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Ten Quotes From Satya Nadella's Book "Hit Refresh" That Inspired Me

A few years back, Microsoft offered a free upgrade to Windows 10. That was an exciting move as their main competitor Apple was doing it for a long time now. As a consumer felt that Satya Nadella becoming CEO of Microsoft has brought in quite many changes, and started embracing open source, which was initially surprising.

So for me, it was a no-brainer to pick his book "Hit Refresh" from the store immediately once it was released. The first half of the book was more interesting where he talked about his life in India, his kids, love for Cricket, and how he got more interested in Computers than Cricket over a period.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's Book


One anecdote of how he was first interviewed at Microsoft was exciting. He was asked
- "Imagine you see a baby lying in the street, and the baby is crying. What do you do?".
- As a young engineer, he has answered the question exactly as I would have: "You call 911".
- The interviewer's response was: "You need some empathy, man. If a baby is laying on the street crying, pick up the baby.".

By the way, these are the 10 quotes from this book which I found to be Inspiring. 

  • The C in CEO stands for Culture
  • Success can cause people to unlearn the habits that made them successful in the first place.
  • Learning to fly is not pretty but flying is.  
  • It is not the device that is mobile. It is you.
  • Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
  • We needed to build deeper empathy for our customers and their unarticulated and unmet needs. It was time to hit refresh.
  • Empathy grounds me and centers me
  • A leaders job is to "Find rose petals in a field of shit"
  • Leadership means making choices and rallying the team around these choices.
  • For anything great to happen – great software, innovative hardware, or even a sustainable institution – there needs to be one great mind or a set of agreeing minds.

I loved his thoughts on how the world is not about Man vs. Machine but their coexistence, to make this world a better place. In my opinion, overall, "Hit Refresh" is a great read, and after reading the book, I'm convinced that Microsoft picked the right CEO at the right time :)
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