Hit Refresh

I wanted to like this book because Satya Nadella is not the typical CEO.

Usually, India born CEOs are either from IIT or IIM or Stanford. He studied at Manipal University. When many of the US migrated Indians are into baseball or basketball, Satya is into cricket and seems like he can play it well too. Satya's father is a Marxist but served in Indian Civil Service. His mother is a Sanskrit scholar. (In another book, Half-Lion, on the ex-Indian Prime Minister and polymath, Narasimha Rao, I read that Rao was present at the wedding of Satya.) Satya's challenge with his special needs kid and his graceful way of handling it. His love for books like Caro Dweck's Mindset or Marshall Goldberg's Non-violent communication. His emphasis on empathy and culture, I can go on. But hold on.

I was expecting this book to be a story about him, his transformation, his learnings on how he influenced such a big organisation like Microsoft and revitalising it. But it was a mega-bore. Other than the first two chapters where he talks about his personal life, cricket and his son, which was mildly interesting, the rest of the book was really boring for me. It read like an internal blog with frequent mentions about Skype or Windows or any Microsoft's product.

If you really want to know about Satya's life, you can simply skip this. This book reminds me of Bill Gates' Business @ Speed of Thought. (Bill is definitely my hero, I love his book recommendations but not this book 😜. )

I wanted to like this book because Satya Nadella is not the typical CEO.

Usually, India-born CEOs are either from IIT or IIM or Stanford. He studied at Manipal University. When many of the US-migrated Indians are into baseball or basketball, Satya is into cricket and seems like he can play it well too. Satya's father is a Marxist but served in the Indian Civil Service. His mother is a Sanskrit scholar. (In another book, Half-Lion, on the ex-Indian Prime Minister and polymath, Narasimha Rao, I read that Rao was present at the wedding of Satya.) Satya's challenge with his special needs kid and his graceful way of handling it. His love for books like Caro Dweck's Mindset or Marshall Goldberg's Non-violent Communication. His emphasis on empathy and culture, I can go on. But hold on.

I was expecting this book to be a story about him, his transformation, and his learnings on how he influenced such a big organisation like Microsoft and revitalised it. But it was a mega-bore. Other than the first two chapters where he talks about his personal life, cricket and his son, which was mildly interesting, the rest of the book was boring for me. It reads like an internal blog with frequent mentions of Skype or Windows or some Microsoft product.

If you really want to know about Satya's life, you can simply skip this. This book reminds me of Bill Gates' Business @ Speed of Thought. (Bill is for sure an inspiration, I love his book recommendations but not this book