Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Addresses Inequality and Other Topics in TV Interview

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Satya Nadella's first TV interview since being named CEO of Microsoft

Jon Fortt at CNBC sat down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for his first TV interview since becoming boss of the Redmond outfit. Nadella answered questions about Microsoft's cloud strategy, why he opposes a spinoff, and yes, he addressed recent controversial comments that were made in regards to women in the workplace, and specifically the issue of a pay discrepancy between men and women.
The controversial comments came when Nadella was a guest speaker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Speaking to a mostly female audience, Nadella suggested that women workers rely on karma for raises.
"It's not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. Because that's good karma. It'll come back because somebody's going to know that's the kind of person that I want to trust," Nadella said.
His comments were later criticized on the web. Fortt asked Nadella if he understands why what he said upset so many people and if he could elaborate on that. In response, Nadella said he spent several days reflecting on what's been a "very humbling experience," admitting that he was "completely wrong" in his answer to how women should promote themselves.
"I basically took my own approach to how I approached my career and sprung it on half the humanity, and that was just insensitive," Nadella said.
On the topic of cloud computing, Nadella said that any major company that's not already spending "four or five billion dollars each year to just grow your cloud, probably it's a little too late to enter the market." That's what Microsoft is doing, as are Amazon and Google, which are really the big three in that category.
And what of splitting the Microsoft's consumer business from its enterprise efforts? Nadella is against the idea, choosing instead to focus on what he calls "dual-use," such as people using Windows and Office for their personal use, and taking it to work."
There's a lot more to digest here.
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