Don't for a second fantasize that Nadella's comments are in any way innocuous. To brush it off as an offense against political correctness is to give his statement tacit approval.
Here is the full quote from Nadella. It is certainly debatable, but I don't think it is outrageous, and it probably reflects what he thinks. It's not going to benefit women or men if people are only free to say what is politically correct. He's saying that demanding at each point in time the maximum compensation that your employer might give to prevent you from leaving can create "good karma". That is plausible. He has climbed to the top at Microsoft. Maybe he know something about how to scale the corporate ladder?
"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," Nadella said. "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."
He added that doing so would make a woman's boss think "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," he said. "I wonder - and I'm not saying 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 reward.
"Your best work then has impact, people recognize it and then you get the rewards. So you have to somehow think that through, I think."
