CEO Satya Nadella Shares One Of The Biggest Decisions He Regrets Microsoft Made

In a recent interview, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella opened up about a big mistake that he regrets the company made, something that Microsoft's two former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have already admitted.

What Regrets Did Satya Nadella Talk About?

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently admitted in an interview with Business Insider that the company¡¯s exit from the mobile phone business could have been handled better. He becomes the third Microsoft CEO to have admitted that the company could have done better by focusing on the phone category.

When asked if there was a wrong decision that he regrets, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, ¡°The decision I think a lot of people talk about ¨C and one of the most difficult decisions I made when I became CEO ¡ª was our exit of what I¡¯ll call the mobile phone as defined then. In retrospect, I think there could have been ways we could have made it work by perhaps reinventing the category of computing between PCs, tablets, and phones.¡±

As per a Business Insider report, Microsoft had written off $7.6 billion related to its acquisition of Nokia¡¯s phone business just over a year after Nadella took over from former CEO Steve Ballmer in 2014. A few years later, Microsoft finally confirmed that Windows Phone was dead.

Also Read; Not Bill Gates, This Man Was The First Employee Of Microsoft

When Bill Gates Admitted The Same Mistake

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Much before Satya Nadella admitted the big mistake, Microsoft's co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates had said his ¡°greatest mistake ever¡± was Microsoft losing to Android. For the unversed, Google had acquired Android in 2005 for $50 million, and former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in 2012 that Google¡¯s initial focus was beating Microsoft¡¯s early Windows Mobile efforts.

Also Read: Warren Buffett Regrets Not Investing In Amazon, Google & Microsoft

Which Other Microsoft CEO Regretted The Decision?

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Besides Bill Gates, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was also slow to respond to Android and the iPhone threat, focusing the company¡¯s efforts on Windows Mobile while famously laughing at the iPhone, calling it the ¡°most expensive phone in the world and it doesn¡¯t appeal to business customers because it doesn¡¯t have a keyboard.¡±

Steve Ballmer, as per The Verge, had admitted in 2013 that he regretted not focusing on the phone much earlier. ¡°I regret there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what we had to do around Windows [Vista] that we weren¡¯t able to redeploy talent to the new device called the phone,¡± explained Ballmer. ¡°That is [the] thing I regret the most.¡±

Also Read; Microsoft Decides To Cancel Salary Hikes For Full-time Employees This Year

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