Satya Nadella Shared His Father's Advice That He Still Uses Even Today

On Father’s day, Microsoft Chief Satya Nadella shared a blog post telling us a little about his father -- B.N. Yugandhar, from whom he learnt so much in his life.?

Satya Nadella

An IAS officer with a vision

He started off his career as an IAS officer, however, as Nadella describes it, to his father it wasn’t a career choice but a calling to help build our nation. He said, “To him, land reforms, bonded labour abolition, watershed development, rural employment programs, self-help groups, disabled communities, and much more were not topics or portfolios, but his life’s purpose.”

He added, “He immersed himself in field programs, policy formulation, and legislative work, tirelessly pushing for progress in each of these areas through the decades. What gave him deep satisfaction was not the abstract, but the people he was working for and the impact that his work was having in their lives.?

Satya Nadella

From a student to a faculty member to a director at NAA

Yugandhar, eventually shifted to the National Academy of Administration, first as a junior faculty, then later as the director. Nadella shares how his father took great pride in the people that were trained under him at the academy, turning them into ‘committed missionaries working and fighting for India’s underprivileged regions’.?

Always keeping an open mind

According to?Nadella, he?shared that the most ‘enduring’ life lesson of his father’s life was the need to keep curiosity intact as well as open mind. His father believed that there if history has taught us something it’s that doctrinaire thinking (thinking that forces an idea without consideration for others) and dogma were responsible for tearing societies apart.?

Adopting ideologies from Karl Marx and Hayek

His overall pursuits, in Nadella’s words, was to create systems that could deliver Indians their universal rights -- like food, housing, health, education, etc. -- regardless of the fact the challenges India faced. To make this happen he borrowed ideologies from Karl Marx as well as Friedrich August von Hayek.?

Satya Nadella

B.N. Yugandhar passed away last year after struggling with an illness in the last few years, Satya Nadella revealed.?

Nadella concluded stating, “He would say to me that life is a terminal condition, and no one makes it out alive. But one’s life can speak to us by passing on what is most important about being human and how to live. I work and live in a very different context and time. And yet I am guided by the lessons he taught me by living his life to fulfill his passions and principles.”