Interview: Satya Nadella with BG2 - Dec-2024

Interview: Satya Nadella with BG2 - Dec-2024

If you want to hear from top technology leader around any of these questions then this interview is for you.

Comprehensive List of Questions

1. As you reflect back on your tenure as CEO over the course of the last decade, what’s the single greatest change that you thought you could do then to unlock the value to change the course of Microsoft?

2. I read an article that suggested—and maybe this isn’t true, so you tell us—that you wrote a 10-page memo to the committee that was choosing the CEO. Is that true, and what was in the memo?

3. Was there any element of cultural shift in rebooting Microsoft’s culture? What would you advise new CEOs to do to reboot the culture and get it moving in a different direction?

4. What convinced you to invest in OpenAI, given Google was likely ahead in AI with DeepMind, versus relying solely on Microsoft’s internal AI research efforts?

5. Do you agree with the notion that everyone seems more awake to AI in this era, with all major players starting at the same time, and how do you view the key players in this AI race?

6. Can Google and Bing continue to grow their legacy search businesses in the age of answers?

7. What does Bing need to do to compete with ChatGPT from a consumer perspective?

8. How do you think about the challenges of AI agents interacting with apps and data on different ecosystems, like iOS or Android, and managing control or permissions?

9. Does Microsoft plan to allow external agents (e.g., ChatGPT) to operate fully on Windows systems?

10. Would Microsoft allow AI systems like ChatGPT to interact with Microsoft apps and data on platforms like iOS or Android?

11. Mustafa Suleyman has said 2025 will be the year of “infinite memory.” Can you clarify what he meant by that, and does Microsoft have any internal breakthroughs on memory systems?

12. Microsoft’s AI business has been largely driven by inference workloads rather than renting GPUs for training. How do you see this approach differing from Amazon or Google?

13. Do you worry about the potential for disruption by AI-native products that bypass traditional software infrastructure, particularly in business applications?

14. How is Microsoft leveraging AI within its own business to increase productivity, reduce costs, or drive revenues? Are there specific examples?

15. When you two or three times your Azure revenue, do you expect to see leverage on headcount similar to NVIDIA’s claim of using AI agents to support growth?

16. Your capex has grown significantly, resembling industrial company capex more than traditional software companies. Does this growth concern you, and when do you see it tapering off?

17. How do you view large language model (LLM) scaling costs and future trends in training and inference? Are we reaching a limit on model scaling?

18. Are you still supply-constrained when it comes to AI hardware like GPUs, and how is Microsoft planning to scale inference workloads for the new generation of models?

19. Does Microsoft plan to engage in the largest model training competition, or will it focus resources elsewhere given the partnership with OpenAI?

20. How does Microsoft view the relationship with OpenAI, given the overlap and coopetition in both consumer and enterprise spaces?

21. Is Microsoft motivated to quickly restructure its relationship with OpenAI, and how do you see their next steps, including possibly becoming a public company?

22. How do you see open versus closed approaches in AI development influencing network effects and business strategies for companies like Meta and others?

23. What are your thoughts on the potential for consortium models, like those used in open-source initiatives such as Linux, in the AI industry?

24. How do you address concerns about the safety of AI, particularly in the context of national security and the potential misuse of open-source models?

25. Do you believe government and regulatory institutions will hold both open and closed AI models to the same safety standards?

26. How do you think states and national policies will influence the future of AI development and competition?

27. As AI applications like ChatGPT and co-pilots become more stateful, how do you see this shifting user behavior and business models?

28. What are the structural advantages that Microsoft has in the AI ecosystem, particularly in areas like Azure’s distributed infrastructure and enterprise workloads?

29. With the rise of AI agents capable of performing autonomous tasks, how do you envision the evolution of traditional business applications and workflows?

30. How is Microsoft ensuring its AI tools, such as co-pilots, effectively integrate into existing business processes and drive real productivity gains?

31. How do you envision AI-driven agents interacting with enterprise systems, and what role do you see for connectors and schema governance in enabling this?

32. How is Microsoft addressing the challenges of providing AI services to both new digital-native customers and traditional enterprises?

33. What lessons from the early days of Azure and competing against Oracle and IBM inform Microsoft’s strategy for the AI era?

34. How do you think the dynamics of competition will evolve among the major AI players (Google, Amazon, Meta, etc.), and what unique strategies is Microsoft employing?

35. How do you see commercial intent queries migrating from traditional search engines to AI-driven chat interfaces, and how will that affect the search business?

36. How does Microsoft plan to balance the needs of consumer AI products, like Bing and ChatGPT, with enterprise-focused AI offerings?

37. What are your thoughts on the interplay between traditional software economics and the emerging AI-driven business models?

38. How do you view the role of stateful AI agents in transforming consumer and enterprise interactions, and what challenges remain in scaling these capabilities?

39. How does Microsoft balance competing priorities between supporting OpenAI as a partner, maintaining its own AI development, and navigating areas of competition?

40. Do you believe OpenAI is positioned to be the defining company of this generation of AI, and how does Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI support this vision?

41. What do you think of OpenAI’s potential to go public, and how would that impact its partnership with Microsoft?

42. How do you see AI safety being enforced in the future, and what role will global collaboration and regulation play in ensuring safe AI?

Full Interview: Satya Nadella @ BG2 with Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner