Everything is about perception. What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors.

Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. Saying stuff like Linux is cancer, the iPhone a toy/joke, acting like a clown during conference.

"What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors.

Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. "

Totally disagree.

Which of MS customers do you think care about 'perception' of how nice the CEO is?

Do you think Siemens is going to spend $500M on Google cloud because their CEO is nicer than Ballmer was?

Which Windows users are thinking about Satya vs. Ballmer? 99% of Windows users have no idea who either of those people are :)

Satya's 'nice guy ways' are almost irrelevant to the business overall, other than maybe recruiting, or something like that, but I doubt they've ever had a problem.

Analysts and investors read GAAP statements and those are 100x more important than 'how nice' the CEO is perceived.

Some issues, like Linux as you mention, I think are important, but I'll bet that Ballmer would have arrived there anyhow.

Linux support was not so much a strategic decision as it was a 'forced hand'. They had basically no choice and the decision was inevitable.

I think that the reason Ballmer was disliked by Wall St. was A) the failure of Windows Mobile b) the perception that Windows was in decline (it's not) c) Cloud revenues had not yet hit the big time yet.

I actually feel that the P/E ratio pushed on Ballmer would have come around for him eventually.

I like Satya, I think he's the right choice - but he still has to prove himself. As of today, he's mostly riding Ballmer's coattails.

There is one area where Satya is better leadership-wise. The success of Microsoft in the long term ultimately depends on its ability to run a good engineering organization. Everyone at MS knew Ballmer was never an engineer, so he had very little respect from the engineering rank and file. His brash, business oriented personality and the lack of "filter" did not help matters. While it is true that customers largely don't give a shit who runs Microsoft as long as it's run reasonably well, Microsoft employees (and prospective employees) do care, and the ability to attract and retain them is the cornerstone of Microsoft's continued success.

I saw a post in another thread that suggested that former enlisted men do better as officers than people who were never soldiers. The same is true here in terms of people leadership, if not the vision.

Does anyone know the major departures during Ballmer? I know the original lead for Microsoft Windows Server Manager and MMC.exe literally quit and morale hit the absolutely floor among the entire organization. He eventually ended up at Amazon and another guy ended up at what became Pivotal.

This goes beyond what the customers think of the CEO. This is about culture, about employees morale, about attracting developers who may have been against using some of MS products in the past for all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps having Linux in Azure was inevitable, like you said, but I don't think something like the Linux subsystem stuff they implemented in Windows 10 would have been OKayd by Ballmer. Same thing with stuff like VS Code and the new switch to Chromium for Edge.

It's about a culture where these kinds of ideas are encouraged and can develop into features and products.

Why is Google so successful? Because the culture allows people's ideas to develop into what became huge products loved by millions of people.

"Why is Google so successful? Because the culture allows people's ideas to develop into what became huge products loved by millions of people."

So During Ballmer's tenure, they always made a ton more money than Google.

So 'Ballmer's culture' was therefore the winner?

I'm afraid your argument is not based in how the world works actually works - it's more based on a 'feeling' of how people think it 'should work'.

Ballmer was somewhat aggressive in character, so was Gates by the way - they build a world class company that changed the world.

And FYI just because he was aggressive, does not mean he didn't 'foster change' or 'allow ideas'. It's really more a disposition than anything.

And FYI - MS made it's money by focusing on Windows, that decision is not because 'Ballmer is mean' and 'Satya is nice' - it has nothing to do with their emotional posture.

To imply in any way that they were not successfull or couldn't adapt, while they launched a series of world class products is just false.

" Because the culture allows people's ideas to develop into what became huge products loved by millions of people."

You mean while they spy on your every move? You've seen the headlines right?

Google is prying into my (and your) personal life in every possible way and trying to leverage that.

Was 'meanie Ballmer' every trying to read your mind to profit off of that? No?

>So During Ballmer's tenure, they always made a ton more money than Google.

As expected, since Microsoft is an older and much more established company.

>Ballmer was somewhat aggressive in character, so was Gates by the way - they build a world class company that changed the world.

Nobody is denying that.

"Before becoming CEO, he was Executive Vice President of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms, developer tools and cloud computing services"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella

When I left MS in late 00s, he was still in Bing. From what I heard Bing, ironically, _still_ doesn't use anything Azure and builds its own cloud infrastructure. :-) Exchange runs its own bespoke stuff, too. I suppose much like Google Search, Gmail and Ads don't use GCP, but worse, because at least Google has one offering internally and one externally, whereas MS has multiple.

Certainly starting new stuff is important, but I think it's worth pointing out that focusing your efforts is one of the hardest things to do. One could argue that it was more important for Microsoft to become competitive in things like Azure, than it was to start new things. It's kind of like how successfully retreating is, militarily, more difficult than successfully attacking, because you're already in a bad situation.

But, pretty soon, it will be time for Microsoft to prove they can start new stuff again, you're correct on that.

Is a CEOs job really to start new stuff? As someone points out below, Balmer also started stuff that cost the company, windows phone, Skype etc. So I disagree that a CEO should be measured by only things he started that were successful. I think a CEOs job is that of a sustainer of growth, which can be done in many ways and doesn't necessarily need new products.

Arguably, yes, if the company is to sustain itself in the future. And yes, some stuff will fail. You still have to try though. Consider this: if Ballmer did not start all those things, MSFT of today would not see quite the "resurgence" the article talks about, no matter who's at the helm.