CHAPTER 5Get the Messaging Right
“A CEO's casual utterances can quickly become concrete buildings.”
—Ron Williams, former CEO, Aetna
When Satya Nadella began at Microsoft as a young graduate in 1992, he reportedly told himself, “This is the greatest job on Earth. I don't need anything more.”1
Little did this recently qualified engineer know that just 22 years later he would become the third CEO of one of the most powerful tech companies on the planet.
As he stepped into the CEO shoes in February 2014, it was not just a defining moment for Satya, but also Microsoft. There was widespread hope that Satya could help administer a shot in the arm for Microsoft, at a time when it was facing fierce competition on all sides. He vowed to accelerate the company's ability to bring innovative products to market faster, but in the eyes of some, it was seen as an Everest-scale challenge.
To say the world was watching for Satya's first move was an understatement—and he wasted no time in delivering. Just hours into taking the CEO seat, he emailed every one of the tech giants 128,000 employees with a note that was as humble as it was galvanizing. In just a little over 1,000 words, he unflinchingly set out who he was, why he was there, and what the company would do next.2
He painted an intimate picture of himself as a family man, who has a thirst for learning, and like everyone else, his own foibles. “I buy more books than I can finish,” he wrote. “I sign up for more online courses than I can ...
Get The New CEO now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
