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3 episodes · 49 quoted claims
Nadella cited that during the height of the Industrial Revolution the United Kingdom spent about 10% of its GDP building railroads.
“in the height of the industrial revolution, uh, in the United Kingdom, they spent 10% of their G D P building the railroads.”
Nadella estimated that narrowly defined technology spending is about 4-5% of GDP.
“if you think at a G D P level, uh, tech spend, narrowly defined, is probably four, 5%.”
Nadella said he first met the OpenAI team when they were working on the Dota 2 contest.
“when they were working even on the Dota two contest and what have you”
Nadella cited the partnerships of Intel with Windows and SAP with SQL Server as examples of successful Microsoft collaborations.
“Intel and Windows came together and and that was successful, S A P and SQL Server, so it came together and it was successful.”
Nadella said his confidence in this generation of AI began when he saw GPT-3 progress to GPT-3.5 and its use in GitHub Copilot.
“my entire confidence in this generation of A I started when I started seeing from G P T three to 3.5 and that implementation in GitHub.”
Nadella said Azure will use Nvidia and AMD chips as well as Microsoft's own silicon and system architecture.
“we'll partner with Nvidia, we'll partner with A M D, we'll have our own silicon, uh, we will have our own system architecture.”
Microsoft is building Phi, a family of small language models.
“serving the needs of Phi that we are building, right? Which is the small language model.”
Nadella recalled that he first saw the Mosaic browser running on top of Windows.
“the first time I saw Mosaic, uh, you know, was, uh, as a browser on top of Windows”
Nadella cited a longitudinal study of technology diffusion by Dartmouth economist Diego Comin.
“there's an economist out of Dartmouth, his name is Diego Coman, and he did one of the best longitudinal studies, uh, of technology diffusion.”
Nadella said Microsoft worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to use an AI model to design a battery material with 70% less lithium, which was then produced.
“We worked with the Pacific National Lab locally here to effectively go reduce the uh, then the lithium content, uh, by 70% in a new battery material”
Microsoft's quantum programming language is Q#.
“we have our software stack with, uh, you know, our, uh, Q sharp, uh, which is our quantum programming stack.”
Nadella said Microsoft's Flight Simulator launched before Windows did.
“flight simulator, I think, was launched long before Windows was launched.”
Nadella said DirectX, Microsoft's graphics stack, helped make GPUs into accelerators, since GPUs were created for PC gaming.
“D X, which was the Microsoft graphics stack, is what made G P U's, uh, an accelerator”
Nadella said Civilization is his favorite game and that he also enjoys Age of Empires.
“Civ was my favorite game. Age of Empires is another great game that I enjoyed.”
Nadella said Carol Dweck's book on growth mindset influenced Microsoft's cultural change.
“I was lucky enough to have read, uh, Carol Dweck's book on mindset, which is around child psychology, called growth mindset.”
Nadella said his son was born with cerebral palsy and passed away a few years before the interview.
“my son was born with cerebral palsy. He passed away a few years ago.”
Nadella cited Colin Mayer's definition that businesses exist to create profitable solutions to the challenges of people and planet.
“I like this Colin Mayer definition that you have to create profitable solution to challenges of people and planet”
Nadella said his father kept diaries listing people met, ideas generated and tasks completed, a framework he has adopted.
“he had this note, you know, his diaries were full of that schema, uh, which is, uh, people met, uh, ideas generated and tasks completed”
Nadella said his mother was a professor of Sanskrit drama.
“my mom was a a professor of Sanskrit drama”
Nadella said he grew up in Hyderabad and got into Urdu poetry in his mid-thirties.
“I got into Urdu poetry in a big way in my mid-thirties, and so, uh, I grew up in Hyderabad”
Nadella said that with Activision part of Microsoft, the company covers mobile, cloud, console and PC gaming.
“now with Activision as part of Microsoft, we have mobile gaming, we have cloud gaming, we have, uh, console gaming, P C gaming.”
Satya Nadella said Microsoft will have access to OpenAI's models for seven more years under the new agreement.
“We will have access to open AI models for, uh, uh, you know, 7 more years, which we will innovate on top of.”
Nadella said Microsoft's MAI image model ranked number 9 on the image arena leaderboard.
“the image model that we launched, which I think this launched, uh, is at number 9 in the, uh, image arena.”
Nadella said GitHub Copilot subscribers grew from 20 million to 26 million in the most recent quarter.
“I think we grew from 20 to 26 million subs, right? So I feel good about our sub growth”
Nadella said roughly one new developer joins GitHub every second.
“we are getting 1 developer joining GitHub a second or something that is the stat, I think.”
Nadella described GitHub's Agent HQ as like cable TV for AI agents, bundling multiple companies' coding agents into one subscription.
“Sometimes I describe it as the cable TV of all these AI agents”
Nadella said OpenAI's API is exclusive to Azure, while its ChatGPT product can run on any cloud.
“SaaS business is ChatGPT, their PaaS business is their API. That API is Azure exclusive. The SaaS business, they can run it anywhere.”
Nadella said Microsoft's Atlanta datacenter takes about ninety days from receiving hardware to handing it to a real workload.
“That's why I think even the execution in this Atlanta data center I mean, like, ninety days, right, from between when we get it and to hand off to a real workload.”
Nadella said software optimizations have improved tokens per dollar per watt for a given GPT model by five to forty times in some cases.
“So, it's five x, ten x, maybe forty x in some of these cases, right?”
Nadella said Microsoft created an EU data boundary, which prevents sending European customers' AI calls to other regions even when the work is asynchronous.
“where we literally had to create an EU data boundary, uh, basically meant that you can't just round-trip a call to wherever, even if it's asynchronous.”
Nadella said Microsoft has been growing training capacity for OpenAI's models about tenfold every 18 months.
“having actually for now up to now 10x every 18 months enough training capacity for the various open AI models.”
Nadella said Microsoft is building sovereign clouds in France and Germany.
“We're also building sovereign clouds in in France and in Germany.”
Nadella said the United States has 4% of the world's population, 25% of global GDP and 50% of global market capitalization.
“It's 4% of the world's population, 25% of the GDP, and 50% of the market cap.”
Satya Nadella says he gave up his US green card and got an H-1 visa so his wife could join him in the United States.
“I went to the American Embassy in Delhi, and I said, where's the line to give up my green card? And they said, there is no such line.”
Satya Nadella says his belief in this generation of AI formed when next-edit code suggestions began working accurately with a Codex model that predated GPT-3.5.
“there's a codex model back in the day, it was pre-GPT 3.5. Uh, that's when next edit suggestions started working with some real accuracy.”
Satya Nadella describes AI coding tools as progressing from edit suggestions to chat, actions and autonomous agents that run in the foreground, background, cloud or locally.
“Then we went to chat, then we went to actions, and now to full autonomous agents, and then the autonomous agents can be both, uh, foreground, background, in the cloud or local, right?”
Satya Nadella says LinkedIn combined product manager, designer, front-end engineer and back-end engineer roles into full-stack builders with broader scope.
“So what we did is we sort of took those first four roles and combined them, in fact, increased scope and said, let's they're all full stack builders.”
Satya Nadella says building an AI product starts with evaluations, which feed the science and then the infrastructure.
“It starts with Evals, right? So basically, there's this Eval to science to infrastructure, and so Evals are done by these full stack builders”
Satya Nadella cites economist Diego Comin's study of the Industrial Revolution, which found that countries got ahead by adopting the latest technology and building on it.
“one of my favorite studies has always been this work that, uh, an economist, I think, Auro Dartmouth did, uh, his name is Diego Comin, where he studied, uh, basically, what happened during the Industrial Revolution.”
Satya Nadella says public sector spending is roughly 40% to 50% of GDP in most Global South countries, which he sees as a big opportunity for AI efficiency gains.
“let's say, you know, 40%, 50% of the GDP of most Global South countries is public sector.”