Each fall, for many years, Microsoft employees have bundled up and made the trek to Seattle's Safeco Field to listen as top executives attempted to inspire them with a vision for the company's future. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addresses employees to launch the hackathon Tuesday morning. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addresses employees to launch the hackathon Tuesday morning. Satya Nadella is replacing that tradition with a new one: Under sunny summer skies in Redmond on Tuesday morning, the new Microsoft CEO cranked a siren to start a 38.5-hour hackathon - bringing together more than 10,000 employees from across the company to work on a wide variety of projects. These types of events are designed to inspire creativity and allow employees to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions or applications that fill a gap not currently offered by the company.

Before the event kicked-off, Nadella took the stage to motivate the troops to build something awesome. He is quoted as saying "This is the time to stop the criticism and do something about it" when referring to the fact that far too often employees will complain internally about how certain features are built or overlooked when shipping a new product. This is the time to either fix those problems and those who are participating in the hackathon are allowed to go after any type of problem, even if it is outside their typical job duty.

The hackathon is a chance for any employee to step away from their daily duties and pursue projects of passion and of course, Microsoft hopes that some of these side projects will turn into new additions to their portfolio. While they may only have 36 hrs to complete an app or feature, if a robust idea is generated and proves that it scales well, you can bet that Microsoft will fund the project to completion.