Microsoft the AI Powerhouse

I’ve been a long term shareholder of MSFT and I’ve been rewarded quite well. Under the leadership of CEO Nadella, Microsoft has become and AI powerhouse, and I believe he’ll win the cloud computing wars. Right now Amazon is the dominant player but based on what I see in Azure’s development, I think both companies will be ’neck to neck’ in a few short years.

Investors have rewarded the stock with new highs and crossing (before retracing just below) a $1 Trillion dollar valuation. Sure Apple did it first and then Amazon, but the one who wins is the one with staying power.

This one key thing caught my eye from a recent Bloomberg article. The change in perception from a ‘fixed mindset’ to a ‘growth mindset.’

Microsoft marketers like to attribute its reemergence as a tech power to a sort of cultural rehab, involving what Nadella calls corporate “empathy” and a shift of his team from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset.” The reality of the company’s turnaround was more painful, according to interviews with more than four dozen current and former executives, board members, customers, and competitors. Under Nadella, it cut funding to Windows and built an enormous cloud computing business—with about $34 billion in revenue over the past year—putting it ahead of Google and making progress in key areas against the dominant player, Amazon Web Services. “I don’t know of any other software company in the history of technology that fell onto hard times and has recovered so well,” says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix Inc. via Bloomberg

I know how hard it is to change a massive juggernaut like Microsoft from the inside. Ballmer certainly didn’t do it but I think Nadella will. The numbers won’t lie and I expect to add more to my position over time.