to invest in the technologies like Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Interactive Television (ITV).

From 2000 to 2010, Nadella served on three different positions including Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions, then in 2007 as Senior Vice President of R & D for Online Services Division, and then to President of Server and Tools business. Before being chosen for Microsoft’s CEO position Nadella served as the Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group which supplied infrastructure to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, Xbox Live Broadband gaming network, and Office-365 services.

Microsoft’s transition from just software based company to cloud computing services helped it grow faster than ever. Nadella met with start-ups understanding their needs and simultaneously making Microsoft more flexible to fulfill those needs. Most of the clients today prefer rent-based applications rather than running software themselves. And that is what Microsoft next ventured into making a huge profit.

Why was Satya Nadella the Perfect Choice?

When it could have been anyone leading the company there is a strong reason that Microsoft’s board members chose to give Satya Nadella the baton. When in 2014, Steve Ballmer declared his retirement from Microsoft, the company was also in planning to shift from software giant to Devices and Services Company. Microsoft had already acquired Nokia and developed Surface Tablet. So, naturally, the company was on a lookout for the candidate who helmed the experience of both sides.

And when it came down to choices, Satya fitted the profile very well. As he had lead various projects including Windows Server, Windows Azure, System Center, SQL Server, etc. and the Software development tools. With such a vast portfolio and years of experience made him an ideal candidate to lead the company and take it out of the crisis, it was facing, due to the competitors like Apple and Google. Finally, on 4th February 2014, Satya Nadella was declared as the new CEO of Microsoft succeeding Steve Ballmer.

Personal Life

Satya Nadella is a big fan of cricket and grew up watching and playing the game in Andhra Pradesh. He mentions that the leadership and team management skill he possesses is the results of being part of his school cricket team.

In 2015, he was awarded ‘Champion of Change Award’ by then President Barack Obama. He currently lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Anupama and three children.

William Ding Lei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.