| Steve Ballmer | |
|---|---|
Ballmer in 2010. |
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| Born | March 24, 1956 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Residence | Hunts Point, Washington. U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (A.B.) Stanford University (Dropout) |
| Occupation | CEO of Microsoft |
| Home town | Farmington Hills, Michigan, U.S. |
| Salary | $1,351,121 (2010)[1] |
| Net worth | US$13.9 billion (2011)[2] |
| Awards | Legion of Honour[3] |
| Website | |
| Steve Ballmer - Microsoft.com | |
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born March 24, 1956)[4] is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000.[4] As of 2011[update], his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.[2]
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Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to a Swiss American father and a Jewish American mother. He grew up in the affluent community of Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University and 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 magna cum laude from Harvard University with a A.B. in mathematics and economics.
At 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, who later became CEO of General Electric.[5] In 1980, he dropped out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft.[6]
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980,[7] and became Microsoft's 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates.[8]
He was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. During the subsequent 20 years, Ballmer headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In January 2000, he was officially named Chief Executive Officer.[4] As CEO, Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates still retained control of the "technological vision". He served as President of Microsoft from July 1998 to February 2001, having previously served as Executive Vice President, Sales and Support since February 1992. Ballmer led Microsoft's development of the .NET Framework.
In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company.[9] The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program.
In 2009, and for the first time ever since Bill Gates left Microsoft as full-time chairman, he made the opening keynote at CES.
Ballmer has also served as Director of Accenture Ltd. as well as a General Partner of Accenture SCA since October 2001.
Ballmer is known for his energetic and exuberant persona, which is meant to motivate employees and partners.[10] His flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events are widely circulated on the Internet as viral videos.[11][12][13] One widely circulated video, captured at a developers' conference, features a perspiring Ballmer chanting the word "developers".[14][15]
The Wall Street Journal has reported that there was tension surrounding the 2000 transition of authority from Bill Gates to Ballmer. Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff 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."[16]
Speaking at a conference in NYC in 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer criticized Apple's pricing, saying; 'Now I think the tide has turned back the other direction (against Apple),' Ballmer said. '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.'[17] Subsequently, Apple's U.S. unit growth for Q4 2010 was 23.7% year-over-year, well ahead of the overall U.S. industry trend of a 6.6% decline (Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q10)
He has referred to the free software Linux kernel as a "cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."[18] 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 2005, Mark Lucovsky 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. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer vowed to "kill Google" in an expletive-laden tirade[19] then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described characterizations of the incident as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place".
During a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco(2011) he said: "You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone and you do to use and [sic?] Android phone…It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones." But figures show Android growing at an exponential rate and Windows Phone 7 struggling to gain traction in the crowded smartphone market.[20][21]
On March 6, 2008, Seattle's Mayor announced that a local ownership group involving Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 million in cash toward a $300 million renovation of Key Arena and were ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics in order to keep them in the City of Seattle. However, this initiative failed, and the Sonics have since relocated to Oklahoma City, now performing as Oklahoma City Thunder.[22]
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. Ballmer is the 46th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with an estimated wealth of $14.5 billion.[23] While CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer earned a total compensation of $1,276,627 which included a base salary of $665,833 a cash bonus of $600,000, no stock or options, and other compensation of $10,794.[24]
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