I just finished reading Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh and if you want a short review of the book, let me just tell you this: go grab a copy.
The book is Satya Nadella’s perspective on the old Microsoft, the in-between changes (and the big deals like Nokia acquisition) to the new face of Microsoft (winning the cloud battle).
But before that, you should take a look at this picture (which Satya does mention about the org culture at Microsoft).
If you have worked for big corporates / interacted with them, you will appreciate the beauty of this pic and this was a true representation of culture @Microsoft (ps: Ditto for my last employer, Yahoo).
Satya Nadella, in his book ‘Hit Refresh’ goes a bit candid about the cultural issues that existed in Microsoft to his personal life (importantly, the importance of ’empathy’ in a nerd’s life) to many decisions that went wrong as well as right at Microsoft.
Been an active observer, I definitely think that the book does a great job of story telling – especially by a man who is still in the trenches (and not leading a retired life). Plus, he is the new breed of non-founding CEOs who are achieving new successes and is always a great idea to get perspective in this context.
This isn’t really an autobiography, nor a book about tech advancements and neither a book on business strategy. Hit Refresh is a mix of all of the above and is a good read, if you want to read about the inner workings of Microsoft and how the company bounced back after losing the search and mobile war.
My only grudge is that the book is superficial at places where it shouldn’t have been – especially Nokia acquisition. It’s easy to ‘sound right’ (“the world doesn’t need new OS”) in hindsight, but Satya Nadella somehow ducks many of these bouncers.
Totally recommended, if you are a cricket fan and wanna experience how Satya Nadella brings the cricket metaphor in the story telling.
There has been a debate whether it is ‘too early’ for Satya Nadella to publish his journey – well, my take is it’s never too late and as long as he has the audience, it is all cool.
To his credit, he has brought back a LOT of love for Microsoft over the last few years – not just with Windows 10, but the open love which MS has shown towards open source tech and for other platforms (esp Apple) is quite commendable.
» Buy Hit Refresh from Amazon.
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