Microsoft shouldn't feel satisfied with success, Satya Nadella says

Microsoft passed Apple in market valuation recently, and is now the most valuable company in the United States at over $1 trillion.But even after reaching unprecedented financial heights, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella isn't kicking his heels up and relaxing.“At Microsoft we have this very bad habit of not being able to push ourselves because we just feel very self-satisfied with the success we've had,” he told Bloomberg in an interview published this week. “We're learning how not to look at the past.”Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.During his tenure as CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella led the company to its first $1 trillion valuation — more than even Apple — back in April.But that doesn't give him cause for celebration. In fact, he appears to be outright worried about the impact it could have on the company's huge employee base.“At Microsoft we have this very bad habit of not being able to push ourselves,” Nadella told Bloomberg in an interview published on Thursday. “We just feel very self-satisfied with the success we've had. We're learning how not to look at the past.”The statement, perhaps unexpected for the head of a company that's valued higher than Apple and Amazon, is a measure of Nadella's approach to running Microsoft.Despite his success in revitalizing Microsoft after a string of whiffs — Windows Phone, Windows RT, and the Xbox One, among others — Nadella doesn't want employees getting too comfortable in success.He even views the monumental $1 trillion valuation as a potential hindrance to employee motivation. If employees are celebrating the valuation, he says, it would be “the beginning of the end.”The full interview with Nadella is a fascinating look into how the company went from ailing tech giant to the most valuable in the United States — check it out on Bloomberg right here.