‘Even today, cricket remains my passion’
PLAYING BALL Microsoft CEO Nadella says he thinks of the metaphor of the cricket team now as a CEO when reflecting on the culture one needs in order to be successful
On his 21st birthday in 1988, Satya Nadella flew out from New Delhi to go study at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. In 1992, he was recruited by Microsoft.
In his new book, Hit Refresh, the Microsoft CEO talks about how Karl Marx, his Sanskrit scholar mother, and a cricket hero shaped his boyhood. And how free speech, privacy, security, and sovereignty are timeless and non-negotiable values. Here are excerpts on his journey from Hyderabad to Redmond:
ON CHILDHOOD
Well, my father was a civil servant with Marxist leanings and my mother was a Sanskrit scholar. While there is much I learned from my father, including intellectual curiosity and a love of history, I was always my mother’s son. She cared deeply about my being happy, confident, and living in the moment without regrets. She worked hard both at home and in the college classroom where she taught the ancient language, literature, and philosophy of India. And she created a home full of joy.
ON CRICKET
As a kid, I couldn’t have cared less about pretty much anything, except for the sport of cricket. One time, my father hung a poster of Karl Marx in my bedroom; in response, my mother hung one of Lakshmi, the Indian goddess of plentitude and contentment. Their contrasting messages were clear: My father wanted intellectual ambition for me, while my mother wanted me to be happy versus being captive to any dogma. My reaction? The only poster I really wanted was one of my cricketing hero, the Hyderabadi great, ML Jaisimha, famous for his boyish good looks and graceful style, on and off the field.
Looking back, I have been influenced by both my father’s enthusiasm for intellectual engagement and my mother’s dream of a balanced life for me. And even today, cricket remains my passion. Nowhere is the intento sity for cricket greater than in India, even if the game was invented in England. I was good enough to play for my school in Hyderabad, a place that had a lot of cricket tradition and zeal. I was an off- spin bowler, which in baseball would be the equivalent to a pitcher with a sharp breaking curveball. Cricket attracts an estimated 2.5 billion fans globally, compared with just half a billion baseball fans. Both are beautiful sports with passionate fans and a body of literature brimming with the grace, excitement, and complexities of competition. In his novel, Netherland, Joseph O’Neill describes the beauty of the game, its eleven players converging in unison toward the batsman and then returning again and again to their starting point, “a repetition or pulmonary rhythm, as if the field breathed through its luminous visitors.” I think of that metaphor of the cricket team now as a CEO when reflecting on the culture we need in order to be successful.
ON SOCIETAL TRUST IN THE DIGITAL AGE
As we search, I’d like to offer my suggestions for six ways lawmakers can shape a framework for building increased societal trust in this era of digital transformation.
First, we need a more efficient system for appropriate, carefully controlled access to data by law enforcement. Among government’s many important responsibilities, none is more important than protecting its citizens from harm. Our industry needs to appreciate the importance of this responsibility, recognising that our customers are often the very people who need protecting. From cybercrime to child exploitation, many law enforcement investigations that require the disclosure of digital evidence are aimed at protecting our users from malicious activity and helping to ensure that our cloud services are safe and secure. Therefore, under a clear legal framework that is subject to strong checks and balances, governments should have an efficient mechanism to obtain digital evidence.
Second, we need stronger privacy protections so that the security of user data is not eroded in the name of efficiency. Governments also have an obligation to protect citizens’ fundamental privacy rights. Collection of digital evidence should be targeted at specific, known users and limited to cases where reasonable evidence of crime exists. Any government demand for users’ sensitive information must be governed by a clear and transparent legal framework that is subject to independent oversight and includes an adversarial process to defend users’ rights.
Third, we need to develop a modern framework for the collection of digital evidence that respects international borders while recognising the global nature of today’s information technology. In the current uncertain and somewhat chaotic legal situation, governments around the world are increasingly acting unilaterally. Technology companies are facing unavoidable conflicts of law, creating incentives localise data. The resulting confusion about which set of laws protects private data is eroding customers’ trust in technology. If this trend continues, the results could be disastrous for the technology industry and those who rely upon it. A principled, transparent, and efficient framework must be developed to govern requests for digital evidence across jurisdictions, and countries should ensure that their own laws respect that framework.
Fourth, we in the technology industry need to design for transparency. In recent years, technology companies have secured the right to publish aggregate data about the number and types of requests they receive for digital evidence. Governments should ensure that their laws protect this type of transparency by technology companies. Furthermore, governments should also allow companies, except in highly limited cases, to notify users when their information is sought by a government.
Fifth, we must modernise our laws to reflect the ways in which uses of technology have evolved over time. Here’s an example: Today, many large public and private
I like to think that the C in CEO stands for culture. The CEO is the curator of an organisation’s culture Free speech, privacy, security, and sovereignty are timeless, nonnegotiable values
organisations are moving their digital information into the cloud, and many startups are leveraging the infrastructure of larger companies to deliver their applications and services. As a result, governments investigating criminal activity have multiple sources for the information they are seeking. Except in very limited circumstances, digital evidence can be obtained from the customers or the companies most directly offering those services in ways that are efficient and avoid difficult questions about jurisdiction and conflicts of law. Thus, it makes sense for countries to require that investigators seek digital evidence from the source closest to the end user.
Sixth, we must promote trust through security. In recent years, law enforcement agencies around the world have argued that encryption, in particular, is impeding legitimate law enforcement investigations by putting vital information beyond their reach. However, some of the proposed solutions to the so- called “encryption problem”— from weakening encryption algorithms to mandates to provide governments with encryption keys— raise significant concerns. Encryption plays an important role in protecting our customers’ most private data from hackers and other malicious actors. Regulatory or legal reforms in this area must not undermine security, an essential element of users’ trust in technology.