More cooperation, less talk of regions: Microsoft CEO at Davos 2019

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As a supporter of globalization, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that the future does not lie in country-against-country competition, but in global-scale cooperation.

He made this prediction during his talk at Davos 2019 with Klaus Schwab, founder of the forum.

"If we're sitting here (in 100 years) we'll have more superpowers and I hope that one of the things that we'll have is more capacity for empathy," he said.

"I hope that's the future as opposed to us being replaced as robots."

Nadella's vision can be proved by the changes of his company in the last few years.

Microsoft is embracing an open-minded way of thinking. This may seem impossible to a lot of software enthusiasts since the company has a long-lasting nickname of "M$," mocking its pursuit of profits.

While fanboys of Microsoft often stand against Apple for the difference in the two companies' ideals, Apple's iCloud was powered by Microsoft's Azure cloud platform for years.

In the Nadella age, the Redmond giant no longer opposes its former archenemy – the open-source community. You can now install Ubuntu Linux as a part of Windows 10, which could only be done with a virtual machine before August 2016.

Linux distributions in the Chinese Microsoft Store. /Screenshot from Windows 10

This open mindset also affects the way Microsoft views the world beyond software.

When asked about why leading Internet platform companies are all from China and the U.S., Nadella said "we don't have to have industrial country-against-country competition. We're using too much history."

He also gave advice to European countries, encouraging them to find their own competitive advantages, instead of digitalizing everything blindly.

Nadella claimed at the forum that this mindset is not only intended to make money, but can also make real contributions to society.