We chatted with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella yesterday about the company’s cloud computing and software business. The second part of our conversation turns to Nadella himself, his roots in India and Microsoft’s plans there.
“When I look at my own story, I think it’s just ‘only in America,'” Nadella says. “We have a lot of work ahead in creating equity between gender and races. But we also have a lot to celebrate, and that’s the message,”
We also asked him about the gender pay gap in the tech industry, seven months after he made some comments — then immediately took them back — about the issue. Nadella says he’s learned a lot, and he’ll be turning his attention to staffing and culture at Microsoft.
“When I think about our own developers and engineers, we have about 18 percent women…we absolutely see this issue where we have to make huge amounts of progress, where we not only provide equal pay for equal work, but we have to create an environment and a culture of inclusiveness that creates equal opportunity for equal work,” Nadella says. “And it starts with, I think, looking inside at our own culture and making sure that it cultivates that core that allows women to thrive.”
Click on the multimedia player above to hear more from our conversation with Nadella.