Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, stands on the red carpet before receiving the Axel Springer Award. picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was honored with the Axel Springer Award for his groundbreaking contributions to technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI).
At the award ceremony, Nadella emphasized the need for trust and security mechanisms in AI tools. He himself, he says, invested in projects like OpenAI to ensure that AI serves people and does not get out of control.
The Axel Springer Award recognizes outstanding individuals who create innovative markets, influence culture and are socially committed, and encourages others to follow similar paths.
How can technology support people both professionally and personally? Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has come up with visionary ideas. And they have made a significant contribution to changing and shaping modern life in many ways. For his services, Nadella received the Axel Springer Award this Tuesday evening (Business Insider is part of Axel Springer) excellent.
The award was presented to him personally in the new Axel Springer building in Berlin. The award ceremony opened with a speech by the Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Affairs, Volker Wissing (FDP). The minister spoke about one of the most important topics of the evening: artificial intelligence (AI). “Now Microsoft is one of the driving forces behind artificial intelligence,” he said, pointing to Microsoft’s investments in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. “It’s breathtaking what can already be achieved with AI.”
Nadella talked about his past and beginning as CEO
After screening a biography of his life, Nadella was surprised when former professional cricketer Zaheer Khan appeared and presented him with a signed cricket bat. Nadella is a huge fan of cricket, a hugely popular sport in his native India. In 2022, Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen joined forces to invest in the Seattle Orcas cricket team and promote the sport in the United States. Regarding his gift, he said: “I didn’t expect that. I thought I was just going to receive an award in a conference room,” he said. “But it’s amazing to be here and receive a gift from one of my cricketing heroes.”
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And cricket was among the many topics Nadella discussed with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. The two executives also discussed the past of Microsoft, which Nadella joined in 1992: “Back then, no one thought that the day would come when Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer would no longer be there,” said Nadella. “People say I’m privileged to be CEO, but I’m just happy to have a job at Microsoft.”
They also talked about company culture, philanthropy and of course artificial intelligence. Nadella said that the potential of AI in human work and personal life will be of significant importance in the future. At an event earlier in the day, he called it “one of the greatest inventions since the Internet.”
“We must ensure that machines serve people”
As one of OpenAI’s lead investors, Nadella emphasized the need for companies to integrate trust and security mechanisms into AI tools. “If AI is something that gets out of control, that becomes a problem,” he said. “We must ensure that machines serve people.”
The event ended with a humorous speech by the AI-powered chatbot Bing, which was dubbed ‘The Voice of God’ during the event. About Nadella, the chatbot said: “Satya understands that behind every ‘user error’ on the screen is simply a frustrated user who wanted to share a cat meme.”
The Axel Springer Award honors outstanding personalities who are innovative in a special way, create and change markets, shape culture and at the same time face up to their social responsibility. The award recognizes what has been achieved and encourages people to take further steps. At the same time, the award winners should be role models for others to realize their own ideas.
In the past, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, BioNTech founders Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, economist and author Shoshana Zuboff, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and the owner of the Washington Post have been arrested , Sir Tim Berners-Lee, as well as Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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