Microsoft CEO apologizes after remarks on women and raises

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella apologized Thursday after coming under fire for remarks he made at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

In response to a question from Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a Microsoft director, about pay for women, Nadella said:

It’s not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that I think might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for raises have. Because that’s good karma, that’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.

Klawe said she disagreed with Nadella and then said, regarding women asking for raises, “If you don’t ask, you generally don’t get.”