satya-nadella5Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had a lot to say during his talk at the Greater Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce today, his first public address to the region’s leaders since becoming the company’s top executive.

It was a hometown crowd, and at times Nadella was clearly playing to it — without giving any specifics on Microsoft’s long-term growth plans in the region or other parts of the world.

“I think this is an amazing place to be,” he said. “It’s a real privilege for us. As I was telling the mayor of Seattle when I just met him backstage, every time I go to the Valley, I’m thankful that I’m here (in Seattle). It is quite frankly an amazing place in terms of attracting innovative people and the companies we have.”

He added later, “Us being in Seattle, being that iconic company that is from this region, means a lot to us. The ability for this region to stay competitive, grow, thrive, means a lot to us. We want to be responsible members of this community, do everything that we can to foster that growth, foster that vibrancy of place.”

We reported earlier on Nadella’s comments about Minecraft and Microsoft’s position in the mobile market. Here are a few additional highlights from his remarks during the on-stage conversation with Seattle Chamber President Maud Daudon today.

satya-nadellaOn the Seattle region’s competitive position: Surely Amazon and Microsoft are leading in the cloud. It’s fantastic to be known as the cloud city. But I think the opportunity is so much more for us. It starts with having the human potential, which I think we have plenty of, and we see it in the companies here, and the innovation. The risk capital that’s coming into the region plays a significant part. If you say, well, software is leading the world, then Seattle has a huge opportunity to contribute in a positive way to the world at large.

But there are other cities in the United States that have also risen to the task, in terms of attracting the human capital and investing in their infrastructure and STEM, and so we will have to keep that in the forefront, as we think about taking what I believe is a fantastic platform and momentum and be mindful of the competition.

On his focus at Microsoft: Culture is everything. … You need to have a culture that is fostering constant renewal and learning. To me that’s what is, perhaps more than anything else, my real focus. What does it mean to have a culture that constantly renews itself? It has to start with the fundamental belief that everyone inside of your company knows that they make the culture; culture doesn’t make them.

If you say the system did this to me, that’s giving up. One of the things that I think a lot about, and I try to make sure that everyone inside of our company recognizes, is that we are who we want to be. Every individual, through choices we make, and what we stand for, and what we learn, can shape the system as opposed to being shaped by the system. It’s critical in every walk of life; it’s critical in every industry, but in our business it’s existential, because if you’re not innovating and you’re not changing, there’s no such thing as longevity. High-tech in particular is not programmed for franchises to last.

satyanadella

On Microsoft’s ‘productivity’ strategy: There are two things at the core of our company: Productivity and platforms. They’re a pretty broad phenomenon for us. It’s about being able to enable every individual and every organization to get more out of every moment of their life. That’s how we think about it.

When it was about the PC on every desk and every home, there was a particular set of applications and platforms that we built. Now there’s computing abundance. Everybody has something in their pocket, there are big screens, small screens, there are sensors. In fact there are going to be billions of sensors that are all going to be general purpose computing devices. The question is, in all this abundance, what’s the scarce commodity? It’s human attention.

So how do we really harness all this computing power and help people with the experiences that give you more out of every moment in life? That’s what we mean by productivity.

On his upcoming trip to Asia: One of the things I’m excited about in the next three weeks is my trip to multiple Asian countries. This is going to be one of the longer field trips. Microsoft operates in over 140 countries. I’m going to Korea, Japan, China and India. In particular I’m very looking forward to visiting China. It’s a place where we have been for many many years. I’m enthusiastic about what opportunity there is to have real impact and business success with it.

On his love of poetry: Reading great literature has been my source of inspiration. Now since my attention span is down I’ve moved from literature to poetry.

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.