這是一個(gè)旋風(fēng)席卷的秋日午后。突然涌現(xiàn)的云彩冷卻了夕陽(yáng)的紅色光線，灰色的余暉照射進(jìn)都柏林圣帕特里克學(xué)院的圖書館大廳，在幾位正在那里慵懶地?cái)[弄手機(jī)的學(xué)生的臉龐上投下一層層柔和的陰影。十幾位孩子、教師和學(xué)院行政官員安靜地坐在他們身后。他們正在等待微軟公司首席執(zhí)行官薩提亞·納德拉的到來(lái)。這家總部位于西雅圖地區(qū)的高科技巨頭，曾經(jīng)是這個(gè)星球上規(guī)模最大，最具權(quán)勢(shì)的公司。

玻璃門旋轉(zhuǎn)打開，納德拉大步邁入，一群高級(jí)助手尾隨其后。他徑直走向正在等待的孩子們，一路上與幾位學(xué)院官員握手致意。坐定后，他開始詢問(wèn)4位約莫10歲或11歲的孩子正在做什么。一位留著羅伯特·普蘭特式發(fā)型的男孩癡迷地盯著一部平板電腦，支支吾吾地解釋他在沙盒游戲《我的世界》(Minecraft)中用編碼設(shè)計(jì)的三維世界。納德拉咧嘴大笑?！鞍魳O了！”他說(shuō)?！拔乙残枰粋€(gè)?！边@款游戲的開發(fā)商，是納德拉接掌微軟后打下的第一只獵物。

然后，納德拉再次站起。他身高1米84左右，但擁有一個(gè)堪比長(zhǎng)跑健將的精瘦身材，還留著光頭。這兩項(xiàng)特征更加凸顯了他緊繃的輪廓，讓他看上去更高。納德拉每天早上都會(huì)跑30分鐘。為了避免讓他49歲的膝蓋免受混凝土的蹂躪，他更青睞在跑步機(jī)上健身。他一直以極大的戒心保護(hù)這段寶貴的時(shí)間；納德拉每天的日程都排得滿滿當(dāng)當(dāng)，這是他為數(shù)不多的幾個(gè)能夠獨(dú)自思索的時(shí)刻之一。

A blustery autumn afternoon in Dublin. Sudden clouds have cooled the red rays of a setting sun, and the resulting grays cast soft shadows on the faces of students lazily thumbing their smartphones in the lobby of the library at St. Patrick’s College Drumcondra. Behind them more than a dozen children, teachers, and administrators sit quietly. They’re awaiting the arrival of Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft, the Seattle-area technology titan that was once the largest and most powerful company on the planet.

Glass doors swing open and in strides Nadella, a clutch of senior staffers in his wake. He makes a beeline toward the waiting schoolchildren, pumping the hands of several administrators along the way. He sits and asks four students, each about 10 or 11 years old, what they have been working on. A boy with Robert Plant locks indulges, gesturing to a tablet computer as he haltingly explains the three-dimensional world he has coded in the game Minecraft—Nadella’s first major acquisition as Microsoft’s CEO. Nadella responds with a huge grin. “Amazing,” he says. “I need one of those.”

And then Nadella is on his feet again. He’s six feet tall, but he’s got the lean physique of a long-distance athlete and a shaved head, both of which accentuate his taut silhouette, making him seem taller. Nadella runs 30 minutes each morning, preferring the treadmill to spare his 49-year-old knees from the ravages of concrete. He is deeply protective of this time; it’s one of the few moments in his highly orchestrated day when he’s alone with his thoughts.

但納德拉始終預(yù)留時(shí)間與孩子們會(huì)面——部分是因?yàn)樗麄兪窍乱淮蛻?，部分是因?yàn)檫@樣做有利于他“接地氣”。納德拉走向另一組孩子，然后將注意力轉(zhuǎn)移到一位雙目失明的青少年學(xué)生身上。這位小姑娘一直在利用微軟Cortana語(yǔ)音助手構(gòu)建無(wú)障礙功能。她面露微笑地背誦起菜單選項(xiàng)：“嘿，Cortana。我的要領(lǐng)?！北M管他還沒有完全倒過(guò)跨大西洋時(shí)差，但納德拉被深深地迷住了?！疤袅恕！彼f(shuō)?！昂芨吲d看到你不斷突破自身能力的邊界?！彼兄x她，隨即轉(zhuǎn)向下一組學(xué)生。

“我對(duì)無(wú)障礙功能有一種特別的激情，還專門花費(fèi)相當(dāng)長(zhǎng)時(shí)間研究這個(gè)問(wèn)題?！奔{德拉后來(lái)告訴我。他有兩個(gè)女兒和一個(gè)兒子;兒子有特殊需要。“這位小姑娘向我展示的，其實(shí)是她如何以一位開發(fā)人員的身份建造她可以在日常生活中使用的生產(chǎn)力工具。在人生中，有一件事是確定的：在某個(gè)時(shí)點(diǎn)，我們所有人都需要輔助工具?！比绻④浤軌蛱峁┻@些工具，那自然再好不過(guò)。

然后，納德拉動(dòng)身離開。微軟CEO與每組孩子僅交流了幾分鐘，他像暴風(fēng)一樣撕裂了整個(gè)房間。等到那些二十歲出頭，正在圣帕特里克學(xué)院周圍徜徉的大學(xué)生意識(shí)到一位大人物蒞臨校園時(shí)，他已經(jīng)消失了——消失在下一個(gè)房間、下一座城市、下一個(gè)國(guó)家。在這趟為期4天的旋風(fēng)之旅中，納德拉將遍訪歐洲大陸，走進(jìn)微軟最大的一些市場(chǎng)。

2014年2月，納德拉取代史蒂文·鮑爾默，出任微軟首席執(zhí)行官。他當(dāng)時(shí)所繼承的，是一家陷入“增長(zhǎng)危機(jī)”的公司——這是客氣的說(shuō)法。不客氣地說(shuō)，彼時(shí)的微軟正處于生死存亡的緊要關(guān)頭。環(huán)球證券研究公司分析師周德瑞在2010年一份寫給客戶的研究報(bào)告中表示，“微軟無(wú)法與新一代用戶建立聯(lián)系?！庇谝患腋呖萍脊径?，再?zèng)]有比這句話更邪惡的詛咒了。

坐擁Windows和Office的微軟公司，正在迅速接近成立40周年。這個(gè)龐然大物擁有令軍事獨(dú)裁者垂涎三尺的現(xiàn)金儲(chǔ)備，以及商學(xué)院學(xué)生夢(mèng)寐以求的市場(chǎng)份額。在第二任CEO領(lǐng)導(dǎo)下，這家公司接連推出新產(chǎn)品，從Bing搜索引擎，到Zune播放器，再到Kin和Lumia移動(dòng)設(shè)備，不一而足。但這些產(chǎn)品創(chuàng)造的收入，根本無(wú)法企及首位CEO兼聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人比爾·蓋茨治下的微軟推出的那些重磅產(chǎn)品。

進(jìn)入鮑爾默任期的暮年時(shí)，微軟仍然是有史以來(lái)最成功、最富有的桌面軟件公司——只不過(guò)，高科技世界的熱點(diǎn)當(dāng)時(shí)已轉(zhuǎn)至搜索引擎、社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)、移動(dòng)設(shè)備和云計(jì)算。在21世紀(jì)頭10年，微軟一直是世界上最有價(jià)值的公司，其市值一度超過(guò)6000億美元。2010年，在歷經(jīng)傳奇CEO史蒂夫·喬布斯引領(lǐng)的變革之后，蘋果公司硬生生地從微軟手中搶走這一頭銜。到這個(gè)時(shí)點(diǎn)，微軟在其歷史上首次面臨核心業(yè)務(wù)下滑的前景。

自從納德拉接過(guò)微軟的最高權(quán)杖以來(lái)，這家昔日的王者一直在經(jīng)歷令人驚嘆的變革。他接手的是一家專注于個(gè)人計(jì)算，但企業(yè)和云計(jì)算業(yè)務(wù)正顯露希望的公司。然后，納德拉徹底翻轉(zhuǎn)了這個(gè)等式。在過(guò)去三年，微軟剝離了從諾基亞手中收購(gòu)的價(jià)值94億美元的手機(jī)業(yè)務(wù)，并將其Bing映射數(shù)據(jù)資產(chǎn)出售給了優(yōu)步。該公司斥資數(shù)十億美元在全球各地建設(shè)數(shù)據(jù)中心，以支持其現(xiàn)在的“云就緒”產(chǎn)品。在變革原有的軟件業(yè)務(wù)方面，微軟也實(shí)現(xiàn)了本質(zhì)性跨越——從永久許可（收入是一次性事件）轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)橛嗛啠ㄊ杖肟稍俅伟l(fā)生）。

在納德拉的帶領(lǐng)下，微軟甚至達(dá)成了公司歷史上最大一筆收購(gòu)交易：豪擲262億美元，收購(gòu)商業(yè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司LinkedIn。這是一張金額巨大的支票。此外，鑒于該公司令人唏噓的收購(gòu)記錄，“微軟歷史上最大一筆收購(gòu)交易”也是一個(gè)可疑的頭銜。公平地說(shuō)，樂(lè)觀情緒已經(jīng)重新降臨雷德蒙德（微軟總部所在地）?！皩?duì)于微軟來(lái)說(shuō)，薩提亞是一位偉大的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者?！滨U爾默說(shuō)。他仍然是這家公司最大的個(gè)人股東?！八_提亞以一種有助于推動(dòng)公司議程的方式，改變了開發(fā)商、行業(yè)參與者和投資者對(duì)微軟的認(rèn)知，他在這方面做得很棒?！彼a(bǔ)充說(shuō)。

就在其競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手，CEO蒂姆·庫(kù)克執(zhí)掌的蘋果公司近來(lái)飽受創(chuàng)新力枯竭等批評(píng)之際，微軟開始展露鋒芒。（市值6000億美元的蘋果，仍然是全球最有價(jià)值的公司。）10月份，微軟股價(jià)沖破它在令人暈眩的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫時(shí)代創(chuàng)造的歷史最高價(jià)位：59.56美元——當(dāng)時(shí)正值這家公司毫無(wú)爭(zhēng)議的10年統(tǒng)治期的尾聲。沒必要計(jì)較的是，由于激進(jìn)的股票回購(gòu)計(jì)劃減少了股份數(shù)量，微軟目前的市值約為4600億美元，仍然遠(yuǎn)低于昔日的峰值。

然而，股價(jià)回升并非小事。十多年來(lái)，微軟股票猶如行尸走肉。仿佛在一夜間，這家公司滿血?dú)w來(lái)。其掌舵者是一位身材精瘦，喜歡冥想這個(gè)世界的學(xué)生。他酷愛提問(wèn)，不會(huì)被諸如與競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手對(duì)壘這種瑣碎的追求擾亂心緒。

坐落于巴黎第17區(qū)的巴黎會(huì)議大廳，是一棟略顯笨重，有棱有角，源自1970年代的建筑。其所在地是魯納游樂(lè)場(chǎng)的舊址，后者是法國(guó)首都有史以來(lái)興建的規(guī)模最大的游樂(lè)園。在20世紀(jì)初，這里是休閑天堂?，F(xiàn)如今，它早已成為一處貿(mào)易圣地。巴黎會(huì)議大廳共8層，擁有逾34.4萬(wàn)平方英尺，熠熠生輝的展覽空間。

這是10月份的一天，陽(yáng)光明媚。巴黎會(huì)議大廳一派熙熙攘攘的熱鬧景象。成天上萬(wàn)的人趕到這里，參加微軟在法國(guó)舉行的Microsoft Experiences年度客戶會(huì)議。推廣移動(dòng)性和協(xié)作技術(shù)的彩色展位布滿了展覽區(qū)。參加者猶如趕場(chǎng)一般，在DevOps技術(shù)講座和談?wù)摂?shù)字銀行的頭腦風(fēng)暴會(huì)議之間來(lái)回穿梭。

在一個(gè)名為“區(qū)塊鏈黑客學(xué)院”的展區(qū)，納德拉站在一群工程師中間。他正在查看一個(gè)展示能量監(jiān)測(cè)軟件的顯示器，并不斷地拷問(wèn)一位高管相關(guān)問(wèn)題。在展區(qū)附近，一位男子身穿俄羅斯方塊形狀的服飾，手舞足蹈地發(fā)放關(guān)于供應(yīng)鏈可追溯性的手冊(cè)。在都柏林，納德拉會(huì)晤了他的未來(lái)客戶；在巴黎，他正在探索未來(lái)的技術(shù)?！皬谋葼柕绞返俜?，再到我，我們的世界觀都具有‘長(zhǎng)期相關(guān)性’特征?！彼髞?lái)告訴我?！瓣P(guān)鍵是擊球率。有時(shí)候，你可能會(huì)三振出局，但在科技行業(yè)，你必須能夠擊中足夠多的投球，才能在這個(gè)大聯(lián)盟中生存下去?！?/p>

由于一大早與政府官員的會(huì)面時(shí)間延長(zhǎng)，納德拉今天的行程有點(diǎn)落后于預(yù)定計(jì)劃。LinkedIn公司CEO杰夫·韋納表示，“我經(jīng)常說(shuō)，薩提亞扮演的角色幾乎跟國(guó)家元首沒什么兩樣?！彼€將納德拉與蘋果、Facebook和谷歌的CEO進(jìn)行了一番對(duì)比。“蒂姆·庫(kù)克、馬克·扎克伯格和桑達(dá)爾·皮查伊的工作都是這樣——就服務(wù)于多個(gè)選區(qū)而言，他們的角色跟國(guó)家元首頗為相似?！?/p>

But Nadella consistently reserves time for sessions with children—partly because they are the next generation of customers, and partly because it keeps him grounded. Nadella moves to another group of kids and then shifts his attention to a teenage student who is blind. The young woman has been working on building accessibility features using Cortana, Microsoft’s speech-activated digital assistant. She smiles and recites the menu options: “Hey Cortana. My essentials.” Despite his transatlantic jet lag Nadella is transfixed. “That’s awesome,” he says. “It’s fantastic to see you pushing the boundaries of what can be done.” He thanks her and turns toward the next group.

“I have a particular passion around accessibility, and this is something I spend quite a bit of cycles on,” Nadella tells me later. He has two daughters and a son; the son has special needs. “What she was showing me is essentially how she’s building out as a developer the tools that she can use in her everyday life to be productive. One thing is certain in life: All of us will need accessibility tools at some point.” All the better if Microsoft can provide them.

And then Nadella is gone. The executive spent just a few minutes with each group of children, tearing through the room like a tempest. By the time the twentysomething students milling around St. Patrick’s realize that an important person has descended upon their campus, he has disappeared—on to the next room, the next city, the next country in a whirlwind four-day tour that will take him to the European continent and through some of his company’s largest markets.

When Nadella replaced Steven Ballmer as Microsoft’s CEO in February 2014, he inherited what you might diplomatically call a growth crisis. Undiplomatically, you might call it an existential one. “Microsoft is unable to connect with the new generation of users,” wrote Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry in a 2010 research note to his clients, about as damning a sentence as you can muster for a technology company.

Microsoft, the behemoth of Windows and Office, was fast approaching its 40th anniversary. It had the kind of cash reserves that military dictators kill for and the market share of business-school dreams. But none of the new products the company had produced under its second CEO—from its Bing search engine to its Zune, Kin, and Lumia mobile devices—generated anywhere near the revenues of the smash hits created under its first, cofounder Bill Gates.

Microsoft entered the twilight of Ballmer’s tenure as the most successful and wealthiest desktop-software company the world had ever seen—at a time when the world had moved on to search engines, social networking, mobile devices, and cloud computing. For the first decade of the 21st century, Microsoft was the world’s most valuable company, topping out at more than $600 billion. Apple AAPL 0.59% ended that run in 2010, riding its legendary turnaround under CEO Steve Jobs. By this point, for the first time in its history Microsoft was facing the prospect of a decline in its core business.

Since Nadella took charge, the company has been engineering a stunning turnaround of its own. He has taken a company focused on personal computing but showing promise in its enterprise and cloud-computing businesses, and turned that equation on its head. In the past three years Microsoft sheared the $9.4 billion phone business it acquired from Nokia and sold its Bing mapping-data assets to Uber. It plowed billions into the construction of data centers around the globe to support its now cloud-ready products. And it made substantial leaps transforming its original software business from permanent licenses, where revenue is a one-time affair, to subscriptions, where revenue is recurring.

Nadella has even struck an audacious deal, plunking down $26.2 billion for business-networking company LinkedIn, the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. That’s a massive check to write, and “l(fā)argest acquisition in Microsoft’s history” is a dubious title given the company’s, um, checkered track record in that realm. Optimism, it’s fair to say, has returned to Redmond. “Satya is a great leader for Microsoft,” says Ballmer, who is still the company’s largest individual shareholder. He adds that Nadella “has done a great job improving perceptions of the company in ways that can advance its agenda— with developers, industry participants, and investors.”

As rival Apple—with a market capitalization of $600 billion, still the world’s most valuable company—weathers criticism of ennui under CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft has sharpened its focus under Nadella. In October the company’s shares surged past their all-time high price of $59.56, recorded in the heady days of the dotcom bubble and at the tail end of a decade that the company unquestionably ruled. Never mind that because of aggressive stock buybacks that reduced the company’s share count, Microsoft’s market cap is $460 billion, far below the old peak.

Still, the share-price resurgence was no small matter. For more than a decade Microsoft was a dead stock walking. Seemingly overnight the company was back with a vengeance. At its helm is a skinny, contemplative student of the world who revels in asking questions and couldn’t be bothered by so trivial a pursuit as warring with the company’s rivals.

The Palais Des Congrès, a hulking and angular 1970s-era convention center in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, was constructed on the former site of Luna Park, the largest amusement park ever built in the French capital. In the early 1900s the site was a monument to leisure. Today it is a temple to trade, with more than 344,000 square feet of glossy exhibition space on eight floors.

On a sunny October day, the Palais is humming with thousands of people who have come for Microsoft Experiences, the company’s annual customer conference in France. Brightly colored booths promoting mobility and collaboration technologies pack the exhibition area. Attendees scurry between technical talks on DevOps and brainstorms about digital banking.

Inside one session, the “Blockchain Hackademy,” Nadella stands at the center of a scrum of engineers. He inspects a display showing energy-monitoring software and peppers an executive with questions. Nearby, a man wearing a costume in the shape of a Tetris block dances and hands out brochures about supply chain traceability. In Dublin, Nadella met his future customers; in Paris he is scouting future technologies. “From Bill to Steve to me, the worldview we’ve had is ‘long-term relevance,’ ” he later tells me. “It’s the batting average. You may strike out sometimes, but you’ve got to be able to, in this tech business, catch enough of them to survive in the major leagues.”

Nadella is behind schedule today, owing to some extended meetings with government officials earlier in the morning. “I’ve oftentimes described the role that Satya is in as almost like a head of state,” says LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, comparing him to the CEOs of Apple, Facebook, and Google GOOGL -1.09% . “Tim Cook’s job, Mark’s job, Sundar’s job—it’s akin to that in terms of serving multiple constituencies.”

微軟CEO的日程安排表規(guī)定，他將在區(qū)塊鏈展區(qū)停留30分鐘，但僅僅幾分鐘后，他就從一個(gè)側(cè)門消失了。納德拉臉上時(shí)常掛著的那一絲笑意，已經(jīng)讓位于一種更加嚴(yán)峻的表情，他健步如飛地沖過(guò)擁擠的大廳，幾位助手緊隨其后。在熙熙攘攘的人叢中，我一不留神就跟丟了。費(fèi)了一些周折后，我終于在一扇沒有標(biāo)記的門后面找到了這位微軟掌門人。納德拉正坐在那里準(zhǔn)備他的主旨演講，一邊化妝，一邊跟挑剔的首席撰稿人凱特林·麥凱布一起回顧演講要點(diǎn)。

納德拉的開場(chǎng)白與他本周發(fā)表的其他演講并無(wú)二致。他首先會(huì)援引微軟的使命——“予力全球每一人、每一組織，成就不凡?！苯酉聛?lái)，這位微軟CEO會(huì)指出，他自己在印度的早期生活恰恰預(yù)示著科技擁有推動(dòng)社會(huì)民主化變革的力量。他隨即話鋒一轉(zhuǎn)，悉心地描繪一個(gè)依附于所謂云計(jì)算的未來(lái)。他承認(rèn)，這個(gè)未來(lái)或?qū)⒊尸F(xiàn)多種形式：“小屏幕，大屏幕，在你的客廳和會(huì)議室?！彼麜?huì)重復(fù)世界正面臨“第四次工業(yè)革命”這一觀點(diǎn)。（繼機(jī)械、電氣和數(shù)字革命之后，這場(chǎng)革命將通過(guò)云端支持的物聯(lián)網(wǎng)模糊這三者的界限。）由于他身處數(shù)據(jù)隱私法律非常嚴(yán)格的歐洲，他會(huì)在每場(chǎng)演講中著重強(qiáng)調(diào)“信任”一詞，不少于三次。

本周，我將聆聽這篇演講的4個(gè)版本——分別在都柏林、巴黎、柏林和倫敦。大多數(shù)準(zhǔn)備工作早在幾個(gè)月前，就在微軟總部開始了。在那里，納德拉、麥凱布和公司工作室首先提出想法，然后在真實(shí)的觀眾面前進(jìn)行測(cè)試。（這樣做是“為了獲得殘酷且誠(chéng)實(shí)的反饋。”他說(shuō)。）在演講現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，這位CEO只需溫習(xí)旨在滿足現(xiàn)場(chǎng)觀眾的本土化元素——在都柏林，本土化元素是微軟與愛爾蘭聯(lián)合銀行的合作伙伴關(guān)系；在巴黎，這部分內(nèi)容則切換成微軟與雷諾日產(chǎn)達(dá)成的一筆交易。

就在納德拉準(zhǔn)備在法國(guó)發(fā)表主旨演講的時(shí)候，他的首席助理兼首席保鏢，一位身材高大的普林斯頓人，站在門外守衛(wèi)。每三分鐘，一位助手就走過(guò)來(lái)，查詢他的進(jìn)展情況。過(guò)了一會(huì)兒，納德拉終于現(xiàn)身，看上去比剛才稍微放松了些。他聽到我的聲音，駐足詢問(wèn)我感覺如何——畢竟，為了這篇報(bào)道，我已經(jīng)跟隨他在過(guò)去48小時(shí)內(nèi)兩度穿越國(guó)際邊界，而且還要去兩個(gè)國(guó)家。我反問(wèn)他感覺怎樣?！耙话胄谐塘?，對(duì)吧？”他說(shuō)。納德拉所指的，當(dāng)然是這趟旋風(fēng)之旅?！斑€沒到呢?！蔽一卮鹫f(shuō)。他咯咯地笑了笑，似乎在自嘲我們共同的不幸，然后進(jìn)入戰(zhàn)斗。

從許多方面看，對(duì)于微軟來(lái)說(shuō)，納德拉都是一位不同尋常的CEO人選，特別是考慮到這家科技巨頭正處于轉(zhuǎn)型的關(guān)鍵時(shí)刻。他在微軟供職長(zhǎng)達(dá)24年之久，是一位不折不扣的老臣子。他是一位電氣工程師，而不是一位產(chǎn)品夢(mèng)想家。

但經(jīng)過(guò)一番仔細(xì)審視，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，在這樣一種建立在A型人格（是的，這正是其前任充分彰顯的個(gè)性）之上的公司文化中，納德拉竟然能夠步步擢升——這本身就是一個(gè)刺目的例外。與納德拉同年加入微軟的布萊克·歐文指出，助推納德拉崛起的，是一種罕見的技能。在出任GoDaddy公司CEO之前，他曾經(jīng)在微軟云計(jì)算部門與納德拉一起共事。

“在微軟，當(dāng)你解釋事情時(shí)，你會(huì)經(jīng)歷兩種類型的對(duì)話?！睔W文透露說(shuō)?！霸谀汴愂鲋鲝垥r(shí)，有一種人等待時(shí)機(jī)進(jìn)行反駁。另一種人則抱著學(xué)習(xí)的目的仔細(xì)聆聽。薩提亞屬于后者?！痹缭谒蝗蚊鼮镃EO之前，納德拉“就能夠暫且放下自己的質(zhì)疑和觀點(diǎn)，若有所思地聆聽你的發(fā)言。為反駁而傾聽與為學(xué)習(xí)而聆聽之間，存在著巨大的差異。薩提亞總是輕聲細(xì)語(yǔ)，但精力異常充沛，這的確是一種奇妙的組合?！?/p>

The CEO’s schedule stipulates that he’ll remain at the blockchain session for 30 minutes, but he disappears through a side door in only a handful. His usual half smile has given way to a grimmer expression, and he charges down the crowded hall with his staffers in tow. Nadella moves so quickly that I lose him in the throng. When I finally find him, he is seated behind an unmarked door, getting makeup for his keynote and reviewing points with Caitlin McCabe, his fastidious chief speechwriter.

Nadella’s address will begin the same way as all the others he delivers this week. He will first cite Microsoft’s mission to “empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more” and acknowledge his own beginnings in India as a sign of the power of technology to democratize society. He will quickly move to painting a future of computing anchored in the so-called cloud. He will acknowledge the various forms this future takes— “small screens, large screens, in your living rooms and your conference rooms”—and echo the view that the world is facing a “fourth Industrial Revolution.” (After mechanical, electrical, and digital, it’s a blurring of the three through the cloud-powered Internet of things.) And since he is in Europe, where data privacy laws are notably stringent, he will punctuate each address with no fewer than three mentions of the word “trust.”

I will listen to Nadella give a version of this speech four times this week—in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, and London. The bulk of his preparation happens months before at Microsoft headquarters. There Nadella, McCabe, and company workshop ideas and test them out on a real audience. (“To get the brutal, honest feedback,” he says.) Onsite, the CEO reviews only localized elements meant to cater to his audience—a partnership with Allied Irish Bank in Dublin, a deal with Renault-Nissan in Paris.

As Nadella prepares for his keynote speech in France, his chief of staff, a towering Princeton man who could double as a chief of security, stands guard outside the door. Every three minutes a staffer checks on his progress. Eventually Nadella emerges, slightly more at ease. He overhears my voice and pauses to ask how I’m doing, having followed him across international borders twice in 48 hours in pursuit of this story, with two more countries to go. I ask him in kind. “Halfway, is it?” he says, referring to his week’s breakneck schedule. “Not even,” I reply. He smiles and chuckles at our mutual misfortune, then marches into battle.

In many ways, Nadella was an unusual choice to lead Microsoft in a moment that called for transformation. He is a 24-year veteran of the company. He is an electrical engineer, not a product visionary.

But closer scrutiny reveals a man who managed to thrive as an exception to a corporate culture built on type-A personalities—the very kind that his predecessor embodied. It is a skill that helped propel Nadella’s unlikely rise, says Blake Irving, who joined Microsoft the same year as Nadella and went on to work with him in the company’s cloud-computing division before becoming CEO of GoDaddy.

“There are two types of conversations you’d have at Microsoft when you’d explain things,” Irving says. “One type of person waited for a break in the argument to argue back. The other listened to learn. That was Satya.” Well before he was named CEO, Nadella “could suspend his disbelief and opinion to listen to you thoughtfully. The slight difference between listening to argue and listening to learn is not subtle. It’s huge. Satya is soft-spoken but energetic, which is a weird combination.”

薩提亞·納德拉于1967年出生在印度海得拉巴。他是家里的獨(dú)生子。納德拉的父親是印度行政服務(wù)局的一位官員；已故的母親是一位梵文教授。他是在印度毛派游擊隊(duì)與英迪拉·甘地政府爆發(fā)沖突那段時(shí)期長(zhǎng)大成人的。

這段內(nèi)亂歲月塑造了納德拉對(duì)如何動(dòng)員變革的看法?！耙惶煜挛?，我看到了兩張時(shí)至今日仍然困擾我的照片?！?015年，在一場(chǎng)為印度總理莫迪舉行的盛大晚宴上，他回憶道?！罢掌嫌袃蓚€(gè)人，仰面朝天，躺在吊床上，他們身邊放著兩部晶體管收音機(jī)——飛利浦收音機(jī)。在接下來(lái)的幾年里，我對(duì)這兩個(gè)人有了更深入的了解。我當(dāng)天看到的，是兩位死去的革命者。那是1970年，發(fā)生在斯里加古蘭縣的事情。兩人原本都是學(xué)校的教員，后來(lái)決定放棄教鞭。我一直思考他們的生活，以及遵循類似路徑的其他人的生活。讓我深思的是，這些人本可以借助科技的力量和其他資源實(shí)現(xiàn)怎樣的成就。”在他出任微軟CEO的第一個(gè)月，納德拉就給其管理團(tuán)隊(duì)的每位成員贈(zèng)送了一本名為《非暴力溝通》的著作。

他的孩提時(shí)代基本上都是在海得拉巴公立學(xué)校(簡(jiǎn)稱HPS，一所設(shè)施豪華，專門服務(wù)于貴族子女的教育機(jī)構(gòu))度過(guò)的。在板球比賽間隙，納德拉遇到了他的人生伴侶阿努帕瑪，兩人于1992年結(jié)為連理。從HPS畢業(yè)后，納德拉在馬尼帕理工學(xué)院獲得電氣工程學(xué)士學(xué)位。一絲不茍、進(jìn)取心十足、好探究的安德魯隨后移居美國(guó)，在威斯康星大學(xué)密爾沃基分校學(xué)習(xí)計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)——他的碩士論文涉及圖形著色和并行算法——并在Penta Technologies兼任軟件工程師。畢業(yè)后，納德拉搬到加州，就職于Sun微系統(tǒng)公司。彼時(shí)正值個(gè)人電腦時(shí)代的前夜，這家公司剛剛踏上崛起之路。25歲那年，微軟挖走了納德拉，把他帶到雷德蒙德。

納德拉那時(shí)“超級(jí)年輕，局促不安，似乎沒有安全感，仍然嘗試著發(fā)展他的潛力?！?014年，他的招聘經(jīng)理理查德·泰特如是告訴《普吉特海灣商業(yè)雜志》。但他聰明絕頂，對(duì)于企業(yè)正在使用的計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)有著深刻的理解?！八俏覀兊拿孛芪淦??！?/p>

直到到達(dá)倫敦，我才終于有機(jī)會(huì)坐下來(lái)與微軟CEO好好聊聊。等到我抵達(dá)時(shí)，納德拉幾乎完成了日程安排的所有事項(xiàng)：政府會(huì)議，打勾；主旨演講，打勾；與孩子一起參加教育活動(dòng)，打勾。在英國(guó)倫敦一個(gè)不尋常的艷陽(yáng)天，當(dāng)納德拉離開《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》雜志辦公室的時(shí)候，我抓住了他。他步履輕快，如沐春風(fēng)，也許是因?yàn)樗煲丶伊?。我們擠進(jìn)一輛正在等待的黑色面包車，他的司機(jī)驅(qū)車前往倫敦西北34英里之外的盧頓機(jī)場(chǎng)。

我問(wèn)納德拉，這趟歐洲之行如何配合他兩年前出任CEO以來(lái)實(shí)施的整體戰(zhàn)略。他指出，微軟在歐洲的云布局具有戰(zhàn)術(shù)重要性，需要用“言語(yǔ)和行動(dòng)”來(lái)消除障礙。（微軟曾經(jīng)是反壟斷機(jī)構(gòu)的眼中釘肉中刺；現(xiàn)在，它不再是那個(gè)塊頭最大，行為最惡劣的男孩了。于微軟而言，這是個(gè)利好消息：監(jiān)管當(dāng)局對(duì)它的審查不再像過(guò)去那樣嚴(yán)厲。這家公司正在愜意地旁觀布魯塞爾官員死磕谷歌母公司Alphabet和Facebook。就其本身而言，微軟正在將其數(shù)據(jù)中心定位為一種旨在支持歐洲數(shù)據(jù)保護(hù)法的投資。）

納德拉為他的海外使命闡明了一種更廣泛的目的。“一位CEO能做什么？你必須對(duì)一個(gè)不確定的未來(lái)做出判斷，并策劃文化。”他說(shuō)?！熬瓦@兩者而言，我覺得我從這些旅行中學(xué)到了很多。”

這正是納德拉所做的事情：他學(xué)習(xí)，其他人與他一道學(xué)習(xí)。在他到訪的每個(gè)歐洲首都，這位CEO總是竭力提取各種情報(bào)。在從機(jī)場(chǎng)駛往酒店的旅途中，他不停地翻閱簡(jiǎn)報(bào)，以了解當(dāng)?shù)仄髽I(yè)的經(jīng)營(yíng)狀況。與合作伙伴一起用餐時(shí)，他不斷地詢問(wèn)與目標(biāo)市場(chǎng)相關(guān)的議題。（“他們都在琢磨我。這家伙究竟是怎樣一個(gè)人？他會(huì)嘗試著在這家公司完成什么事情？”他說(shuō)。）與官員進(jìn)行閉門會(huì)議期間，他用心領(lǐng)會(huì)政府的優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)，并鼎力推動(dòng)微軟的利益。（“政府領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人總是直言不諱地表達(dá)他們對(duì)你的期望：‘好吧，這是你能幫到我們的地方?！奔{德拉說(shuō)。在個(gè)人演講中，他向普通員工闡明公司的優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)。

Satya Nadella—officially Nadella Satyanarayana—was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1967. He is the only child of Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandher, an officer for the Indian Administrative Service, the country’s civil service agency, and the late Prabhavati Yugandhar, a professor of Sanskrit. He grew up at a time when communist guerrilla fighters called Naxalites clashed with the government of Indira Gandhi.

The civil unrest shaped Nadella’s view on how to mobilize change. “One afternoon I saw two photographs that haunt me still,” he recalled at a 2015 dinner held in honor of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I saw pictures of two people who were lying, overturned, on charpoys [rope beds] with two transistor radios— Philips transistor radios— next to them. In subsequent years I came to understand much more about these two people. What I saw that day were two photographs of dead revolutionaries. The year was 1970, and the district was Srikakulam. They were schoolteachers who decided to leave teaching. I think about their lives and lives of others who have followed similar paths. I think about what those people could have achieved with the true empowerment of technology and other resources.” In his first month as CEO, Nadella gave each member of his management team a book called Nonviolent Communication.

For most of his childhood Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, an opulent institution founded to serve the children of aristocrats. Between cricket games Nadella met his wife, Anupama, whom he married in 1992. After HPS, Nadella obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology. Meticulous, driven, and inquisitive, Nadella then moved to the U.S. to study computer science at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee—his master’s thesis concerned graph coloring and parallel algorithms—and work as a software engineer at Penta Technologies. After graduation, Nadella relocated to California to take a job at Sun Microsystems, which was just beginning its ascent at the dawn of the era of personal computers. At 25, Microsoft poached him and brought him to Redmond.

Nadella was “super-young, awkward, and insecure, still trying to grow into the potential he had,” his hiring manager, Richard Tait, told the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2014. But he was incredibly smart and had a deep understanding of the computer systems that businesses were using. “He was a secret weapon for us.”

It isn’t until I get to London that I finally sit down with Microsoft’s CEO. By the time I arrive, Nadella has ticked almost every box on his daily schedule: government meetings, check; keynote speech, check; educational event with children, check. I catch him leaving the offices of the Economist on an unusually warm day in the British capital. There’s a spring in his step, perhaps because he’ll be home soon. We pile into a waiting black van, and his driver takes off toward Luton Airport, 34 miles northwest of London.

I ask Nadella how this European trip fits into his broader strategy since he became CEO two years ago. He notes the tactical importance of the company’s cloud build-out in Europe and the “words and actions” needed to smooth its progress. (Once an antitrust bête noire, Microsoft can enjoy one benefit of no longer being the biggest, baddest boy on the block: a bit less scrutiny from regulators. The company is now content to let Brussels officials tangle instead with Alphabet and Facebook FB -1.47% . For its part, Microsoft is positioning its data centers as investments that support European data-protection laws.)

Nadella articulates a broader purpose to his foreign missions. “What does a CEO get to do? You’ve got to pass judgment on an uncertain future and curate culture,” he says. “For both, I feel, I learn a lot from these trips.”

That’s what Nadella does: He learns, and others learn with him. The CEO extracted intelligence in each European capital. In car rides from the airport he received briefings on how regional businesses are faring. In meals with partners Nadella got up to speed on issues in a target market. (“They’re trying to size you up,” he says. “What is this guy like? What is he trying to get done with this company?”) In closed-door meetings with officials he digested government priorities and pushed Microsoft’s interests. (“Government leaders will give it to you straight: ‘Okay, here’s your relevance to me,’” Nadella says.) In solo speeches he clarified the company’s priorities to rank-and-file employees.

“從根本上講，我是一位信徒，這或許跟我成長(zhǎng)的環(huán)境有關(guān)，我堅(jiān)信跨國(guó)公司的作用?！彼f(shuō)。“你必須具備通盤考慮全球化運(yùn)營(yíng)的能力。如果一個(gè)營(yíng)利性實(shí)體只是尋求利潤(rùn)，那么它就無(wú)法成為一家長(zhǎng)期盈利的公司。我想這恐怕就是這門生意的吊詭之處?！?/p>

掌控一家在192個(gè)國(guó)家運(yùn)營(yíng)的公司的方向亦是如此。我問(wèn)納德拉他如何組建一支高級(jí)管理團(tuán)隊(duì)，以激發(fā)他在微軟想看到的變革。2015年，他將微軟的工程技術(shù)業(yè)務(wù)整合到三位高管名下，他們分別是特里·邁爾森、斯科特·古思里和陸奇（因個(gè)人健康原因，陸奇已離開微軟），并送別了多位高管，其中包括前諾基亞CEO史蒂芬·埃洛普。他最終的管理團(tuán)隊(duì)，從首席財(cái)務(wù)官艾米·胡德到古思里（他早前接替納德拉，成為云和企業(yè)級(jí)業(yè)務(wù)部門的主管），基本上都是公司的老臣子。微軟真的能依靠?jī)?nèi)部人實(shí)施這場(chǎng)變革嗎？歷經(jīng)十多年的摸索，這些對(duì)微軟近年來(lái)最大的失誤負(fù)有責(zé)任的高管，是否真的大徹大悟，終于明晰了這家科技巨頭的發(fā)展方向？

是的，納德拉堅(jiān)稱——如果你修復(fù)好公司文化的話。他說(shuō)，“我已經(jīng)優(yōu)化了那些想成為團(tuán)隊(duì)一份子的員工的工作環(huán)境?！倍嗄陙?lái)，微軟“培養(yǎng)了許多想擁有絕對(duì)自主權(quán)的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人?！辈辉偃绱恕！耙胝瓶鼐置?，你必須得作為一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)工作。這是一個(gè)非常不一樣的微軟。我個(gè)人特別珍視這一點(diǎn)?！痹谒x定的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人中，納德拉尤為看重他們帶來(lái)明晰、創(chuàng)造能量，并遏制發(fā)牢騷的沖動(dòng)的能力。“我說(shuō)，‘嘿，你瞧，你正在負(fù)責(zé)一個(gè)狗屎似的領(lǐng)域，你的工作是找到玫瑰花瓣，’而不是說(shuō)，‘哦，我身處一個(gè)狗屎似的領(lǐng)域?！彼f(shuō)?！暗昧税?，你是一位領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。這就是你的份內(nèi)工作。你不能抱怨約束條件。我們本就生活在一個(gè)充滿各種約束的世界中?！?/p>

很快，我就碰到了自己的約束條件。這輛面包車減速，?？吭谝粭l六車道高速公路旁——我該下車了。我問(wèn)納德拉，在我時(shí)速60英里的連珠炮式提問(wèn)中，我是否錯(cuò)過(guò)了什么。他停頓了一下?！拔矣袝r(shí)候覺得，現(xiàn)在界定企業(yè)成功的尺度太過(guò)狹窄。”他說(shuō)?！坝谝患移髽I(yè)而言，真正的成功并不僅僅是你為自己的核心支持者創(chuàng)造的盈余，它還包括更廣泛的盈余。畢竟，什么是資本主義？推動(dòng)更廣泛的經(jīng)濟(jì)部門改善生產(chǎn)力，從而造福于全社會(huì)，才是資本主義的真諦。”

也許吧。到目前為止，納德拉已經(jīng)取得了巨大的進(jìn)步。他現(xiàn)在終于贏得市場(chǎng)的信心和微軟員工的善意。事實(shí)證明，盡管花費(fèi)不菲，他為重新確定微軟發(fā)展方向（云計(jì)算，而不是桌面業(yè)務(wù)）而付出的努力確屬精明之舉。在他出任微軟首席執(zhí)行官的三周年前夕，薩提亞·納德拉意氣風(fēng)發(fā)，手感滾燙。然而，要想重新成為這個(gè)星球上規(guī)模最大，最具權(quán)勢(shì)的公司，微軟顯然還要跋涉一段漫長(zhǎng)而崎嶇的旅程。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：Kevin

“I’m a fundamental believer—because of maybe where I grew up—in the role of a multinational company,” he says. “You’ve got to be able to think about operating globally. If a for-profit entity is only profit seeking, then you’re not going to be a long-term profitable company. That’s kind of a paradox of business, I think.”

As is controlling the direction of a company that operates in 192 countries. I ask Nadella how he assembled his senior leadership team to spark the change he wanted to see at Microsoft. In 2015 he consolidated the company’s engineering efforts under three executives—Terry Myerson, Scott Guthrie, and Qi Lu (who has since left Microsoft for health reasons)—and bid adieu to several more, among them former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. His resulting management team, from CFO Amy Hood to Guthrie, whom Nadella earlier appointed to replace him as head of the Cloud and Enterprise Group, comprises mostly longtime company veterans. Can Microsoft really change from within? Has its moment of clarity, more than a decade in the making, truly arrived at the hands of people who also presided over some of Microsoft’s greatest flops?

Yes, Nadella maintains—if you fix the culture. “I’ve optimized for people who want to work as part of a team,” he says. For years Microsoft “cultivated leaders who wanted to run their own show.” No longer. “To run the show you have to work as a team. That’s a very different Microsoft. That’s at a premium for me.” In his chosen leaders Nadella prizes the abilities to bring clarity, create energy, and suppress the urge to whine. “I say, ‘Hey, look, you’re in a field of shit, and your job is to be able to find the rose petals,’ as opposed to saying, ‘Oh, I’m in a field of shit,’” he says. “C’mon! You’re a leader. That’s what it is. You can’t complain about constraints. We live in a constrained world.”

Before long I run up against my own constraints, and the van slows and pulls to the side of the six-lane highway to let me out. I ask Nadella if there’s anything I missed in my barrage of questions at 60 mph. He pauses. “I sometimes feel that business success is celebrated in much more narrow ways,” he says. “Real business success is not only surplus that you’ve created for your own core constituency but the broader surplus. After all, what is capitalism? Being able to get productivity gains that actually help the broader economy in society.”

Perhaps. So far Nadella has taken huge strides. He has managed to gain the market’s confidence and the goodwill of his own employees. His expensive push to reorient the company to the cloud rather than the desktop has proved shrewd. On the eve of his third anniversary of becoming Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella is riding a hot hand—but it’s a long, daunting road back to becoming the largest and most powerful company on the planet.