the same-day correction: Satya Nadella, a wrong answer and a culture of learning
Eight months into his job as Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella gave a bad answer on a stage full of women in computing. By the evening he had told every employee he was wrong. The episode became part of the story he told about learning in public, with a lesson for anyone who has misspoken in public.
By Brightside English editorial team
Reviewed by a Brightside senior coach · · 5 min read
In February 2014 Satya Nadella became Microsoft's CEO and began to talk about curiosity and learning as the heart of its culture. In October, asked about women and pay raises, he suggested they trust the system rather than ask. The backlash was immediate. Within hours he wrote to all staff that his answer was wrong. The lesson: correct yourself quickly, clearly and where people heard you.
A first email about learning
On 4 February 2014, his first day as chief executive, Nadella sent an email to all Microsoft employees. It is still on the company's newsroom. Part of it reads like a short self-introduction: he gave his age, 46, said he had been married for 22 years and had three children, and wrote that he was defined by curiosity and a thirst for learning. He joked that he bought more books than he could finish and signed up for more online courses than he could complete.
The rest of the email set out his view that the industry respects innovation rather than tradition, and that Microsoft had to thrive in a world he described as mobile first and cloud first. He linked learning directly to good work: stop learning new things, he suggested, and you stop doing useful things.
From know-it-all to learn-it-all
Over the next few years Nadella built that idea into Microsoft's language about itself. A London Business School case study by Herminia Ibarra and Aneeta Rattan describes how his wife, Anu, gave him Carol Dweck's book on growth mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed through effort. According to the case, Nadella adapted the idea for Microsoft: employees would move from being know-it-alls to being learn-it-alls.
He has kept repeating the contrast. Fortune reported in 2024 that he told the Hello Monday podcast in 2019 that the learn-it-all does better than the know-it-all, and described the shift as a defining part of his message about workplace culture. His 2017 book, Hit Refresh, written with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols, presents the company's change as a move away from internal conflict and stagnation toward empathy, according to Publishers Weekly's review.
It is one thing to say that learning matters. The harder test came in public.
The question in Phoenix
On 9 October 2014, Nadella appeared at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix, Arizona, in an on-stage conversation with Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and at the time a member of Microsoft's board.
Near the end, Klawe asked what advice he would give to women who are not comfortable asking for a raise. As reported by Reuters and published in Fortune, Nadella said it was not really about asking. He suggested women have faith that the system would give them the right raises over time, and called that good karma, adding that people would come to trust someone who behaved that way.
Klawe disagreed with him on the spot, saying it was one of very few things on which they differed, and offered her own advice. Reuters reported that the audience cheered her response, and the two hugged on stage. GeekWire reported murmurs in the hall and an immediate reaction online.
The correction, the same day
That afternoon Nadella posted on Twitter that he had been inarticulate about how women should ask for a raise, and that the industry needed to close the gender pay gap so a raise would not be needed because of bias.
Then he went further. GeekWire's Taylor Soper reported, the same day, that Nadella sent a company-wide email and posted the note online. In it he restated Klawe's question, and then wrote one plain sentence: "I answered that question completely wrong."
The rest of the email, as published by GeekWire, said he supported programmes to bring more women into technology and close the pay gap, that men and women should get equal pay for equal work, and that Klawe's advice had been the right advice: if you believe you deserve a raise, ask.
About a week later, ReadWrite published a further internal memo in which Nadella said his answer had been generic advice that was simply wrong, that he had received it from his own mentors, and that it had underestimated exclusion and bias, conscious and unconscious.
What happened next
In Hit Refresh, as reported by GeekWire in 2019, Nadella wrote that he was in some ways glad he had made the mistake so publicly, because it made him confront an unconscious bias he had not known he had. GeekWire also reported that the book links the episode to a decision to tie part of executive pay to diversity progress at Microsoft.
Five years on, Klawe told GeekWire she considered the episode one of the best things that ever happened for Microsoft. She also said the company's work on diversity was not perfect, and the same article noted setbacks, including an internal email chain about harassment that had leaked earlier in 2019.
What is disputed
Some of this story is interpretation rather than fact. Klawe herself said the work on diversity was unfinished. Dates also need care: the London Business School case dates the gift of Dweck's book to early 2015, about a year after his first email, so the growth mindset language came later than the first-day message about curiosity. And how much of Microsoft's later commercial success came from culture rather than strategy, products or timing is a matter of judgement, and this piece does not try to settle it. What is documented is the sequence: the answer, the disagreement on stage, the tweet, the same-day email and the later memo.
The lesson for the rest of us
Most of us will never misspeak in front of thousands of engineers. But we all misspeak: a careless line in a town hall, a wrong figure on a client call, an unkind remark at a family dinner that lands harder than intended. The usual instinct is to wait, explain or hope it passes. Nadella's sequence suggests a better pattern.
Be quick. The correction came within hours, while people were still talking about it.
Be plain. The key sentence had no qualifiers. It did not say "if anyone was offended". It said the answer was wrong.
Say what is right instead. He did not stop at the apology. He named the better advice, and credited the person who gave it.
Correct in the same place. People who heard the mistake should hear the correction.
Show a change later. The memo a week on, and the pay decision described in his book, mattered more than the first sentence.
"Earlier today I gave the team the wrong deadline. I said Friday. It is Wednesday, and that is my mistake."
"I answered your question badly on the call. Here is what I should have said."
"What I said at dinner was unkind and wrong. You were right, and I am sorry."
Sources
- Microsoft News Center, Satya Nadella email to employees on first day as CEO, 4 February 2014. news.microsoft.com/source/2014/02/04/satya-nadella-email-to-employees-on-first-day-as-ceo
- Herminia Ibarra and Aneeta Rattan, Microsoft: instilling a growth mindset, London Business School case, 2019 (author summary). herminiaibarra.com/microsoft-instilling-a-growth-mindset/
- Chloe Berger, article on Satya Nadella, growth mindset and learn-it-alls, Fortune, 20 May 2024. www.fortune.com/2024/05/20/satya-nadella-microsoft-culture-growth-mindset-learn-it-alls-know-it-alls/
- Publishers Weekly, review of Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols, Harper Business, 2017. www.publishersweekly.com/9780062652508
- Reuters via Fortune, Microsoft CEO backpedals after saying women shouldn't ask for raises, 9 October 2014. fortune.com/2014/10/09/microsoft-ceo-backpedals-after-saying-women-shouldnt-ask-for-raises/
- Taylor Soper, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella apologizes for women pay comment after backlash, GeekWire, 9 October 2014. www.geekwire.com/2014/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-apologizes-women-pay-comment-backlash/
- Selena Larson, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Attempts To Repair His Karma In Employee Email, ReadWrite, 16 October 2014. readwrite.com/?p=85874
- Monica Nickelsburg, Satya Nadella's karma gaffe was one of the best things that ever happened for Microsoft, says former board member, GeekWire, June 2019. www.geekwire.com/2019/maria-klawe-satya-nadellas-gaffe-about-raises-for-women-was-one-of-the-best-things-that-ever-happened-for-microsoft/
Published by The Full Stop, the journal of Brightside English, in the Landmark Moments series. Every factual claim links to a source below; where accounts or findings are disputed, we say so. Sources checked on 26 Oct 2026. Reviewed by a Brightside senior coach. Corrections: see our editorial standard.