Steve Ballmer
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| Steve Anthony Ballmer | |
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| Born | March 24, 1956 Detroit, Michigan |
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| Occupation | CEO, Microsoft |
| Net worth | ▲ $15 billion USD (2007) |
| Spouse | Connie Snyder |
| Children | 3 |
| Website Staff Bio at microsoft.com |
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Steve Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.[1] Ballmer is 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. In Forbes 2008 World's Richest People ranking, Ballmer was ranked the 43rd richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $15 billion.
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[edit] Family
On October 2, 2006, Ballmer was awarded honorary citizenship of Lausen, Switzerland. His father, Frederick Ballmer, who emigrated to the US at the age of 23 as "Hans Friedrich Balmer", was a citizen of the same municipality.[2] His father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co. In 1990 Ballmer married Connie Snyder, on Microsoft's PR team at the Waggener Group in the '80s. They have two sons.
[edit] Career
[edit] Pre-Microsoft & Life History
Steve Ballmer was born March 24, 1956 and grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan to a Swiss father and a Jewish-American mother. In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a high school, and now sits on its board of directors.[3] In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University [4] with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He then worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the current CEO of General Electric.[5] In 1980, he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.[6]
[edit] Microsoft career
Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980.[7] He has headed several divisions within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support". In January 2000, he was officially named chief executive officer.[1] As CEO Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates still retained control of the "technological vision". In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company.[8] The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program, which had been instrumental in making early employees millionaires.[9]
[edit] Public persona
[edit] Viral videos
Footage featuring Ballmer's flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events has been widely circulated on the Internet, becoming what are known as "viral videos". The most famous of these is commonly titled "Dance Monkeyboy". This video features Ballmer sprinting and hopping around while verbally screeching, screaming and making other various high pitched noises and hand gestures on a stage for about 45 seconds after being introduced at a Microsoft employee convention. Another video, captured at a developers' conference, featured a visibly sweat-drenched Ballmer chanting and shouting the word "developers" fourteen times in front of a gathering of Microsoft associates. Another video, which became a "big hit on the web" and was featured on CNN[10] shows Ballmer ducking behind a desk to evade eggs during a speech in Budapest, Hungary[11][12]
[edit] On competition
[edit] Bill Gates
The WSJ has an article looking at the struggle Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had in switching around their Junior/Senior relationship.
Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Mr. Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.
Once Mr. Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle," Mr. Ballmer says. "Use him, yes, need him, no." [13]
[edit] Linux
Ballmer is also known as a vocal critic of competing companies and their products. He has referred to the free Linux software system as a "[…] cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."
[edit] Lucovsky / Google
In 2005, Mark Lucovsky alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became highly enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair and threw it across his office. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer allegedly 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," then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft.[14][15] Ballmer has described this as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place."
[edit] Sports
On March 6, 2008 Seattle's Mayor announced that a local ownership group involving Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 million in cash towards a $300 million renovation of Key Arena and are ready to purchase the Seattle Supersonics in order to keep them in the City of Seattle. [16] Ballmer would join fellow Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen (owner of the Portland Trailblazers) as an NBA owner.
[edit] Media Portrayals
- Bad Boy Ballmer : The Man Who Rules Microsoft (2002), Fredric Alan Maxwell, ISBN 0-06-621014-3 (unauthorized biography)
- The 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley features Ballmer as a major character; he is played by actor John DiMaggio.
- Michael Maccoby qualified him as a "productive obsessive" and the one keeping Microsoft's "show on the road" so Bill Gates could think about the big picture.[17]
- In the webcomic XKCD, the perfect level of intoxication resulting in super-human programing abilities is referred to as the "Ballmer Peak."[18]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Steve Ballmer: Chief Executive Officer. Microsoft (March 1, 2005).
- ^ Galli, Hans. "Die Zukunft von PC und Internet", Der Bund, Der Bund, 2007-10-05. Retrieved on 2007-10-12. (German)
- ^ Board of Trustees of Detroit County Day School. Retrieved on 2007-11-14.
- ^ "Microsoft’s Ballmer Makes His Pitch", Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin.
- ^ "First job: Assistant product manager for Duncan Hines' Moist & Easy cakes and brownies. His cubicle mate was Jeffrey Immelt, now CEO of General Electric."David Lieberman (2007-04-29). CEO Forum: Microsoft's Ballmer having a 'great time'. USA Today.
- ^ "After two years, Ballmer headed for Stanford University's MBA program for a better grounding in business. When the fledgling Microsoft ran into problems in 1980, Gates persuaded his friend to drop out and give him a hand. "Jay Greene, Steve Hamm, Jim Kerstetter (2002-06-17). Ballmer's Microsoft. BusinessWeek.
- ^ Information for Students: Key Events In Microsoft History (doc). Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information. Retrieved on 1 October 2005.
- ^ MSFT: Major Holders for MICROSOFT CP - Yahoo! Finance
- ^ Fried, Ina. "Microsoft to award stock, nix options", CNet, 2003-07-08. Retrieved on 2006-12-03.
- ^ Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
- ^ "Tojással dobálták a Microsoft-vezért a Közgázon" (Hungarian).
- ^ "Microsoft CEO's Egg Attack".
- ^ Robert A. Guth (2008). Gates-Ballmer Clash Shaped Microsoft's Coming Handover. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
- ^ John Battelle (September 2, 2005). Ballmer Throws A Chair At "F*ing Google". John Battelle's Searchblog. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
- ^ "Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google'", Sydney Morning Herald, September 3, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-02-01.
- ^ Mayor Nickels announces local effort to buy Sonics, renovate KeyArena
- ^ Maccoby, Michael. "Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons". Harvard Business Review (January-February 2000): pp. 76. “Bill Gates can think about the future from the stratosphere because Steve Ballmer, a tough obsessive president, keeps the show on the road.”
- ^ http://xkcd.com/323/
[edit] External links
- Corporate biography
- Forbes World's Richest People listing
- South China Morning Post audio interview
- "Monkey Boy" video
- Developers
- Ballmer bursting out of a cake at Microsoft's 25th anniversary celebration
- Steve Ballmer in a self-parody "ad" for Windows 1.0
- Steve Ballmer inaugurates the Microsoft Innovation Center, Kuwait (April 25, 2007)
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