Clamor continues over Microsoft CEO's women's pay comments

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's gaffe about women's pay has not blown over yet.

At a women's tech conference Thursday, Nadella said that women not asking for a raise is "good karma" and that "the system will give you the right raises as you go along."

Afterwards, the software executive apologized and backpedaled. But the apology doesn't dispel concerns about pay equality at Microsoft, says Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of online workplace group UltraViolet.

"It is shameful that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella would tell women—especially in an industry that already has a serious problem recruiting and retaining female talent—not to ask for raises," she said in a statement released Friday.

Nadella's comment wasn't quite as tone-deaf as it seems from the sound bite. He began by saying that "all HR systems are long term efficient, short term inefficient."

Someone who is doing good work will, in the long-term, be fairly compensated. "In the long term efficiency, things catch up," he said.

However his interviewer, Harvey Mudd College president Marie Klawe, quickly disagreed.

"I wasn't upset, I wasn't angry," she told USA TODAY. "I think he got it wrong."

She told her own story about being uncomfortable asking for things for herself. When she was hired as dean of engineering at Princeton, she told them "just pay me whatever you think is right."

"I probably got a good $50,000 less than I would have if I had been doing my job," she told the audience.

Klawe said that instead women need to know how what a reasonable salary is for the job they are doing, or are applying for, and should role-play negotiating compensation.

Nadella was the first man to address a main plenary at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the largest national gathering of women in computer science. The bulk of the interview was Nadella speaking about the many high level women at Microsoft as well as the need to bring the company's broader number—83% of its tech workers are male—more in line with the population.

Klawe, who sits on Microsoft's board, said she knew that one part was an issue. "After 45 minutes of nailing it," she said, "he flubs it."

Still, "I'm so proud of him that he said, that same day, 'I got it wrong.'"

Just how big a gaffe Nadella's words were wasn't immediately apparent in the plenary where he spoke. There were no gasps from the audience when he finished his sentence, said Rose Simmons, a third-year computer science student at the University of Texas, Austin.

"It seems a little bit more subtle when you were sitting there after hearing him talk for about an hour," the 20-year-old said.

Sitting in the room, Nadella's comment "just seemed out of touch and naïve," said Simmons. "Surely he didn't just sit around and wait to be promoted to CEO of Microsoft."

His statements immediately fueled a wave of negative responses on Twitter — the event was livestreamed— and continued Friday and migrated to other social media.

"Even the most enlightened CEOs in technology, those who commit to change and to diversity, sometimes may be unaware of the extent of inequalities and the 'unconscious biases' that women encounter," said Salesforce.com exec Chitra Nayak on LinkedIn.

"Why would women place their faith in a system that continues to devalue them?" said Shala Marks, a communications manager at Foster Care to Success.

The topic was also trending on Facebook Friday where actress and writer Celeste Thorson told readers that "the best kind of #karma is asking for what you deserve and getting it."

Those are good ideas, but women often are less likely than men to feel they are deserving of a raise, said Catherine Tinsley, executive director of the Georgetown University Women's Leadership Initiative and a management professor at the university's McDonough School of Business. "All of our research shows that women can't just ask, it's a little more nuanced than that," she said.

Overall, women make up 29% of Microsoft's employees and 17% of its global tech employees are female, according to a recent diversity report. Women also make up about 17% of Microsoft's leadership.

In an email to Microsoft employees, which was posted on the company's website, Nadella said that he answered "that question completely wrong," he said.

"Maria's advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask," Nadella wrote.

"I said I was looking forward to the Grace Hopper Conference to learn, and I certainly learned a valuable lesson," he said.