Techies Unite! Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Takes Ice Bucket Challenge, Calls on Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Google's Larry Page

Everyone from Justin Timberlake to Martha Stewart have been getting doused with freezing-cold water to raise awareness for ALS

By Natalie Finn Aug 14, 2014 1:14 AMTags

Here's hoping Satya Nadella remembered to take his Windows Phone out of his pocket first.

Surrounded by members of the winning 2014 Hackathon team, the Microsoft CEO accepted the gone-viral-with-a-vengeance Ice Bucket Challenge today, Nadella joining the thousands of people (minus President Obama, but his check is in the mail) who have posted videos of themselves being doused with freezing-cold water to raise awareness for ALS, commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease.

And better yet, he called upon a couple of billionaires to follow suit!

Nadella kicked off his video noting that he was accepting the challenge from Steve Gleason, a former safety for the New Orleans Saints who revealed in 2011 that he was battling ALS.

"I think this is a great opportunity for all of us to contribute, not only to raising the awareness, but to the research that can find cures—and no better example than the team behind me that did some fantastic work with the Eye Gaze technology and how that can create a new hope for people with ALS." (Read more about their stunning work right here.)

After being thoroughly soaked—"wow, that's cold!"—he extended the challenge to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google cofounder Larry Page.

"From personal experience, it's better to have your head in the clouds than under a bucket of ice," he promised his fellow tech execs.

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