Be passionate and bold. Always keep learning. You stop doing useful things if you don't learn. So the last part to me is the key, especially if you have had some initial success. It becomes even more critical that you have the learning 'bit' always switched on.

Our ambitions are bold and so must be our desire to change and evolve our culture.

Finally, I truly believe that each of us must find meaning in our work. The best work happens when you know that it's not just work, but something that will improve other people's lives.

This notion of universal Windows apps is a very powerful concept because we're now aggregating the 300-plus-million-socket run rate of Windows into one opportunity for our developers.

Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.

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. And that, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don't ask for raises have. Because that's good karma. It'll come back. Because somebody's going to know: '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.'

Many companies aspire to change the world. But very few have all the elements required: talent, resources and perseverance. Microsoft has proven that it has all three in abundance.