In a conversation with Matthias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged that the Redmond-based company’s impressive growth is currently a limiting factor in the competition in artificial intelligence. The very large organizational structure, he explained, slows down the decision-making process and makes it more difficult to respond to rapid changes in the industry.
Nadella compared the operations of large companies with those of startups, emphasizing how the latter operate with small teams, capable of moving from idea to development without lengthy hierarchical steps. According to the CEO, this agility allows small tech companies to innovate with a speed that giants like Microsoft can hardly replicate.
For this reason, he explained, he dedicates part of his weekends to studying the organizational models of young companies , with the aim of understanding how to adapt Microsoft’s internal work to a faster pace of innovation. He explained that in his group, product development is managed by at least three managers—for scientific, product, and infrastructure areas—a process that inevitably takes longer than that of startups.
During the interview, Nadella urged companies to rethink their mindset, shifting from a ” complacent ” approach to one geared toward continuous learning . He warned that treating AI implementation as a simple upgrade of existing information systems almost always leads to failure.
According to the CEO, the introduction of artificial intelligence requires four fundamental steps:
Nadella also recalled that skills such as empathy and emotional intelligence remain crucial for leadership even in an increasingly automated context.
His comments come as several major tech companies – including Google, Meta and Amazon – are reducing middle management levels to speed up decision-making , a shift that reflects a broader trend of structural streamlining.
Nadella then drew attention to another critical issue for the industry: data center limitations. In his view, the real bottleneck isn’t the availability of chips, but rather the lack of power and space in processing centers. He explained that many AI accelerators remain unused because the infrastructure isn’t yet ready to support them efficiently.
Looking to the future, Nadella called on companies to build their own “AI factory,” based on the ability to capitalize on internal data.
For Microsoft, this means leveraging the Microsoft 365 Graph, a system capable of semantically representing unstructured information like emails, documents, and meetings. According to the CEO, this approach will enable the recovery of tacit knowledge within organizations and could become a crucial strategic enabler for the adoption of artificial intelligence.
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