In 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that he'd never pictured Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates ever leaving the company while discussing his ascend to the top seat.
The executive revealed he'd never considered sitting at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, running its day-to-day operations. Nadella admitted that he was reluctant to take the position when a board member offered it to him.
He indicated he would only take the position if the board member genuinely wanted him to, but was informed that he "really needed to want to be CEO" to get the position.
In a recent interview, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that Satya Nadella almost missed the opportunity to become Microsoft's CEO (via Fortune).
Satya Nadella almost didn't become CEO
Satya Nadella became Microsoft CEO in 2014, taking the mantle from Steve Ballmer and making the company among the world's most valuable companies with over $3 trillion in market capitalization.
The tech giant's immense success can undoubtedly be attributed to its recent AI and cloud computing efforts.
Interestingly, Nadella was backed by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to become the company's CEO. As you may know, Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2000 but continued to be a member of its board before fully transitioning to philanthropic efforts through the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."
However, the billionaire is reportedly intimately involved in the company's affairs, with some insiders claiming "his opinion is sought every time we make a major change," including AI and recruiting high-ranking executives.
Gates admits that he was haunted by intrusive thoughts about Microsoft's future after he stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Steve Ballmer:
"I'll tear up on this, ’cause it meant a lot to me. I've had two successors, and boy, do I feel lucky because as I went off to do the foundation work, the one thing that plagued me was: Was I going to see the company fade in terms of its excellence?"
The Microsoft co-founder indicated that when Steve Ballmer announced his planned retirement, the board of members faced the difficult task of finding the perfect candidate for what might be considered the most complex CEO position in the world.
The fact that Steve took us [Microsoft] to new heights and the fact that through a process that almost made the wrong decision—although you and Steve and I never wavered from knowing Satya would be good, and he's been even better at navigating what even today remains one of the most complex CEO jobs in the world—makes me feel so good that I get to just come in and play a very bit role of doing product reviews, learning about AI, getting some help from Microsoft on the work that I'm doing. It's allowed me to throw everything in and to have the incredible resources that my Microsoft ownership created.
Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates
Bill Gates also took the opportunity to tout Satya Nadella's empathetic leadership style as Microsoft's CEO and its contribution to the company's overall success.
"I’ve come to value empathy more over the course of my career," added Gates. "Early on we were speed nuts, staying all night [at the office, thinking], 'Oh, you’re five percent slower as a programmer? You don’t belong here.' It was very hard-core."
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