Hit Refresh (2017) charts the journey of Satya Nadella, from his childhood as a cricket-obsessed boy in Hyderabad, India, to working at the very top of global tech powerhouse Microsoft. Packed full of illuminating reflections on everything from the psychology of the cricket field to what parenthood can teach us about business, these blinks provide a rare insight into the life and thoughts of one of the world’s most influential men.
Satya Nadella is an Indian-American business executive and the current CEO of Microsoft. Before taking up his current position, Nadella was in charge of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group. He holds three degrees from institutions in India and the US, including an MBA from the University of Chicago. He’s also a father, a husband and a keen cricketer.
Upgrade to Premium now and get unlimited access to the Blinkist library. Read or listen to key insights from the world’s best nonfiction.
Upgrade to PremiumThe Blinkist app gives you the key ideas from a bestselling nonfiction book in just 15 minutes. Available in bitesize text and audio, the app makes it easier than ever to find time to read.
Start free trialGet unlimited access to the most important ideas in business, investing, marketing, psychology, politics, and more. Stay ahead of the curve with recommended reading lists curated by experts.
Start free trialHit Refresh (2017) charts the journey of Satya Nadella, from his childhood as a cricket-obsessed boy in Hyderabad, India, to working at the very top of global tech powerhouse Microsoft. Packed full of illuminating reflections on everything from the psychology of the cricket field to what parenthood can teach us about business, these blinks provide a rare insight into the life and thoughts of one of the world’s most influential men.
Nadella was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1967. His father was a civil servant, and his mother was a scholar of Sanskrit, the ancient language of many of the country’s religious texts. As a young boy, however, Nadella wasn’t interested in politics or religion. What he really cared about was cricket.
But his parents had other ideas for him. In fact, his father even hung a poster of Karl Marx in his son’s room in the hope of inspiring him to become a great economist and intellectual. His mother responded with a poster of the Indian goddess of fortune and prosperity, which she hoped would remind him of the value of spiritual contentment. Nadella wasn’t having any of it. His favorite poster? A blown-up image of the Hyderabadi cricket star ML Jaisimha!
Nadella’s love affair with the sport gradually became a source of real concern. What, his parents wondered, would he do if his dream of becoming a professional cricketer didn’t come to anything? The answer Nadella came up with was banking. His father wasn’t happy with that either, however, and told him one day, “You’ve got to get out of Hyderabad. Otherwise, you’ll ruin yourself.”
That got Nadella thinking. At 18, he dusted off his old Sinclair ZX Spectrum personal computer – a gift his father had given him three years earlier. As he played around with the gadget, his thoughts increasingly turned to engineering, software and the great potential of personal computing. He enrolled at the Manipal Institute of Technology to study electrical engineering and graduated in 1988.
It was during his studies that Nadella’s dream of playing cricket professionally finally came to an end. At Manipal, he fell in with a group of entrepreneurial peers whose passion was positively infectious. After a single match for the Manipal college team, Nadella hung his cricketing gear up for good and decided to devote himself to a career in technology.