Boldness help create change
A 2019 article by Rafael Badziag tells of when Naveen and his team met with Bill Gates. “I was in my first few months at Microsoft, and we were in a meeting about Windows NT; I was just a mid-level manager—the dumb young guy.” In the middle of the presentation, Gates turned to Naveen and asked him what he thought of the operating system. “Bill, I think it’s going to be big, fat, and slow.” Everybody stayed silent. Naveen continues, “All the top guys were in that meeting. And Bill Gates was an extremely intense person. He quietly looked at me for ten seconds and then said, ‘Exactly!’” Afterward, Naveen’s manager took him aside and said, “Do you know you work for me? And what you did is absolutely going to cost you.” Naveen replied, “Martin, it may come as a surprise to you, but I do not work for you. I work for the company, and I work for myself. So don’t you ever tell me I work for you.” Naveen’s manager put him on probation, saying, “That will show you whom you work for.” As it turns out, this act of boldness helped the company. “They changed everything in that operating system to become a lean, mean operating system. All because I was able to say, ‘Bill, this is exactly what’s going to happen if you go down this path.’” The most important lesson Naveen points out from such experience is this one: “So the cost was that I almost got fired. But that’s how entrepreneurs are. They don’t care. They’re going to say what they believe, and then they’re going to go out and do it themselves” (Badziag, 2019).
Badziag, Rafael. “Billionaire Who Made His First $1 Million at Microsoft: ‘Bill Gates Was an Extremely Intense Person.’” CNBC, November 13, 2019.
Website