We measure our success by economic impact, not market capitalisation: Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said it was important for technology to be regulated as it becomes increasingly critical, although he cautioned that over-regulation could increase costs to businesses, especially entrepreneurs. Calling privacy a human right, Nadella told ET in an interview that Microsoft would conform to India’s proposed privacy rules. He also said the company’s success was defined by its economic impact and not because of its high market capitalisation. Edited Excerpts:Two of the large technology companies with trillion-dollar market caps are headed by Indians. Is that number important to you?(Amod Malviya), co-founder of Udaan, put it well: What is more important to us is the overall surplus and economic value that gets created in every country and in every community we work in.When I come to India, I make sure we're talking about our technology. (Take) Apollo Hospitals, they created a new AI model for the South Asian population with cardiac issues…A unicorn like Udaan was able to achieve success with just 17-18 people. 74310832 If you’re creating that local surplus, we (Microsoft) will even have the permission to operate. That is true in every country — in India, the United States and in the UK.To me that is what is most important.If you just celebrate your own market cap and you don't see success broadly around the world, then I think that market cap is going to be very transitory. 74310838 You have said that we need to build technologies in areas such as health, agriculture and education, not just focused on consumer tech. How can India build for the world?There is nothing wrong with the consumer economy getting lots of innovation. After all, the mobile revolution along with consumer internet companies have really changed the lives of people, in terms of their access to services.The question now is, can we make it broader?Here is a company that says electric vehicles are going to be our future, let us completely create a new grid effectively for batteries. That's a startup here that's relevant everywhere. Or, take this company that says I can build an exoskeleton device for anybody with spinal cord injuries, and they're already taking it to North America.Those are all very innovative ideas coming out of India that have global relevance. 74310847 You have spoken about being open to regulation and about ethics in Artificial Intelligence. Yet, there has been a pushback from local teams every time governments try to bring new policies on data localisation or digital tax. As technology becomes much more pervasive, just like we have regulation in food safety, like we have the Federal Aviation Authority for air traffic (in the United States) and so on, we will always have regulation for things that are very mission critical in our lives and society.Privacy is a human right. We implemented the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, but (also) took the subject rights and implemented them all over the world. In India, there will be equivalent legislation and we will conform to it.Even around AI and AI ethics, it’s ultimately a tool. How the tool gets used is something every country and society will need some norms around…one issue with overregulating anything means you fragment things, you increase transaction costs. The last thing you want to do is increase the cost of doing business for successful entrepreneurs from here.Your remarks on the Citizenship Amendment Act recently were seen as controversial. Were you taken aback?I think every country is going to define their own policies around immigration and national security. In democracies, it’s the people and governments that decide. I mostly speak from being someone who grew up here…proud of my heritage of a multicultural India and as an immigrant, my hope is that this country continues to be a progressive democracy that really helps more people find that this is the land of their dreams. I think this is what is true about India today and I am very confident that it will be true of India in future.The political discourse in the US recently has been anti-big business. One (Democratic Party) candidate has talked about breaking big tech companies like Facebook. What is your view?Ultimately, every company effectively has the moral licence to operate in any community because what it creates, empowers and enables. Just because you are big doesn't mean anything. One of the things that we all have to re-acquaint ourselves with is, perhaps, what’s the social contract of a corporation. It is about finding profitable solutions to the challenges of people on the planet. 74310852 74310857 In your book, you talk about the Gini coefficient, but you are not obviously a believer in extreme equality…Would you like to expound on that?I am not a political scientist or an economist. I get enthusiastic when some of the cutting-edge technologies like HoloLens is being used by first-line workers in a manufacturing (unit) to basically tame the learning curve, which means they are getting better wage support. That's a fantastic use of technology and its implication, even taking broader job creation and wage support. Ultimately, that's what needs to happen.Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani talked about a very deep partnership. What are its main elements?Fundamentally, they have really bet on our platform. They are big users (of our products). They're also looking at how they can use the cloud infrastructure to build new types of solutions for some of the ambitious (plans) they have around small and medium-sized businesses… our identity there is to give them the technology and help them realize their ambitions.You transformed Microsoft’s culture. Is that here to stay?Nothing gives any company a God given right to stay. It comes down to staying true to your mission every day and a culture that allows you to stay relevant and express your mission with changing technology. I feel really good about the cultural meme we picked around growth mindset…you have to confront your fixed mindset each day. Will it stay? It is a function of each day — whether you wake up and say, I am not perfect and what can I learn, and the day you feel you have even achieved a growth mindset means you don’t have a growth mindset. That is the paradox. It applies to human beings, it applies to organisations.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2vknNED