- Friday, May 02, 2025
By: Vibhuti Pathak
When Satya Nadella stepped into the role of Microsoft CEO in 2014, he knew he had big shoes to fill. Taking over from Steve Ballmer, the company’s second-ever CEO, Nadella faced the enormous task of leading one of the world’s most powerful tech giants into a new era. What helped him steer the company with vision and confidence? A deceptively simple five-word piece of advice from Ballmer: “Be bold and be right.”
Nadella has since described this quote as “one of the best pieces of advice” he’s ever received. Speaking to students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2019, he elaborated: “If you’re not bold, you’re not going to do much of anything. If you’re not right, you’re not going to be here.”
These five words have shaped Nadella’s leadership style over the past decade. Under his guidance, Microsoft has undergone a remarkable transformation — evolving from a primarily software-based company into a global leader in cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
At the heart of this evolution is Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud platform, which Nadella helped build while working under Ballmer. He credits his predecessor for encouraging him to take bold steps and fully commit to cloud technology. “The guy who gave me permission to do all this was Steve Ballmer,” Nadella told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in a 2020 interview. “He wanted us to be bold and go at the cloud very aggressively, and that’s what we did.”
That boldness paid off. Microsoft’s market value soared from around $300 billion when Nadella took over to nearly $3 trillion in 2025. In 2024 alone, Azure accounted for more than half of Microsoft’s total annual revenue, according to the company’s latest financial reports.
Nadella’s leadership philosophy aligns closely with other tech giants. Amazon, for example, has similar principles embedded into its corporate culture. Jeff Bezos emphasized that leaders should “think big” and be “right, a lot,” while current CEO Andy Jassy noted that being right is a matter of sound judgment — one informed by a diversity of perspectives.
For Nadella, being “right” doesn’t mean having all the answers. Instead, he values being a “learn-it-all” — someone who constantly seeks new ideas and knowledge to make informed decisions. Speaking with organizational psychologist Adam Grant in 2018, Nadella emphasized that a willingness to learn and adapt is essential for successful leadership.
As Microsoft continues to evolve with innovations in AI, cloud services, and enterprise technology, Nadella’s journey from humble engineer to global CEO remains a testament to bold leadership — and the power of a few well-timed words of wisdom.
