Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has opened up about his fears, revealing he's "haunted by the possibility of Microsoft not surviving the era of artificial intelligence" during a recent employee town hall meeting.

The tech leader’s admission came while addressing staff concerns about what employees described as a "markedly different, colder, more rigid" workplace culture that appears to be "lacking in the empathy we have come to value."

Adapting cultural shifts                                           

Nadella recently acknowledged these cultural shifts, telling his workforce that leadership needs to "do better" in rebuilding trust and workplace empathy. The CEO accepted the feedback as a direct challenge to his leadership team's approach.

Drawing from tech history, Nadella invoked the cautionary tale of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a once-dominant company from the 1970s that vanished after failing to adapt to emerging technologies like Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture. "Our industry is full of case studies of companies that were great once, that just disappeared," he warned employees.

The Microsoft chief, who revealed his first computer was a DEC VAX and that he had once aspired to work there, used the example to explain how even industry leaders can become irrelevant when they fail to evolve. He noted that some contributors to Windows NT had actually come from a DEC laboratory that was subsequently shut down, according to a report by The Times of India. 

Need to stay ahead

"Some of the biggest businesses we've built might not be as relevant going forward," Nadella acknowledged, highlighting the urgent need for Microsoft to stay ahead of the AI revolution rather than become another casualty of technological disruption.

The discussion emerged from concerns raised by a UK-based employee about the company's changing atmosphere, particularly following recent workforce reductions across multiple departments that affected thousands of positions.