Xbox CEO went from taking out trash and selling books to the C-suite by ‘obsessing on being great’

“I never obsessed on what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Sharma said at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado, on Tuesday. 

“I only obsessed on what I wanted to do—whether it was selling coupon books or putting on concerts—so I could raise money, so I could have my lunch money…whether it was being the best at taking out the trash at the park that I worked at, I just tried to obsess on being great at what I was doing, so I can earn the next job.” 

That mantra traces back to her roots in the Midwest, where she earned a business degree from the University of Minnesota, and launched a park center for at-risk teenagers in Minneapolis. From there, she built a career that zigzagged through marketing at Microsoft, a COO stint at startup Porch Group, product leadership roles at Meta, and a COO post at Instacart before returning to Microsoft in 2024 as president of CoreAI product.

Each move looked less like a master plan and more like someone who kept proving herself until the next door opened.

Xbox has fallen behind Sony and Nintendo—and Sharma is banking on new energy

Now in her late 30s, Sharma was tapped in February to replace long-serving gaming chief Phil Spencer—a move that raised eyebrows given her non-gaming background. The business she inherited hasn’t exactly been humming: according to Microsoft’s most recent earnings report, Xbox hardware revenue fell 33% year-over-year, with content and services down another 5%. In many ways, Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Switch have pulled ahead in the console wars, and the pressure on Sharma to reverse course has been loud.

But her early moves have at least injected new energy into the brand. She cut the price of Xbox’s Game Pass service—a widely praised call—and at Brainstorm Tech this week, hinted at new exclusive game offerings and more flexible consumer plans. Her operating philosophy on consumers, she said, mirrors the one that got her to the job: “earn every single player.”

The social media response to her ascent has been broadly warm. “Hiring her may be the single best thing Microsoft has done,” read the top comment on Fortune’s Instagram post of Sharma discussing AI in gaming—racking up more than 5,000 likes.

“I think it’s really special to be the CEO of Xbox,” she concluded on stage with Fortune. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

Like the new leader of Xbox, the CEOs of Costco and Microsoft have embraced flexibility over a 10-year career map

Sharma is part of a broader pattern among business leaders who admit career growth often comes less from chasing titles and more from focusing on excellence in the role already in front of you.

Ron Vachris, now CEO of Costco, has described a similar philosophy in his own rise through the company. Earlier this year, he said advice from his father shaped his approach to career progression: “Don’t chase a title. Don’t chase anything big. Just go make yourself your own success.”

Similarly, the CEO of hotel search company Trivago, Johannes Thomas, said that going with the flow actually can be a secret career unlocker—and it elevated him to the C-suite.

“I never had concrete plans in my life,” Thomas told Fortune last year. “I just followed where the energy was, where my curiosity was.”

“I think the more you stay adaptive and do different things and not be too focused in one thing and not stay in the comfort zone for too long, I think the more likely are your odds of having a thriving future,” Thomas added.

Even Sharma’s boss has echoed that mantra. Speaking with LinkedIn in 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that especially early in his career, he always felt it was important to focus less on the next job—and more on how he can be successful with his current tasks.

“I felt the job I was doing there was the most important thing,” Nadella said. “I genuinely felt it. And then of course it helped me get my next job.”

The best acceleration advice he ever got, he’s said, came from a manager who pushed him to think bigger: “What if you thought of your job not as your job but as my job—and what would you do?”

However, Nadella revealed that some of the best career acceleration advice he ever received came from a manager who encouraged him to expand his view of responsibilities: “‘Hey, what if you did a thought experiment and thought of your job not as your job but as my job, and what would you do?’”