STEVE BALLMER
BIOGRAPHY
Steven Anthony “Steve” Ballmer (born 24 March 1956) has been the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. As of 2010, he is one of the richest people in the world 2010 with an estimated personal wealth of $14.5 billion.
Steven Anthony Ballmer (March 24, 1956) is an American business magnate and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). As of May 2022, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his personal wealth at around $97 billion, making him the tenth-richest person on Earth.
Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University. He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella; Ballmer remained on Microsoft’s Board of Directors until August 19, 2014, when he left to prepare for teaching a new class.
Early life
Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a Swiss American father and Jewish-American mother whose family immigrated from Pinsk (now in Belarus), a city in Eastern Europe. He grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a private college preparatory school in Beverly Hills, Michigan, and now sits on its board of directors.
In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University with degrees in Mathematics and Economics with higher distinctions. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked for the newspaper Harvard Crimson as well as the Harvard Advocate and lived in the hall with second-year partner Bill Gates.
He later served as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble until Ho years, when he was joined by Jeffrey R. Helmitt, who later became CEO of General Electric. In 1980, he left the Stanford University Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft.
Viral video
Ballmer is known for his eccentric and extravagant behavior. For example, videos of Ballmer’s gaudy appearances at Microsoft events have been widely circulated on the Internet as viral videos. The most famous of these videos are commonly titled “Steve Ballmer Going Crazy” or “Dance Monkey Boy”. In another video taken at the developers’ conference, Ballmer, drenched in sweat, is seen chanting the word “developers”.
Image in media
Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Ruled Microsoft (2002), Frederick Allen Maxwell, ISBN 0-06-621014-3 (Unofficial Biography)
A 1999 documentary The Pirates of Silicon Valley featured Ballmer as the lead character, played by John DiMazzio.
Sports
Taking a Seat at KeyArena by Steve Ballmer to Watch the Seattle SuperSonics
On March 6, 2008, the mayor of Seattle announced that a locally owned group had made a “game changing” commitment from Ballmer to invest $150 million in cash out of $300 million to renovate KeyArena and to buy the Seattle SuperSonics. Ready so that they remain in downtown Seattle. However, this initiative failed and the Sonics relocated to Oklahoma City.
Wealth
Ballmer was the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder.[citation needed] As of November 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his personal wealth at $117 billion, ranking him as the 8th richest person in the world
In the competition
Bill Gates
According to the Wall Street Journal report, he was under tension around 2000 during the transfer of authority from Bill Gates to Ballmer. Things got so bad that at one of the meetings, according to one person present, Gates broke into a tizzy after a lot of altercation, in which Ballmer jumped in to save several comrades. The person said that, after the transformation, Ballmer was “regretting.”
Ballmer said once Gates left, “I won’t need him for anything, that’s the principle. Yes, use him but he’s not needed.”
Free and open source software
In July 2000, Ballmer called the free software Linux kernel “communism” and further claimed that it infringed with Microsoft’s intellectual property. In June 2001 he called Linux a “cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches”. Ballmer used the notion of “viral” licensing terms to express his concern over the fact that the GNU General Public License (GPL) employed by such software requires that all derivative software be under the GPL or a compatible license. In April 2003 he even interrupted his skiing holiday in Switzerland to personally plead with the mayor of Munich not to switch to Linux. But he did not succeed with this and Munich switched to LiMux, despite his offering a 35% discount at his lobbying visit.
In March 2016, Ballmer changed his stance on Linux, saying that he supports his successor Satya Nadella’s open source commitments. He maintained that his comments in 2001 were right at the time but that times have changed.
Lukovsky / Google
In 2005, Microsoft sued Google for hiring one of its previous vice presidents, Kai-Fu Lee, claiming it was in violation of his one-year non-compete clause in his contract. Mark Lucovsky, who left for Google in 2004, alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office, and that, referring to then Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Ballmer vowed to “kill Google.”
At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.
Ballmer then resumed attempting to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described Lucovsky’s account of the incident as a “gross exaggeration of what actually took place”.
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Apple
In 2007, Ballmer said “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
Speaking at a conference in NYC in 2009, Ballmer criticized Apple’s pricing, saying, “Now I think the tide has turned back the other direction. The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment—same piece of hardware—paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.”
In 2015, Ballmer called Microsoft’s decision to invest in Apple to save it from bankruptcy in 1997 as the “craziest thing we ever did.” By 2015, Apple was the world’s most valuable company.
In 2016, Ballmer did an interview with Bloomberg where Ballmer added context to his iPhone statement, saying “People like to point to this quote but the reason I said that was the price of $600-$700 was too high,” he says he did not realize the business model innovation that Apple was going to deploy, using the carriers to subsidize the phones by building the cost into the customer’s monthly bill.
Relationship with Bill Gates
Ballmer was Gates’ best man at his wedding to Melinda French, and the two men described their relationship as a marriage. They were so close for years that another Microsoft executive described it as a mind meld. Combative debates—a part of Microsoft’s corporate culture—that many observers believed were personal arguments occurred within the relationship; while Gates was glad in 2000 that Ballmer was willing to become CEO so he could focus on technology, the Wall Street Journal reported that there was tension surrounding the transition of authority. Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting after a shouting match in which Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Ballmer seemed “remorseful”, the person said. Once Gates leaves, “I’m not going to need him for anything. That’s the principle”, Ballmer said. “Use him, yes, need him, no”.
In October 2014, a few months after Ballmer left his post at Microsoft, a Vanity Fair profile stated that Ballmer and Gates no longer talk to each other due to animosity over Ballmer’s resignation. In a November 2016 interview, Ballmer said he and Gates have “drifted apart” ever since, saying that they always had a “brotherly relationship” beforehand. He said that his push into the hardware business, specifically smartphones, which Gates did not support, contributed to their relationship breakdown.
Wealth
Ballmer was the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder.[citation needed] As of November 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his personal wealth at $117 billion, ranking him as the 8th richest person in the world
Public image
Although as a child he was so shy that he would hyperventilate before Hebrew school, Ballmer is known for his energetic and exuberant personality, which is meant to motivate employees and partners, shouting so much that he needed surgery on his vocal cords.
Ballmer’s flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events are widely circulated on the Internet as viral videos. One of his earliest known viral videos was a parody video, produced for Microsoft employees in 1986, promoting Windows 1.0 in the style of a Crazy Eddie commercial. Ballmer and Brian Valentine repeated this in a spoof promotion of Windows XP later on.
A widely circulated video was his entrance on stage at Microsoft’s 25th anniversary event in September 2000, where Ballmer jumped across the stage and shouted “I love this company! Another well-known viral video was one captured at a Windows 2000 developers’ conference, featuring a perspiring Ballmer chanting the word “developers”.
NETWORTH
As of 2022, Steve Ballmer’s net worth is estimated to be roughly $70.1 billion, making him one of the richest businessmen in the world.
Steven “Steve” Anthony Ballmer is an American investor, businessman, and philanthropist from Detroit. Ballmer is mostly known as the chief of Microsoft.
He is currently the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
In January 2018, Ballmer was ranked as the 21st richest businessman in the world.
Ballmer was the second person, after Roberto Goizuta, to be neither a founder of a corporation nor a relative of the founder, who became a US dollar-based billionaire by acquiring the Switock option as an employee. According to Forbes, Ballmer is the 33rd richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $14.5 billion. While as CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer was paid a total of $1,276,627 with a base salary of $665,833, cash bonuses $600,000 and other compensation $10,794, excluding stocks and other options.
BUSSINESS
Microsoft Carrier
Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became the 24th employee of Microsoft as the first business manager appointed by Gates. Ballmer loved working at Microsoft. He was initially offered some percentage ownership of the company with a salary of $50,000. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. He has led several divisions of Microsoft with “Operating Systems Development”, “Operations” and “Sales and Support”. In January 2000, he was officially made chief executive officer. As CEO, Ballmer took over the company’s finances, although Gates still retained control of his “technical vision”. In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of the shares, keeping a 4% stake in the company. That same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft’s employee stock options program.
In 2009, Bill Gates gave a keynote speech at CES for the first time in history after leaving Microsoft as chairman.
Steve Ballmer started his early career by completing his education in school. Ballmer’s college friend Bill Gates had dropped out of school to co-found Microsoft.
After completing his first year at the business school he approached his friend hoping for a summer job at his company. Bill Gates asked Ballmer to take a full-time job instead.
In 1980, Ballmer left the Stanford Graduate School of Business and later joined Microsoft.
One of his earliest roles was to recruit employees for the growing firm. After Microsoft signed a contract to create a system for IBM’s new line the co-founder busied with the technical aspects of the company.
He re-organized Microsoft’s partnership into a corporate structure. Gates later came to hold 53 percent of the equity and Ballmer 8%. Ballmer started to lead the operating system, the core of the company’s business in 1980.
In 1986 Microsoft became a publicly held company and Ballmer became a multimillionaire. Over the next several years Ballmer held many important positions in Microsoft and in 1992 he was made the Executive Vice President, Sales, and Support.
In 1988 Ballmer was promoted to President of Microsoft, a position he held until 2001. He was officially named CEO in 2000. He started to handle the company finances and daily operations. Microsoft registers a phenomenal increase in profits during Ballmer’s tenure as CEO.
As of 2022, Steve Ballmer’s net worth is $70.1 billion.
Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer is retiring
With the announcement of the retirement of Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, while the company is searching for a new successor, on the other hand some technical experts are also wondering why the last Balmer is retiring. However, Steve Balmer also gave a statement regarding his retirement in which he said that such decisions can be taken at any time. Maybe it’s time for my retirement here.
Steve Ballmer has been associated with the company ever since Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates turned his attention away from the company’s everyday tasks in 2000. Microsoft’s shares also saw a rise after the news of Balmer’s retirement, one thing is clear that investors are probably happy that after Balmer’s retirement, the company will get a new CEO, which will accelerate Microsoft’s growth.
In the recent few years, the company has faced tough competition in the market for its products, due to which Microsoft’s hold has weakened. Apart from this, some investors have also expressed anger that Microsoft’s growth is slowing down. If we look at the products launched by the company within a few years, then the company had high hopes from the window 8 mobile platform, but till now the window 8 mobile platform has been able to capture only 5 percent market share. Now it remains to be seen in whose hands the reins of the CEO of the company go in the coming time, a committee has also been formed to find the new CEO of Microsoft.
Some Facts About Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer
Steve Ballmer has been the CEO of the company since 2000. In 2012, Forbes magazine named Balmer one of the 400 richest people in America with a net worth of US$15.7 billion.
Steve Balmer lives in Farminton Hills, McHagen, US. Which is one of the safest cities in the US, this city is also called the city of the future.
Balmer has completed his graduation in maths subject from Harvard University. In addition, Balmer had scored 800 marks on the SAT exams.
Balmer was not only considered a genius in mathematics but he was also a good football player. Balmer was the manager of his team during his college days.
When Steve Balmer joined the company in 1980, he was the 30th employee of the company. When Balmer was made CEO in 2000, Microsoft’s revenue grew 215 percent after 20 years.
Balmer is known in the company as an energetic personality who motivates every employee.
In 1990, Balmer married Connie Cinder, who currently has three children, and also takes his wife to special events.
Balmer is known in the company as an energetic personality who motivates every employee.
Balmer’s office is fitted with an 80-inch Windows 8 tablet in which he does most of the office work.
Philanthropy
On November 12, 2014, it was announced that Ballmer and his wife Connie donated $50 million to the University of Oregon. Connie Ballmer is a University of Oregon alumnus and previously served on the institution’s board of trustees. The funds will go towards the university’s $2 billion fundraising effort, and will focus towards scholarships, public health research and advocacy, and external branding/communications. On November 13, 2014, it was announced that Ballmer would provide a gift, estimated at $60 million, to Harvard University’s computer science department. The gift would allow the department to hire new faculty, and hopefully increase the national stature of the program. Ballmer previously donated $10 million to the same department in 1994, in a joint-gift with Bill Gates.
In 2022, Ballmer made a large gift of $425 million to University of Oregon to fund a new institute for children’s behavioral health.
Ballmer serves on the World Chairman’s Council of the Jewish National Fund, which means he has donated US$1 million or more to the JNF.
EDUCATION
In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University. He graduated as valedictorian from Detroit Country Day School, a private college preparatory school in Beverly Hills, Michigan, with a score of 800 on the mathematical section of the SAT and was a National Merit Scholar. He formerly sat on the school’s board of directors. In 1977, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in applied mathematics and economics.
At college, Ballmer was a manager for the Harvard Crimson football team and a member of the Fox Club, worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He scored highly in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, an exam sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America, scoring higher than Bill Gates. He then worked as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble for two years, where he shared an office with Jeff Immelt, who later became CEO of General Electric. After briefly trying to write screenplays in Hollywood, in 1980 Ballmer dropped out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft
