Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone

I discovered Buddha did not set out to found a world religion. He set out to understand why one suffers. I learned that only through living life’s ups and downs can you develop empathy; that in order not to suffer, or at least not to suffer so much, one must become comfortable with impermanence.

It showed me that you must always have respect for your competitor, but don’t be in awe.

Our industry does not respect tradition. What it respects is innovation.

If you could understand impermanence deeply, you would develop more equanimity. You would not get too excited about either the ups or downs of life. And only then would you be ready to develop that deeper sense of empathy and compassion for everything around you.

We needed to build deeper empathy for our customers and their unarticulated and unmet needs. It was time to hit refresh.

Success can cause people to unlearn the habits that made them successful in the first place

Every person, organization, and even society reaches a point at which they owe it to themselves to hit refresh—to reenergize, renew, reframe, and rethink their purpose.

I knew that to lead effectively I needed to get some things square in my own mind—and, ultimately, in the minds of everyone who works at Microsoft. Why does Microsoft exist? And why do I exist in this new role? These are questions everyone in every organization should ask themselves. I worried that failing to ask these questions, and truly answer them, risked perpetuating earlier mistakes and, worse, not being honest.

The next time you are in a meeting, ask the quietest person what they think. Invite everyone into the conversation. If you are on a conference call, ask the people on the phone to share their thoughts first.

We want not just intelligent machines but intelligible machines; not just artificial intelligence but symbiotic intelligence.

So long as you enjoy it, do it mindfully and well, and have an honest purpose behind it, life won’t fail you.

Innovation was being replaced by bureaucracy. Teamwork was being replaced by internal politics. We were falling behind.

Learning to fly is not pretty but flying is.

the importance of putting your team first, ahead of your personal statistics and recognition.

I must work hard - not to climb the ladder, but to do important work.

I told them that we spend far too much time at work for it not to have deep meaning.

The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

Sure, in this age of continuous updates and always-on technologies, hitting refresh may sound quaint, but still when it’s done right, when people and cultures re-create and refresh, a renaissance can be the result.

Part of my response is to urge policymakers to broaden their thinking about the role of technology in economic development. Too often they focus on trying to attract Silicon Valley companies in hopes they will open offices locally. They want Silicon Valley satellites. Instead, they should be working on plans to make the best technologies available to local entrepreneurs so that they can organically grow more jobs at home—not just in high-tech industries but in every economic sector.

throughout history, technological advances have consistently made the majority of workers richer, not poorer.

Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote that “the future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.

Despite all this rapid change in the computing industry, we are still at the beginning of the digital revolution.

We must respond to opportunities before they become conventional wisdom.

The number one thing that you have to do as a leader: to bolster the confidence of the people you lead.

Compete vigorously and with passion in the face of uncertainty and intimidation.

To be a leader in this company, your job is to find the rose petals in a field of shit.