Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a recent interview revealed that his company completely missed out on leveraging the popularity of ‘search’ on the web, saying that he had learned a lesson in that after Google capitalised on it.
Reflecting on past tech shifts, the rise of artificial intelligence and how companies must explore the changes to stay ahead, Nadella admitted that Microsoft had missed the “biggest business model on web”. He acknowledged that the company did not see it coming.
“We missed what turned out to be the biggest business model on the web, because we all assumed the web is going to be all about being distributed. Who would have thought that search would be the biggest winner in organising the web,” he said.
“We obviously didn’t see it, and Google saw it and executed super well,” Satya Nadella added.
Talking in a podcast with Dwarkesh Patel, the Indian-origin Microsoft CEO explained that companies will only stay ahead if they get the tech trend right and get where the value is going to be created within that trend.
“So that’s kind of one lesson learned for me. You have to not only get the tech trend right, you also have to get where the value is going to be created with that trend. And these business model shifts are probably tougher than even the tech trend changes.
AI won’t be winner-take-all
Talking about his view on AI, Satya Nadella said industries like AI and cloud computing cannot be winner-take-all.
“I just don’t see it because this, by the way, is the other thing I’ve learned is being very good at understanding what are winner-take-all markets and what are not winner-take-all markets,” he said.
Structurally, hyperscale businesses like AI will not be a winner-take-all model, the Microsoft CEO said, challenging the idea that thinks otherwise.
“Having competed against Oracle and IBM in client server, I knew buyers will not tolerate winner-take-all. Structurally, hyperscale will never be a winner-take-all, because buyers are smart,” Nadella said.
“The consumer market sometimes can be the winner-take-all. But anything that the buyer is a corporation, an enterprise, an IT department, they will want multiple suppliers. You have got to be one of the multiple suppliers,” he added.
