Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer join Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on stage at a company rally Tuesday.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer join new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on stage at a company rally Tuesday.

It’s clear that Microsoft’s new leader wants to focus on mobile and the cloud.

The Redmond software giant just posted a few videos from today’s employee rally that introduced new CEO Satya Nadella. The event also included appearances from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and a whole lot of Windows Phones.

In his first speech to employees, Nadella echoed sentiments included in his first company-wide email.

“You know, this business of ours is an exciting business, and one of the core things that we’ve got to realize is that this business does not really respect tradition,” Nadella told employees. “What it respects is innovation on a go-forward basis. So it’s really our collective challenge that we now need to make Microsoft thrive in a mobile-first and cloud-first world. That’s the core challenge that we collectively have to face up to and I cannot be more honored, more humbled and more excited about Microsoft and our opportunity.”

Gates, meanwhile, took a moment to point out the fact that Microsoft’s three CEOs were up on stage at the same time.

“This company has had three CEOs — they are all right here,” he said, causing hoots and hollers from the crowd. A few seconds later, Ballmer patted Nadella on the back as employees continued to cheer.

Finally, new Microsoft chairman John Thompson shared his thoughts on Nadella.

“Well, Sunday was a really, really big day in Seattle,” he said, which elicited an animated response from Ballmer, a big sports fan. “It didn’t have anything to do with the Seahawks, because on Sunday morning our board met and unanimously appointed Satya our next CEO. We said that we would do an extensive search externally and internally to make sure that we had a good sense of what the talent landscape looked like, and guess what — the best talent we could find for this job was right here inside Microsoft.”

Despite the CEO announcement today, Microsoft’s stock barely moved:

msftstocknewceo

Related coverage: 

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.