When I left the company, we grew from zero revenues to about $150 million in recurring revenue, leading to a sale to Microsoft for around $800 million.

Realizing we were selling to students with limited funds, we shifted our focus to building a product for companies to help them identify the right developers based on skills.

Microsoft started as a consumer company, and our success in that area allowed us to build a strong enterprise business. However, I regret losing the consumer muscle we had.

Azure's development began around 2005-2006, as AWS was gaining traction, and we recognized the need for a cloud platform to compete effectively.

We needed to develop new capabilities to compete effectively in the mobile and search markets, but we didn't realize how different those businesses would be. The true competitor for Microsoft in mobile was Android, not Apple, as Android monetized through advertising and offered free services, while Microsoft relied on licensing revenue.

Amazon had been interested in acquiring our company for a long time, and their offer was compelling because we could remain a separate brand and business.

Microsoft had an opportunity to become a significant player in mobile before Android took off, but they were too locked into their existing business model to adapt quickly.

At the time of my 'developers' speech, we were facing competition from Linux and needed to reinforce our platform with third-party support.

I turned down a $12 billion offer from Microsoft because I felt that we had a unique opportunity to create something special and control our own destiny.