Satya Nadella stirs up hornets nest, then apologizes with company wide letter

Satya Nadella was speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference on Wednesday. He was asked to offer advice to women who are uncomfortable asking for a raise. His response opened up a viral firestorm of criticism. Before you move on, take a minute to listen to what Nadella actually said, starting at about 1:33:56 in the video below.

Even better, go to about 00:28:00 to learn about the BRAID initiative, launched by Harvey Mudd College, “an initiative to work with computer science departments at 15 universities across the U.S. to increase the percentage of their undergraduate majors that are female and students of color”. BRAID is sponsored by Facebook, Google, Intel and Microsoft. Anyone at Apple pursuing this? If you are interested but need contact info, ping me, I’ll be happy to connect the dots.

But I digress. By now, you’ve watched the Nadella comment. Ham handed, but I don’t get the sense from context that this was meant in the way it came across. To his credit, Nadella followed up with an apology, sent it out to the entire company and posted it here for public consumption. From the letter:

Toward the end of the interview, Maria asked me what advice I would offer women who are not comfortable asking for pay raises. I answered that question completely wrong. Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.

I take him at his word.