You need more empathy: Satya Nadella reveals interview answer

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is one of the most successful tech leaders in the world today. But back in 1992, during his final job interview at the company, he thought he had completely blown his chances. The reason? A simple question about a falling child.Nadella recently recalled the fascinating story of his final interview with Richard Tait, a former Microsoft manager. Tait, who later became a well-known entrepreneur and sadly passed away in 2022, was conducting what Microsoft called the "as-appropriate" interview.After a long day of exhausting whiteboard coding, algorithms, and memory management tests, Nadella was tired. At the very end of the day, Tait asked him one last question that had nothing to do with software: "Hey, you're crossing a street, a child falls, what will you do?"The 911 AnswerThinking strictly like an engineer, Nadella panicked. He wondered if this was a trick question or a complex computer science puzzle, like the famous "traveling salesman" problem. After thinking about everything except the most obvious human response, Nadella finally blurted out his answer: "I'll call 911."According to Nadella, Tait simply got up and told him the right answer. "When a child falls, you pick them up and hug them," Tait said as he walked him out of the room. "You need more empathy."A Lesson in Empathy Nadella walked out of the building thinking his chances of joining Microsoft were completely over. "I said, oh my God, I think that's it. I'm definitely not getting this job," he recalled.However, despite failing the empathy test, Nadella did get the job. Looking back, he noted how fascinating it was that Tait felt the need to deliver that specific message to him at that exact moment.Richard Tait later left Microsoft to become a highly successful venture capitalist and created the popular board game Cranium. Meanwhile, Nadella climbed the ranks at Microsoft, eventually taking over as CEO in 2014.Today, empathy is one of the biggest pillars of Nadella's leadership style. He has frequently written and spoken about how this single interview question, along with raising his late son Zain, who was born with severe cerebral palsy, taught him that being a great leader requires much more than just technical skills. It requires a deep, human understanding of people.- Ends