How Microsoft’s Satya Nadella became tech’s steely eyed AI gambler

Earlier this year, Satya Nadella hammered out a deal that surprised everyone outside his inner circle at Microsoft.

Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, had his eyes on a Silicon Valley startup called Inflection AI. The company’s CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, was one of the founders of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind. He had raised more than $1.5 billion in funding and hired top researchers for his new company, but he had a not-so-great reputation as a boss. Inflection also didn’t seem to make any money.