Satya Nadella's career rise, from computer science student to turning Microsoft into a $3 trillion titan as CEO

• Satya Nadella became the third CEO of Microsoft almost a decade ago.
• The former engineer reformed its corporate culture and has driven growth with innovation and partnerships.
• Here's a look at his early life and career rise from engineering student to CEO of a $3 trillion company.

When Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO on February 4, 2014, the company was struggling.

Windows 8 had been a disaster. Microsoft employees were constantly battling behind the scenes for supremacy. And all the while, consumers and developers alike were losing faith in the company cofounded by Bill Gates.

How times have changed.

In January, as Nadella neared a decade in charge, Microsoft overtook Apple to become the world's most valuable public company worth more than $3 trillion, although Apple later regained its crown.

The resurgence has been credited to Nadella's savvy embrace of partnerships, dedication to innovation, and shakeup of the company culture.

Here's how Nadella, 57, worked his way up the ranks of Microsoft and executed this startling turnaround.

This article has been updated since its original publication in 2016.

Upbringing and education

Satya Narayana Nadella was born in Hyderabad, India in 1967.

His father was a civil servant and his mother was a professor of the ancient language Sanskrit.

From a young age, Nadella wanted to be a professional cricket player, and played in school. However, he realized that his athletic talent was outmatched by his passion for science and technology.

Nadella received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1988. "I always knew I wanted to build things," he once said.

The institution didn't have a comprehensive computer science program, so he traveled to the US to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and graduated in 1990.

He later received an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Joining Microsoft

Nadella stayed in the US and got a job on the technology team at Sun Microsystems, then one of the most innovative tech companies.

But in 1992 he joined Microsoft, where cofounder Bill Gates was still CEO and Windows had just begun its march to world domination.

"I remember distinctly walking into building 22 at Microsoft in 1992 thinking that's the greatest job on earth I have and I don't need anything more," he said in an interview with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky.

Nadella's first projects included Microsoft's ill-fated interactive TV product and the Windows NT operating system.

A baby-faced Nadella also helped pitch Microsoft's Visual Basic in a telethon-style broadcast designed for developers, circa 1993.

Early career

In his early years at Microsoft, Nadella impressed his coworkers and managers alike by commuting every weekend from Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus to Chicago to finish his MBA.

By 1999, Nadella landed his first executive role as vice president of the newly created Microsoft Central, a set of web services for small businesses that included website hosting and email.

In 2000, Microsoft got its second CEO: Steve Ballmer.

A year later, Nadella was promoted to corporate VP of Microsoft Business Solutions.

By 2007, Nadella had taken another step up the ladder. He was made senior VP of Microsoft Online Services, putting him in command of the Bing search engine, as well as early online versions of Microsoft Office and the Xbox Live gaming service.

In February 2011, Nadella was promoted to president of the Server and Tools division. It encompassed cash-cow products for data centers such as Windows Server and the SQL Server databases.

But it was also home to one of CEO Steve Ballmer's boldest gambles, the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Trouble at Microsoft

In the early 2010s, Microsoft was running into trouble.

On the PC side, Windows 8 was a disaster, the iPhone and Android were outrunning Windows phones by leaps and bounds, and Bing just couldn't make a dent in Google's search dominance.

The company was facing an antitrust suit from the European Union and its stock price kept dropping.

In August 2013, an embattled Ballmer announced his departure, sparking a search for a new CEO. The search committee included Ballmer and Gates.

Nadella takes over

In February 2014, after much rumor and speculation, Nadella was announced as CEO, with the support of Ballmer and Gates.

He was awarded an $84 million first-year compensation package.

Nadella quickly won over employees by making big changes, quickly, in an effort to right the ship and win back customers.

He sent a company-wide email when he took over, calling for Microsoft to "prioritize innovation that is centered on our core value of empowering users and organizations."

Partnerships with rivals

Nadella proved he wasn't afraid to shake things up and invigorate the company by embracing partnerships with rivals including Apple, Google, and Amazon.

He started by adopting the rival Linux operating system for the Azure cloud — a once-unthinkable move.

But soon, Nadella had overseen the release of Microsoft Office for the Apple iPad; spent $2.5 billion buying Mojang, the studio behind the hit game Minecraft; and released first-class iPhone and Android apps, including Outlook.

Innovation also led to the development of HoloLens, Microsoft's super-futuristic holographic goggles, and its first laptop, the Surface Book.

When something didn't work he was unafraid to ditch projects, such as skipping Windows 9 to go straight to the superior Windows 10.

Nadella's philosophy is about partnering and ensuring Microsoft software and services are available wherever customers are — even if that's not Windows.

In fact, in 2015, Nadella used an iPhone on stage at an event to show off his favorite Microsoft apps. His predecessor Steve Ballmer, famously pretended to stomp on one at a company meeting.

Leadership style

Nadella's approach to leadership was credited with reforming the company's culture.

Many workers are fond of his leadership style, which emphasizes learning and making mistakes as a hedge against overconfidence and arrogance.

"It doesn't matter if you're a top executive or a first-line seller — he has exactly the same quality of listening," Microsoft executive vice president Jean-Philippe Courtois has said.

Personal life

Nadella, 57, and his wife, Anu, have had three children and live in Bellevue, Lake Washington.

Their oldest son, Zain, was born with severe cerebral palsy and required specialized care. He died in 2022, aged 26.

"Becoming a father of a son with special needs was the turning point in my life that has shaped who I am today," Nadella wrote in a 2017 essay on LinkedIn.

He called Zain "the joy of our family, whose strength and warmth both inspire and motivate me to keep pushing the boundaries of what technology can do."

Nadella has said the experience has encouraged him to lead with empathy, telling Good Housekeeping "it has had a profound impact on how I think, lead and relate to people."

Nadella's acquisitions spree

Under Nadella, Microsoft has made some of its biggest acquisitions, including the $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016, the $7.5 billion acquisition of code-sharing site GitHub in 2018, and the $69 billion deal with video games publisher Activision Blizzard in 2023.

Nadella has said he has two main criteria when eyeing acquisitions: what value Microsoft can add and how much financial sense it makes.

What's next

Nadella's been busy. And investors love it: From 2014 to 2015, his first year, Microsoft stock jumped 14%.

But over the past decade, it's soared to new heights, and Microsoft started this year by knocking Apple off the top spot to become the world's most valuable public company and becoming only the second to exceed a $3 trillion valuation. Apple has since regained the number one spot, but both milestones were highly notable.

Nadella's biggest move in recent years has been investing billions in OpenAI.

During the week of leadership chaos at OpenAI, Nadella stuck firm to ousted CEO Sam Altman, offering him a job at Microsoft. This provided crucial leverage for Altman to reclaim his CEO position while cementing Microsoft as an essential partner for the pioneering AI company.

Microsoft is also making its own mark with a generative "AI companion" called Copilot to be integrated into its suite of apps. It's a bet on a future in which every person and organization has their own personal AI assistant to handle mundane tasks.

Vodafone and Microsoft also have a partnership to bring generative AI, digital and cloud services to European and African markets.

January 31, 2024: This story was updated to clarify that the specific figures associated with Microsoft's investment in OpenAI haven't been officially confirmed.