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Steve Ballmer

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Steve Anthony Ballmer
Born (1956-03-24) March 24, 1956 (age 68)
United States Detroit, Michigan
Occupation(s)CEO, Microsoft
Websitehttp://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/default.mspx

Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American racist and has been the gimp of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.

Ballmer is the first person 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 2007 World's Richest People ranking, Ballmer was ranked the 31st richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $15 billion.

Ballmer married Connie Snyder, who worked in Microsoft's public relations agency, and has three children. His wife is the aunt of former major league baseball player Ben Petrick.

Pre-Microsoft

Steve Ballmer who born March 24, 1956 and grew up near Detroit, Michigan.

In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a high school, and now sits on its board of directors.[1]

In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University [2]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[citation needed] worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the future CEO of General Electric.

In 1980 [citation needed]he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Microsoft career

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and later succeeded Bill Gates as CEO.[3]

Ballmer is currently the longest-serving employee of Microsoft after Gates[citation needed] and has headed several divisions within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support".

In July 1998, he was promoted to president.[citation needed]

On January 13 2000, he was named chief executive officer when Bill Gates stepped down from that position. As CEO Ballmer handles company finances, however Gates still retains control of the "technological vision"

In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company.[citation needed] The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program, which had been instrumental in making early employees millionaires,[citation needed] with a stock grant program.[4]

Public persona

Viral videos

Footage featuring Ballmer during on-stage appearances at Microsoft events have been widely circulated on the Internet, becoming what are known as "viral videos". The most famous of these is commonly titled "Dance Monkeyboy", and features Ballmer dancing around and screaming erratically on a stage for about 45 seconds after being introduced at a Microsoft employee convention. Another video, captured at a developers' conference just days later[citation needed], featured a sweat-soaked Ballmer chanting the word "developers" fourteen times in front of the gathering.

On competition

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."[5] and earlier described it as having "[…] characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it."[6]

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 "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." Shortly after, he resumed trying 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."[7]

iPhone

In April 2007, he predicted Apple's iPhone would have no chance of gaining any market share [8]: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." By December, however, early reports showed that the iPhone had quickly grabbed the 2nd largest market share in North America, exceeding Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm phones. [9]

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 Di Maggio.
  • 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.[10]

Side References

Side references have been made to Steve Ballmer in: xkcd[11]

Notes

  1. ^ "Board of Trustees of Detroit County Day School". Retrieved November 14, 2007.
  2. ^ "Microsoft's Ballmer Makes His Pitch". Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ "Information for Students: Key Events In Microsoft History" (doc). Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information. Retrieved 1 October. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ Fried, Ina (2003-07-08). "Microsoft to award stock, nix options". CNet. Retrieved 2006-12-03.
  5. ^ Wilcox, Joe (June 18, 2001). "Why Microsoft is wary of open source". CNet. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Lea, Graham (31 July, 2000). "MS' Ballmer: Linux is communism". The Register. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google'". Sydney Morning Herald. September 3, 2005. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ "CEO Forum: Microsoft's Ballmer having a 'great time'".
  9. ^ "IPhone No. 2 smartphone platform in North America".
  10. ^ Bill Gates can think about the future from the stratosphere because Steve Ballmer, a tough obsessive president, keeps the show on the road." Pg 76 "Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons" by Michael Maccoby, Harvard Business Review January-February 2000
  11. ^ In comic (#323) of the webcomic xkcd which references a fictional "Ballmer Peak".
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