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Hit Refresh

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Hit Refresh

By: Satya Nadella, Bill Gates - foreword
Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki, Satya Nadella
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About this listen

The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone

Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, while tracing his own journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant changes of the digital era.

LONGLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Satya Nadella grew up in India, studied in the US and went on to become Microsoft’s third CEO after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. In Hit Refresh he offers a unique view of the transformation happening inside one of the world’s most iconic tech companies, and the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced – including artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing.

Nadella examines how people, organisations and societies can and must transform – ‘hit refresh’ – in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal. Yet at its core, this book is about humans, and how one of our essential qualities – empathy – will become ever more valuable in a world where technological advancement will alter the status quo as never before.

©2017 Satya Nadella (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers Business Engineering Professionals & Academics Technology Inspiring Thought-Provoking Heartfelt

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All stars
Most relevant
I listened to this before going to Inspire, which was perfect timing to appreciate the changes Microsoft are going through and get an insight into Satya's focus on technology and culture

A fantastic insight to Microsoft and it's CEO

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I enjoyed every minute of this book: very insightful, inspirational and empathetic. Working in tech myself, I can relate to a lot of challenges outlined by Satya and his philosophical, yet practical approach to solving those.

Absolutely Brilliant!

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I came to hit refresh with an open mind. I was conscious of the negative reviews that this was a "Microsoft promo book" but this wasn't the case for me. I only knew parts of Satya story so it was good to gain context. I am pleased he took the time to write this book during his tenrure and I only slightly disappointed that he didn't take time to record all of the audio version. I think this would have given more power to his authentic voice

Really worth your time

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Some will value every page of this book, but there’s more than enough variety of content to interest every reader at least in part. Policy makers and business leaders might want to read the latter chapters sooner rather than later!

A very human voice from the world of technology

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When Satya Nadella went into bat to become Microsoft's third CEO in 2014, it is fair to say that the global software giant was on a bit of a sticky wicket. By this time Bill Gates had gone off to be a philanthropist and the company had substantially achieved its goal of having a PC on every desk and every home in the world. PC sales were in decline and Amazon had already claimed a large part of the cloud through its AWS business whilst Microsoft was resting on its laurels.

With employees morale at an all time low and the company still reeling from its disastrous acquisition of rapidly declining mobile phone company Nokia it was obvious that a new approach was needed to ensure that Microsoft did not go the same way. Mr Nadella started, as all good new bosses do, by gauging the mood of the 100,000 staff. He did not like what he heard, "we came to Microsoft to change the world, the world is changing but we are not" is what he heard and had to do something about it.

Nadella's management style is clearly collaborative and he takes inspiration from his love of cricket and applies the lessons learnt from the cricket field to the business world. I like him already as a result of this. There was little time to ask "what colour is my parachute" and the only way to save the company was to hit "refresh" otherwise it would be "control + alt + delete". He did this by focusing on how Microsoft changes lives around the world and focusing on Culture above everything else describing the "C" in CEO standing for Culture, claiming that "Culture eats Strategy for breakfast".

He also changed the relationship that Microsoft has with the rest of the tech industry abandoning the aggressive anti trust ligation and instead focusing on collaborations whit the likes of Dell, Google (where Miscrosoft competes badly with its "Bing" search engine) and, shock horror, even Apple.

Successful acquisitions of LinkedIn, Xbox and, strangely the video game Minecraft followed and Nadella's reputation as the leader of a newly engineered Microsoft peaked with the company's decision to hold the launch of Windows 10 in Kenya to the surprise of the world media.

Unsurprisingly, Nadella sees the future of Microsoft as a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing. Microsoft has certainly come a long way from its original marketing message of "where do you want to go today?" but this might well be an apt strap line once again now it is refreshed.

Putting the soft back into Microsoft

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