Bloomberg:
Nadella’s turnaround over the five years since he replaced Steve Ballmer as CEO has been nothing short of historic. The company had been universally viewed as spiraling toward obsolescence, having missed almost every significant computing trend of the 2000s—mobile phones, search engines, social networking—while letting its main source of revenue, Windows, the operating system that comes preloaded on PCs, stagnate.
Nadella’s peers say Microsoft’s resurgence is as terrifying as it is impressive. When asked what threat a renewed Microsoft poses to the tech universe, the CEO of a rival software company, who requested anonymity to speak more candidly, begins humming Darth Vader’s Imperial March theme from Star Wars. Put another way: The Empire has struck back.
Regardless of what you think of Microsoft, its “resurrection” under the guidance of Satya Nadella is remarkable. My favorite part of the story is how ignorant the writers are. They say, “Nadella appears irritated by questions about the company’s ascendancy. “I would be disgusted if somebody ever celebrated our market cap,” he tells Bloomberg Businessweek. He insists the valuation—which passed $1 trillion on April 25 and is up more than 230 percent since his watch began in February 2014…”