Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at a hardware press event in New York City.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at a recent hardware press event in New York City.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be returning to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference again this week, but don’t expect him to make quite the splash he did last year.

This time, he’ll be watching from the safety of the cheap seats.

A Microsoft spokesman confirmed on Monday that Nadella was invited back to the event and had an opportunity to speak on stage, but he “decided this year to focus on listening, learning and exchanging ideas.”

Nadella had by far the most memorable appearance at last year’s conference dedicated to female technologists, but not for the reasons he would have hoped. During an interview on stage, he famously suggested women shouldn’t ask for raises but instead wait for the system to reward them.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

The comments sparked widespread criticism, an apology from Nadella and kicked off a broader conversation around diversity in the technology industry. It was a major misstep for Nadella, and one that marred his first year at the helm of Microsoft.

Nadella promised during the firestorm that he would be back at the Grace Hopper conference this year, but his name isn’t on the speaker list as the event gets ready to kick off in Houston on Wednesday.

The annual event is hosted by the Anita Borg Institute, a group dedicated to supporting and growing the number of women working in the technology industry. The conference bills itself as the world’s largest gathering of female technologists, with 12,000 tickets claimed for this year’s sold out conference. That’s 50 percent more attendees than last year, before Nadella inadvertently brought national attention to the event.

An Anita Borg Institute spokeswoman said this year’s discussion will focus on many of the same issues. In 2007, the group says 10 percent of computer science graduates were female. In 2014, that number had climbed to 21 percent. That’s a step in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go. The spokeswoman also pointed out that women are leaving the industry at twice the rate of men due to an “inhospitable” work climate for women.

While Nadella won’t take the stage this year, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that he and “several of our senior leaders” will be there. The spokesperson added that Microsoft will be sending its largest group ever to the conference, with an estimated 800 employees expected to attend.

Here’s what Nadella said last year to set off all the backlash:

And that, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have. Because that’s good karma. It’ll come back because somebody’s going to know that’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to. And in the long-term efficiency, things catch up.

And I wonder – and I’m not saying that that’s the only approach, I wonder whether taking the long term helps solve for what might be perceived as this uncomfortable thing of, hey, am I getting paid right? Am I getting rewarded right? Because reality is your best work is not followed with your best rewards. Your best work then has impact, people recognize it, and then you get the rewards. And so you have to somehow think that through, I think.

He later said as part of his apology, “Toward the end of the interview, Maria (Klawe, Microsoft board member) asked me what advice I would offer women who are not comfortable asking for pay raises. I answered that question completely wrong. Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work.”

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