Microsoft CEO apologizes for ‘advice’ he gave women

Microsoft’s PR team went on full damage control duty Friday morning following their CEO’s gaffe when answering questions at a celebration honoring women in tech.

CEO Satya Nadella was taking questions Thursday at one of the world’s largest gatherings of women in technology, The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, when he was asked to give advice to women seeking a higher salary.

This is the full exchange:

A woman asked the question, “For women who aren’t comfortable asking for a raise or who are, or sort of saying, who aren’t the younger you, let’s say, what’s your advice for them?”

Nadella’s responsed, “The thing that’s the most influenced me in terms of, how do you look at the journey, or a career: There was this guy, his name was Mike Naples, he was President of Microsoft when I joined. And he had this saying when he would say all HR systems are long term efficient and short term efficient. I thought that phrased just captured it, which is, it’s not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along.

“And I think that might be one of the additional super powers that quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise, have. Because that’s good karma. It will come back. Because somebody is going to know, that’s the kind of person I want to trust. That’s the kind of person I want to give more responsibility to. And in the long term efficiency, things catch up. And I wonder, and I’m not saying that’s the only approach. But I wonder if taking the long term helps solve for what might be perceived as this uncomfortable thing – am I getting paid right? Am I getting rewarded right? Because reality is, your best work is not followed with your best reward. Your best work has impact and people recognize it. Then you get the rewards. So you have to somehow think it through, I think.”

Very soon after, Nadella’s team sent out an apology tweet:

Then, an email went out to all Microsoft employees. In part, it said,

“I answered that question completely wrong. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work.”