From January 2000 to February 2014, Steven Anthony “Steve” Ballmer was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft. He held various high-profile jobs at Microsoft before becoming CEO, including operations, operating system development, and sales and support. He has also worked as Microsoft’s President and Executive Vice President of Sales and Support. Ballmer was one of Microsoft’s first workers as a college acquaintance of Bill Gates, the company’s co-founder. In fact, he was Gates’ very first company manager. Steve Ballmer was born into a wealthy home and grew up to be a smart student with remarkable mathematical abilities. Before joining the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he graduated from Harvard College and worked for Procter & Gamble for a while. He then dropped school to work for his friend Bill Gates’ new company, Microsoft, and went on to have tremendous success there. Ballmer, who retired from Microsoft after a distinguished career, now devotes his time to another of his passions: basketball, and is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Childhood and Adolescence
Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer gave birth to Steve Ballmer on March 24, 1956, in Detroit. Shelly is his sister. His father worked for Ford Motor Company as a manager, and his family was well-off. Ballmer is half-Swiss and half-Jewish.
He received a scholarship at the Detroit Country Day School and graduated with a flawless score of 800 on the SAT’s mathematical portion. He then went on to Harvard College, where he earned an A.B. in applied mathematics and economics and graduated magna cum laude in 1977. He got acquaintances with Bill Gates, a fellow student, while studying there.
Ballmer was a manager for the Harvard Crimson football team and a sports fan. He also contributed to the Harvard Crimson and the Harvard Advocate newspapers.
Career of Steve Ballmer
He joined Procter & Gamble as an associate product manager after finishing his education, a position he held for two years. In 1979, he enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Bill Gates, a college friend of Ballmer’s, had dropped out to co-found Microsoft. Ballmer sought his friend for a summer job at his company after completing his first year of business school. Instead, Gates requested that Ballmer assume a full-time position supervising the company’s operations.
Ballmer graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1980 and joined Microsoft in June, becoming Gates’ first business manager. One of his first responsibilities was to find qualified staff for the burgeoning company. Despite the fact that he was not a coder, Ballmer had a knack for spotting potential talent.
Microsoft soon signed a deal to develop an operating system for IBM’s new range of personal computers. Gates and his collaborator Paul Allen, the company’s co-founders, were tasked with handling the technical parts of the corporation, while Ballmer was tasked with handling the business.
After Microsoft was formed in 1981, Ballmer converted the partnership into a corporate organization. As a result, Gates now owns 53 percent of the company, Allen 35 percent, and Ballmer 8%. He also devised a stock option plan for the company’s workers.
Allen grew ill with cancer in the early 1980s and departed the company in 1983. The corporation was now run solely by Gates and Ballmer. In the 1980s, Ballmer oversaw the development of the operating system, which is at the heart of the company’s operations.
The year 1986 was a watershed moment in Steve Ballmer’s career. Ballmer became a multimillionaire after Microsoft became a publicly traded firm. The development of the Microsoft Office suite of products, which includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, was a major factor in the company’s success.
He rose through the ranks of the corporation over the next few years, eventually becoming Executive Vice President, Sales and Support, in February 1992. He was in charge of the.NET Framework development at the time.
He was elevated as President of Microsoft in July 1998, a post he maintained until February 2001. In January 2000, Ballmer was appointed as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As CEO, Ballmer was in charge of the company’s finances and day-to-day operations. Microsoft expanded its product line during his tenure to include goods such as the Xbox video game console and the Zune series of portable media players.
During Ballmer’s term as CEO, Microsoft’s revenues increased dramatically. Annual sales climbed by 215 percent to $70 billion, while net income increased by 215 percent to $23 billion.
In 2013, Ballmer announced his retirement, and in February 2014, he stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. In August 2014, he resigned from the company’s Board of Directors.
Achievements & Awards
In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Steve Ballmer as a Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Personal History and Legacy
In 1990, he married Connie Snyder. They are the parents of three sons.
Ballmer and his wife are both prominent philanthropists, with the former donating $50 million to the University of Oregon in 2014.
Estimated Net Worth
Steve Ballmer has a net worth of $122 Billion.
Philanthropic Contributions
Ballmer and Bill Gates gave a $10 million gift to Harvard University’s computer science department in 1994.
Ballmer gave money to Harvard University’s computer science department again in 2014 to help it hire new faculty.
Ballmer gave the University of Oregon $50 million in 2014 for scholarships, public health research and advocacy, and external branding/communications.