Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has received a 66-percent hike in his salary after his plans led to the most fiscal year for the company. Microsoft's market capitalisation value crossed $1 trillion.
Reuters
Reports revealed that Nadella received $42.9 million in the form of stock awards in 2019, which was revealed in Microsoft's annual proxy statement that was released on Wednesday. He also received a $1 million base salary bump.
The annual report states, "In reviewing Mr. Nadella's annual equity compensation, the independent members of our Board recognized the benefit of Mr. Nadella's proficiency as CEO, as demonstrated by Microsoft's achievements during his tenure."
As per the report, Microsoft's market capitalisation was around $302 billion when Nadella got the reigns of the company in 2014. By 2018, it skyrocketed to $850 billion.
The success for Microsoft has to be after it focused more on cloud services, under Nadella's leadership. Other elements contributing to this success were LinkedIn sessions, revenue from commercial cloud services, and of course Windows 10 devices.?
Even Microsoft has reported a 14 percent increase in its revenues at $125.8 billion. It even saw growth in its net income (137 percent) at $39.2 billion.
When Satya Nadella first took over as Microsoft's CEO in February 2014, the company was not in a good position. Their smartphone business couldn't compete with Android and iOS, Windows 8 had was innovative but incomplete, and consumers weren't happy.
Reuters
When Nadella took the reins in 2014, he made some noteworthy overhauls to what his predecessor Steve Ballmer had set in motion. Microsoft's Azure cloud platform itself was a gamble when set up.?
Nadella took that one step further. He made the controversial decision to allow open-source competitor Linux, which Ballmer had once called "cancer", to operate on Azure. Since then, the platform has shown considerable growth. And now it is one of the most revenue-generating product at Microsoft.?