Revival at Microsoft
The company’s flagship products, from Windows to the Office productivity suite, have shaped the way millions of people work, play and communicate. Its Xbox video game consoles and Surface line of all-in-one PCs have made it a major player in the consumer electronics market. And its Bing search engine and Azure cloud computing platform compete with Google and Amazon Web Services in the digital-information marketplace.
In 2024, Microsoft had revenues of nearly $130 billion. The company has invested in areas like cloud computing and AI. And its investments have had economic benefits in Southeast Wisconsin.
Observers once wrote Microsoft off as a 20th-century phenomenon, fat and happy from its Windows monopoly. It was big enough to be slow and bureaucratic, rich enough to fund fast followers, but it wasn’t nimble enough to lead.
But that was before Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014. In a move that stunned many, Nadella discarded the company’s corporate culture of lording it over subordinates and focused instead on innovation. In the past two years, he has led a company revival that is paying dividends.
The new Microsoft focuses on cloud and artificial intelligence. It’s investing heavily in both to try to keep pace with rivals. But it also has changed its approach to philanthropy and environmental impact. For example, it’s now aiming to be carbon negative by 2030, meaning it will remove more from the atmosphere than it emits.
To do that, the company is working with a variety of partners to develop technologies that remove carbon from the air and water. It’s also putting money into programs to encourage diversity in the technology industry.
It’s the kind of thing that would make the board of directors at a traditional corporate giant blush. But at Microsoft, the board is made up of mostly outsiders and includes tech entrepreneurs. That helps the company remain open to change.
The reversal at Microsoft began with Nadella, who was appointed CEO in February of 2014. He’s credited with creating an open, supportive and collaborative culture. He has also steered the company in new directions, such as its focus on AI and cloud computing.
But it’s hard to know how much of the change at Microsoft is his doing and how much is a reaction to the company’s slow decline. Tech analyst Benedict Evans captured Microsoft’s plight in a July 2013 essay called “The Irrelevance of Microsoft.”
In 2024, a week after that demo blew Jaime Teevan’s mind, she was seated in a conference room full of tens of thousands of Microsoft employees around the world. They streamed the event from their offices, homes, and kitchen tables to hear a keynote speech from their boss. Nadella’s goal was to remind them that the company had a new mission. It was to put Copilot—Microsoft’s name for its AI—into the hands of everyone.
