Nadella was born in Hyderabad and took a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1988. He moved to the United States for an MS in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, finished in 1990, and later earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997. He worked on the technology staff at Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992.
At Microsoft he held a run of senior jobs, including vice president of the Business Division and, from March 2007, senior vice president of research and development for the Online Services Division. In February 2011 he became president of the $19 billion Server and Tools Business, where he moved Microsoft's database, Windows Server and developer tools onto its Azure cloud. Cloud services revenue grew from $16.6 billion in 2011 to $20.3 billion in June 2013.
On February 4, 2014, Microsoft named Nadella its third chief executive, after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He bought Mojang, maker of Minecraft, for $2.5 billion in 2014, LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016, GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018 and Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in 2023. He worked with rivals such as Apple and Salesforce, and Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation in 2016. By November 2023 Microsoft's stock had risen nearly tenfold since he took over. He became chairman in 2021.
Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI since 2019 and built its own Copilot tools. Nadella has said every per-user business at Microsoft becomes a per-user and usage business, and has warned that companies betting everything on one AI provider may not survive. In January 2026 his call to stop calling AI “slop” drew a backlash online. In October 2026 he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House, and he is set to open Snowflake's customer conference in November 2026.
Sources · written 16 October 2026
