Good things come to those who wait.
That could have been the takeaway advice from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who spoke at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix Thursday.
Instead, by his stumble, Nadella offered a window into unconscious bias in the tech industry.
In response a question from Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, about what advice he would give to a young woman who wanted a raise, Nadella said:
The outraged reaction was swift.
Fortune reminded Nadella about the wage gap and how women already suffer from taking the karma approach. They are predisposed to diminishing, downplaying and dismissing their accomplishments. TechCrunch called it an “unforced error.” The New York Times pointed out that Nadella’s comments tapped into fears and some research showing that women who ask for raises pay a price.
Nadella quickly took to Twitter to say he was “inarticulate” and that “our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias.” He also sent an email to Microsoft employees saying that he was “completely wrong.”
In an interview, Freada Kapor Klein, co-chair of the Kapor Center, an Oakland organization that works on diversity issues in tech, told me that Nadella offered an opportunity to look more closely at gender bias:
He said what many people think. He gave the quintessential example of how bias works. It just pops out. I find it nearly impossible to imagine his answer would be identical if posed about a male engineer. It’s karma, you’ll be awarded later. You wouldn’t say that if you assumed someone was the head of a household and had a lot of mouths to feed.But the situation raises questions about Nadella and what Silicon Valley values as a leader, Klein said, adding:You can be a genius when it comes to product design and programming and deemed the best person to run a multibillion-dollar company and somehow you don’t know anything about hidden bias. What if you couldn’t get into the running for the job without having hired, managed and promoted a diverse team?Above: Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO. (Microsoft)
