Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella (Epub)

Description

The New York Times bestseller Hit Refresh is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft and the technology that will soon impact all of our lives—the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced: artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. It’s about how people, organizations, and societies can and must transform and “hit refresh” in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal.

Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era. Satya Nadella explores a fascinating childhood before immigrating to the U.S. and how he learned to lead along the way. He then shares his meditations as a sitting CEO—one who is mostly unknown following the brainy Bill Gates and energetic Steve Ballmer. He tells the inside story of how a company rediscovered its soul—transforming everything from culture to their fiercely competitive landscape and industry partnerships. As much a humanist as engineer and executive, Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of technology and by exploring the potential impact to society and delivering call to action for world leaders.

“Ideas excite me,” Nadella explains. “Empathy grounds and centers me.” Hit Refresh is a set of reflections, meditations, and recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement—for himself, for a storied company, and for society.

User’s Reviews

From the Inside Flap El actual CEO de Microsoft analiza cómo las personas, las organizaciones y las sociedades pueden y deben transformarse en su búsqueda constante de nuevas energías, nuevas ideas, relevancia y renovación.Pulsa actualizar habla de la transformación que se está produciendo dentro de Microsoft y del avance tecnológico más intenso y perturbador que la humanidad haya experimentado nunca, desde la inteligencia artificial a la realidad mixta. Analiza cómo las personas, las organizaciones y las sociedades pueden y deben actualizarse en su búsqueda constante de nuevas energías, nuevas ideas, relevancia continua y reinvención . En esencia, el libro trata sobre los seres humanos y sobre cómo una de nuestras cualidades básicas, la empatía, será cada vez más valiosa en un mundo que se verá afectado como nunca antes por el avance tecnológico.Pero Satya Nadella no solo habla de tecnología, también se remonta a su vida en la India, antes de emigrar a Estados Unidos, y el aprendizaje que supuso todo ese proceso de su vida. Comparte sus reflexiones cuando ocupó el cargo de CEO, siendo casi un desconocido, que sucedía al carismático Bill Gates y al dinámico Steve Ballmer. Explica la transformación de la compañía, desde su cultura y sus alianzas empresariales hasta el entorno tremendamente competitivo de la industria. Nadella concluye estableciendo una máxima: principios éticos al diseñar la tecnología y crecimiento económico para todos. «Las ideas me emocionan», explica Nadella. «La empatía me mantiene con los pies en la tierra».Pulsa actualizar es una magnífica reflexión sobre el futuro desde el punto de vista de un líder que busca mejorar las cosas, para sí mismo, para una compañía emblemática y para la sociedad. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ The image of turning a large, impressive, but perhaps unwieldy, ocean liner around in mid-course seems aptly to describe the cultural reboot of Microsoft during 2014.In his 2017 book, “Hit Refresh,” Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, provides detailed outlines and on-going steps for how he answered the challenges when he was named the third CEO in the company’s history following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.Through nine chapters and a postscript he presents the Microsoft situation he initially inherited, how he pursued cultural and business changes and, finally, where he sees the future for not only Microsoft but also “big change” technology headed.During the first three chapters Nadella recounts his background, early experiences in technology and working at Microsoft. Make no mistake: despite his modesty and understatement, Nadella is clearly a talented and exceptional person.During the middle chapters he describes the need to rethink the future and goals for the company with specific insights that managers might find helpful:• “Obsess about customers… and meet a customer’s unarticulated and unmet needs with great technology.”• “Actively seek diversity and inclusion.”• “We are one company… not a confederation of fiefdoms…have to learn to transcend those barriers.”The author has shown his willingness to embrace change by forging new partnerships with companies long-viewed as arch rivals such as Red Hat and Apple and acquiring new platforms promising growth opportunities such as Linked-In.Nadella offers his perspective on principles for leadership:• “Bring clarity to those you work with.”• “Generate energy, not only on (your) own terms but across the company.”• “Find a way to deliver success, to make things happen.”During the last chapters the author focuses on three technologies that lead to massive shifts in the economy and society: mixed reality, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. The first changes how people interface with computing and the digital world by increasing the experiential nature of the specific task.The second, Nadella sees as augmenting human capabilities with analyses leading to insights and predictive power achieved far more rapidly than people working on their own. He does caution later adapting to this technology requires major changes in the educational system to prepare today’ students to be the managers and developers of tomorrow.Finally, while still experimental, quantum computing will give rise to rapid growth in computing power and speed so that complex calculations once thought beyond reach can be achieved, If you want more insights, read my Amazon review of Scientific American’s 2016 collection, “Ultimate Physics” (here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2L9R6OLCSFQUM/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8)At the end of the book Nadella reprises a theme he sees as a core value in creating successful relationships for employees, managers, partners and people in general: the importance of education and empathy. Education as an essential road to understanding and using new technology so that a knowledge gap does not create further displacement in society.Empathy is critical for leaders and managers to understand others, their motives, wants and needs. And something that seems to be in short supply at this time.

⭐ Fairly interesting book. I listened to this via Audible. Enjoyable narration, if a little flat. I’ve been in technology for 20 + years and I’m not sure who the audience for this book is. It’s not for anybody that’s in tune with the tech landscape in the past or the changes we’re undergoing now as it’s a bit of a hodge-podge high-level think piece on various mega-trends, most of which have been explored in isolation in other business book bestsellers over the last five years.My overall takeaway from the book:- Pay attention to the tech trends –Quantum computing, AI, A/R and V/R- The future will require deep empathy and strong organizational cultures- Multi-national companies in a global economy need to invest in a sustainable social contract in the markets they serveIn the same realm, Thomas Friedman’s, “Thank You for Being Late” covers the same general ground and is much more compelling and insightful.

⭐ I have been working for a Microsoft partner company for nearly 15 years, and for almost 30 years I’m dealing with IT, most part of that closely working with Microsoft technologies. I have been admiring the transformation from the concept of putting personal computer to each and every home in 90s to mobility and service models nowadays. I passed 25+ Microsoft exams and have certificates, signed by all Microsoft CEOs. For all those years I have been sharing the values Microsoft was transmitting to its partner and client community – and I’m very glad to see its incredible transformation within last years, when Satya came to power. Somehow he managed to turn a huge corporation, running behind the market trends, into a vendor that forms and creates those trends, in just a few years.So, I was very much interested in this book to get more information on how this transformation is taking place. Those who were following Satya and e.g. his speeches on opening keynotes of Microsoft events will certainly recognize his style of presenting the information – humble, honest but inspiring. The book tells you three transformation stories: how Satya relocated to US, how he managed to develop himself to Microsoft CEO within 20 years and finally – how current transformation takes place in corporation.This is not memories’ of the past – for those type of books only the past events are described. The book has its thrill and value exactly because the author puts reader in today’s present environment, without knowing the final outcome, and trying to guess together what will be the future. This book is about making the future. If you want to be little closer to the understanding of future, this book is for you.

⭐ Let me start by saying I am a hard-core Microsoft fan: I worked at Microsoft which were some of the best in my career so far. I use a Windows phone, which I love, a Windows PC, a Surface RT, and even a Zune when I go to the gym. I had the opportunity to meet Bill and Steve, I admire both deeply. I believe Satya has done an incredible job at Microsoft. This is why I was excited to read Hit Refresh: I was expecting to hear the details of Satya’s strategy, to understand how he thinks, to get a sense of his personal background.I am very disappointed. I am willing to bet the corporate communications team wrote 99% of the book with only a minor review, if any, from Satya or maybe from someone reporting to him. Let me give a few specific examples.The book is often pitched about one of culture change. But I did not find anything specific that would illustrate the change. For example, on page 109 it reads “the key to the culture change was individual empowerment” when Microsoft already had the most empowered employees in the World.It talks about Diversity and women’s right, when Microsoft has the most diverse workforces. In one of the small buildings where I worked, there were people from probably 100 nationalities who spoke dozens of languages. In fact, 10 years ago I saw reverse discrimination: underperformers being promoted over much more qualified employees to meet the quota of women and minority in leadership positions.The book touts the partnership with Apple as a great example of the new strategy for Microsoft: “Seeing me demo Microsoft software on an iPhone designed and built by Apple, one of our toughest, longest standing competitors, was surprising and even refreshing.” In reality Microsoft and Apple have worked together for decades.In fact, Microsoft has always been the top software vendor for macs. In 1997, Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple, effectively saving the company from bankruptcy. The partnership included a broad patent cross-licensing agreement and preferential treatment for the Mac for the next version of Office, which had been available for a long time. Office for the iPhone was already being built when Satya took over as CEO.The book tries too hard to position Microsoft a visionary, with a healthy dose of buzzwords and very little substance. This sentence, for example: “Toyota…has transformed their cars and trucks into next-generation digital era vehicles”, whatever that means.Most of the book is non-stop talk about how great Microsoft is, how talented is the executive team, how Microsoft will dominate Internet of things, AI, cloud, and security.I still think Microsoft is a wonderful company and Satya is a great CEO. Sadly, this book itself is a statement about the culture of the company. A sad one.

⭐ Review of Nadella’s Hit refresh by Paul F. Ross It has been fashionable in recent decades for an organization, a corporation, to prepare a “mission statement” declaring its purpose. The process of preparing and publishing the statement is supposed to give the organization’s leaders and employees as well as its customers and other publics a sense of direction, a purpose, so that their efforts are better coordinated, better understood, better focused, more efficient, more deeply appreciated.Nadella’s Hit refresh (2017) is a personal mission statement about his role as leader of Microsoft given expression in his third year as CEO succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014. It reads almost as his diary might read, begun in 2014, a journey in which business conditions for Microsoft from 2008 forward, Microsoft’s competitors’ recent successes, Microsoft’s recent mistakes, and Nadella’s personal sense of the technological world’s directions and Microsoft’s 2008 culture helped him muse to himself from day to day. He writes knowing he is making a____________________________________________________________________________________________Nadella, Satya, Shaw, Greg, and Nichols, Jill Tracie Hit refresh: The quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul and imagine a better future for everyone 2017, HarperCollins Publishers, New York NY, xi + 273 pages____________________________________________________________________________________________publishable document and carefully cites contributions from his Microsoft teammates throughout his story and in his acknowledgements. Nadella points to the opportunities current circumstances offer for Microsoft and Microsoft’s customers and cultures worldwide … unlike Kello (2017), writing about the need for an international script for dealing with cyberwar, who points to the critics and skeptics, criticizing the skeptics roundly, and so building their resistance to Kello’s ideas. Nadella treats all the right topics. Nadella’s diary allows the reader to know Nadella in a very personal way.Nadella writes about finding himself as the successor to Steve Ballmer, the second to serve as CEO at Microsoft. Nadella writes about his youth in India, his emigration to the United States, his career at Microsoft to this point in time, the challenges Microsoft was facing in 2014 … all this looking back. He spends most of his time looking ahead … the places Microsoft has fallen behind, the need for a change in culture at Microsoft, the need for Microsoft to gain empathy (understanding the emotions and points of view of others), the new endeavors at Microsoft, his expectation that multinational organizations must deliver local productivity boosters and benefits wherever the organization is at work. Nadella speaks of information technology’s need to protect the privacy of customers entrusting their data to technology, establish rules about government roles and technology-provider roles with respect to technology’s customers, protect against hackers and cyberwar, establish a code of ethics for users and providers of cyber technology. Nadella sees artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and cloud-based services as key aspects of information technology’s future.Nadella’s Hit refresh is his look ahead. He is fully aware that in five years, in a decade, his performance and Microsoft’s progress will be assessed using this “mark on the wall” as the reference point. He intends to shape Microsoft’s direction, the direction of information technology, the nature of governments’ roles in relation to its citizens, international relations, … and the like based on his mission statement. It is a worthwhile read for Microsofties, for information technologists, for government policymakers, and for leaders of all kinds.Bellevue WA22 November 2017Copyright © 2017 by Paul F. Ross All rights reserved.ReferencesKello, Lucas The virtual weapon and international order 2017, Yale University Press, New Haven CTNadella, Satya, Shaw, Greg, and Nichols, Jill Tracie Hit refresh: The quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul and imagine a better future for everyone 2017, HarperCollins Publishers, New York NY

⭐ Satya Nadella comes across as an idealist. He indicates often that he thinks the role of large multinational corporations is to improve the state of the world in general, and for minorities and the underprivileged in particular.He also backs some idealist positions that are not necessarily popular with people who think that you can improve security in society by giving the authorities unlimited powers. For example, he backed Tim Cook’s refusal to provide the FBI with a “backdoor” into iPhones, and Microsoft is currently resisting turning over emails stored in their Irish data center to the US Justice Dept.He’s also willing to stand up to threats when he thinks the principles involved are important. When North Korean hackers threatened everyone who tried to show a Sony movie called “The Interview”, Microsoft was among the companies who made it available online (for a price).I wish Satya Nadella all the best. Unfortunately, I fear that the reality of big business and capitalism is such that if he doesn’t deliver on providing the growth in Microsoft share prices that investors demand, then he’ll find himself replaced by someone less idealistic and more investor-oriented.

⭐ MS was the company I was told to hate growing up. Ballmer and Gates were staunch competitors, to a fault. All they cared about was money. They stifled innovation.While some of these aspects were occasionally true, I’ve seen a sea change the last few years. Microsoft is now the company willing to take risks. They’re willing to listen. They may not execute exactly as customers want, particularly at first, but they iterate fast and often. They’re not as interested in milking the cash cow.The cultural turnaround is shocking… and welcome. Enterprises take on the culture of their leaders, and Satya has clearly left an empathetic, but thoughtful impact on his employees. It’s a bit early to call if this will be a success – Ballmer and Gates were arguably successes despite their hardnosed attitudes. However, if he succeeds (and so far he’s doing well) it will be a great case study on how to lead in business while still being a good person.

⭐ I bought this book as a supplement to a college class I was taking. I did not have to buy it and I was deeply unmotivated to read it.It was a surprise to me learn that Satya Nadella is such a deep and sincere person. His story is interesting and he addresses some of the fundamental challenges to big tech. (Especially in the Afterword.)I came away from this book with a little more optimism about the world and with an inkling of understanding of how we might overcome Picketty’s “r > g” equation.My favorite story of the book was the one about Nadella’s interview with Richard Tait: “You need some empathy, man.” Don’t we all.

⭐ The book is a peek into the aspirations and goals of Microsoft as envisioned by its CEO. It starts off by discussing what led to the stagnation in growth of the company, how they were able to overcome it and what are they doing different. The book then moves on to describe the future of technology and how Microsoft is heavily invested in determining that future. While describing this future, the book lays down the pros and cons associated with these new technologies and tries to provide a blueprint to foster an environment where the benefits are equally distributed across all the sections of the society.Unfortunately, the book manages to merely touch on the various topics without going into any details. The book can serve as a decent introduction to everything happening in the world of technology and its possible impact, but if you are looking for more details, you are bound to be disappointed. Given these lack of details, the book sometimes feels more of a marketing campaign promoting a new Microsoft and its culture of innovation, openness and empathy rather than being a serious work promoting discussions on technology and its impact.

⭐ This was the most surprising book I’ve read this year. I didn’t expect to find the story of a CEO with so much empathy, a sense of purpose, and a focus on people (his employees, customers, and the world).This is a case study of Simon Sinek’s Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last. I was encouraged to learn that Microsoft is focusing on both the Employee Experience and the Customer Experience (like Adobe).The last couple sections on the future of technology and its impact on the global economy were interesting and I benefited from reading them but the first 2/3rds of the book were definitely my favorite.

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