Satya Nadella: 'Customer love' is a better sign of success than revenue or profit

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, fresh off the heels of a very successful Windows 10 hardware launch event earlier this week, shared the the biggest change he's trying to make inside the company - in an interview with The Verge.

"There is something only a CEO uniquely can do, which is set that tone, which can then capture the soul of the collective. And it's culture," Nadella says.

That means that the company's focus comes straight from the top. Recently, Nadella announced that Microsoft's new corporate mission was to push productivity, everywhere, across all platforms and devices.

Pursuing that mission means changing the way the company measures success, starting from the top, down.

"We no longer talk about the lagging indicators of success, right, which is revenue, profit. What are the leading indicators of success? Customer love," Nadella says.

In other words, Nadella thinks that Microsoft needs to focus less on profit for profit's sake, and more on building stuff that people love. If people love Microsoft products, the rest will fall into place.

It's a total shift in thinking for Microsoft, which has historically placed the 30-year-old Windows business at the center of the company, killing any business or concept that could potentially take revenue away from the operating system.

The challenge is "getting an entire organization to fall in love with these leading indicators of success," Nadella says.

But if the wildly positive reaction from this week's Microsoft hardware event, especially for the new Surface Book laptop/tablet hybrid, is any indication, customer love for the tech giant is definitely on the upswing.