Satya Nadella Biography and some interesting things

Microsoft drafts in Satya Nadella as its new CEO. Here's everything you need to know about him.

Microsoft has chosen long-time employee Satya Nadella as its new CEO, bringing to a close its five-month search for Steve Ballmer’s replacement.

The engineer has worked for Microsoft since 1992, when he left Sun Microsystems.

Critics consider him a “safe” choice for a company which some claim is in urgent need of a radical management change, as the PC buying slump continues to bite.

Despite dominating the PC landscape for decades, Microsoft has lost ground in recent years to rivals, such as Apple and Samsung, as the mobile revolution has taken off.

Here, we find out a bit more about the new guy in charge of Microsoft.

Full name: Satyanarayana Nadella

Age: 46

Salary:In his previous role, Microsoft reportedly paid him $669,167 as a base salary plus stock bonuses which add up to $7.6 million. And that’s just for 2013.

Further reading

New Microsoft CEO confirmed as Satya Nadella

This will inevitably shoot up now he’s taken over the company reins, one has to presume.

Education and skills: Nadella hails from Hyderabad, India. He graduated from the University of Mangalore with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering before continuing his education in the United States.

You stop doing useful things if you don’t learn.

He earned two more masters' degrees: one in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, and another in business administration from the University of Chicago.

Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems until 1992, when he joined Microsoft.

A Microsoft mainstay: Since joining the Redmond giant in 1992,  Nadella has moved between departments every few years.

“This journey has both kept me on my toes and constantly motivated,” he told the Deccan Chronicle, an Indian English-language newspaper.

For instance, he’s served as vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, senior vice president of research and development for the Online Services division, and president of the software giant’s $19 billion Server and Tools Business.

Cloudy credentials: Nadella’s work led him to his most recent role as executive

vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise group. His official biography lists him as in charge of “building and running the company’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services.”

In this position, he’s been credited with shaping Microsoft’s Cloud OS strategy, the backend system for its online services.

Cloud OS helps run Microsoft services like Bing, SkyDrive, Xbox Live, Windows Server, and Visual Studio. These services, especially Office, rank among Microsoft’s strongest.

Industry reaction: Analysts seem to consider Nadella a safe pair of hands, and someone who’s unlikely to change Microsoft’s direction too much.

“He is the right person to drive safe, right down the middle of the fairway, and continue Microsoft's strengths,” Rajeev Chand, research head of a tech investment bank, told India’s Economic Times. “What we don't know is will Nadella help with the consumer revival, or with the mobile revival. Mobile is an open hole in his background.”

Choosing a man with little mobile experience to lead a company in dire need of a mobile strategy may seem inadvisable. Nadella, however, has shown an aptitude for adapting to new environments in the past by changing jobs every few years.

“Always keep learning,” he told the Deccan Chronicle. “You stop doing useful things if you don’t learn.”

Some important things:

1. He grew up in India. Nadella was born in 1967 in Hyderabad, India, attended public schools there and received a bachelors’ degree in electrical engineering from Manipal University.

2. He comes from Cloud. He previously served as vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, and has worked on the company’s cloud offering for the last seven months.

3. He loves cricket. Growing up he called the sport his passion, and played on his school’s team. “I think playing cricket taught me more about working in teams and leadership that has stayed with me throughout my career,” he said.

4. He’s a life-long learner. He often signs up for online courses in free time. “[I’m] just crazy ambitious in the 15 minutes I have in the morning. You know, I’m trying to listen to a neuroscience class or something,” he said.

5. He reads poetry. Nadella says he kicks back by reading poetry, which he says is like code. “You’re trying to take something that can be described in many, many sentences and pages of prose, but you can convert it into a couple lines of poetry and you still get the essence, so it’s that compression. The best code is poetry.”

6. He worked on Bing. He held a key responsibility with the search engine and helped it

grow.

7. He married his high school sweetheart. Nadella has been married for 22 years and has three kids living in Bellevue, Wash.

8. He’s Microsoft’s 3rd CEO. In the company’s 38 years, he follows just two others, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in the role.

9. He’s a multi-tasker. When he joined Microsoft in 1992, he was on track to get his master’s degree. Rather than choose between the two, he did both, flying out from Redmond on Friday nights for classes at the University of Chicago. He finished a master’s in business administration in just two and a half years.

10. He’s well compensated. Nadella made about $7.6 million in 2013, which included a $1.58 million bonus.