Book review: Hit Refresh

Author: Satya Nadella

I enjoyed reading the book and I must admit that some where inside me there was a pride that the book was written by my CEO. We also got special employee edition which added to the experience of this being special. The punch line of the book rightly sums up what the book is about – how Microsoft is evolving and what is the future Satya sees; and how can we create a better future for everyone literally everyone on the planet.

I feel the book will be enjoyed by mostly all the people – specially those who work part-time/full time. There is a small section on the future of technology which may not interest everybody but other than that nothing is too technology specific.

He shares his personal story which helps you make a human connection – that he was also just like any other employee/person and faced the same difficulties that you do. He talks about his personal challenges more than his professional challenges (when climbing up the ladder). On the professional side he mentions the hard decisions he has had to make but not so much the difficulties he encountered and how he worked around them.

A couple of chapters talk about what a leader should be like – and here a leader not necessarily means a manager/lead. He also talks about qualities of a good manager and what culture shift he’s trying to bring to Microsoft. What that means for employees and how they can help in spreading that culture. I really liked this whole section – there was a lot to learn! All his thoughts apply to any organization that wants to have a culture that promotes healthy growth of employees, healthy collaboration amongst employees/teams and innovation.

From there the book goes on to talk about the future of technology as he sees it; privacy, trust and security issues facing the technology companies these days and what needs to be done about that. Lastly he talks about how we can get economic growth for everyone on the planet. This was another very interesting section for me. Here he discusses how adoption of technology can help economic growth for everyone; that while it is true that automation replaces human labor it doesn’t mean it reduces human jobs. Latter is a particularly interesting topic which crosses many of our minds. So it was good to hear his thoughts on it.

Overall it was fun to read the book – not only there was so many things to learn but was also good to learn his thoughts on various things.