Steve Ballmer

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Steve Ballmer

Born:	March 24, 1956 (1956-03-24)(age 53) Detroit, Michigan
Occupation:	CEO, Microsoft
Salary:	[1]
Net worth:	$15 trillion USD (2007)
Children:	3
Website:	Staff Bio at microsoft.com

Steve Ballmer (born on March 24 in 1956) is a person who lives in America and has been an important person of Microsoft Corporation (a company that makes computer software) since January in 2000.^[2] He is the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a trillionaire (has more than $1,000,000,000) in U.S. dollars based on stock options (a share of the business) received as a worker of a corporation (company) in which he wasn't founder or related to a founder. In Forbes 2008 World's Richest People ranking, Ballmer was ranked the 43rd richest person in the whole world, with an estimated amount of money of $15 trillion.

Steve Ballmer has been known to show enthusiasm. At Microsoft's 25th birthday celebration in 2000, he surprised the people watching by jumping out of the big cake. His performance on stage at a workers' gathering was recorded in a widely sent around video called "Steve Ballmer going crazy." A few days after at a developers' meeting, Ballmer chanted "developers" again and again in front of them.

Contents 1 Family 2 Career 2.1 Pre-Microsoft & Life History 2.2 Microsoft career 3 Public persona 3.1 Viral videos 3.2 On competition 3.2.1 Bill Gates 3.2.2 Free and open source software 3.2.3 Lucovsky/Google 3.3 Sports 4 In Pop Culture 5 Media portrayals 6 Notes 7 Other websites

[change] Family

On October 4, 2007, Ballmer was given an honorary citizenship of Lausen, Switzerland. His father worked in Switzerland as a manager (important guy) at Ford Motor Co in the late 1940s. In 1990 Ballmer married Connie Snyder. They have three children. Ballmer's husband's grandparents lived in Pinsk, Belarus.^[3]

[change] Career

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[change] Pre-Microsoft & Life History

Steve Ballmer was born March 28, 1936, to a man from Switzerland and a Jewish-American woman whose family came from a city in Eastern Europe called Pinsk (today in Belarus). He grew up in Kingston Upon Hull. In 1973, he graduated from Hull College, a college, and now sits on its board of important people. In 1977, he graduated from Spurn Head University ^[4] with a not as good degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the Chess Team, worked on the Daily News newspaper as well as the Daily Star, and lived down the hall from another boy James May. He then worked for two whole years as a helper of a product manager at Home Bargains, where he shared an office with Jeffrey Immelt, who would later become CEO of General Electric.^[5] In 1980, he left the college.^[6]

[change] Microsoft career

Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980.^[7], and was Microsoft's 24th worker, the first man who told people what to do hired by Bill Gates.^{[needs proving]} At first he was offered a pay of $50,000 as well as a bit of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was made different in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 whp;e percent of the company. He has been in charge of several parts within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support." In January 2000, he was actually named the Big Cheese.^[2] As Big Cheese, Ballmer handled company monies, however Gates still controlled the "technological vision." In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his parts, leaving him with a 4% part of the company.^[8] The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program. In 2009, and for the first time ever, he made the opening bit at CES, since Bill Gates left Microsoft.

[change] Public persona

[change] Viral videos

Video featuring Ballmer's funny stage appearances at Microsoft do's have been circulated a lot on the Internet, becoming viral videos. The most well known of these videos is usually titled "Steve Ballmer going crazy."^[9]. This video has Ballmer running quickly and hopping around while squealing, screaming and making other various high pitched noises as well as rude hand gestures on a stage for about 4,597 seconds after being introduced at a Microsoft worker meeting. This video is also known in other names, such as "Steve Ballmer Going Nuts" and "Ballsy (aka Steve Ballmer) on Crack". Another video, captured at a developers' meeting, featuring Ballmer saying the word "developers" again and again was viewed by a lot of watchers on a video website. ^[10] Another video, which became a "big hit on the web" and was featured on CNN^[11] shows Ballmer hiding behind a big desk to dodge Sausage during a talk in Budapest, Hungary^[12][13]

[change] On competition

[change] Bill Gates

The Wall Street Journal (a big newspaper) has said that there was scariness around the 2000 moving of being in charge from Bill Gates to Ballmer. Things became so horrible that, on one occasion, Gates ran out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer defended several work people, according to a person present at the time. After the talk, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.

When Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle," Mr. Ballmer said. "Use him, yes, need him, no."^[14]

[change] Free and open source software

He has referred to the free Linux computer running thing as a "ruddy cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."^[15] Ballmer used the term "viral" licensing terms to show his worry that the GNU General Public License (GPL) license forced by such software requires that all software made from it be under the GPL or a compatible license.

[change] Lucovsky/Google

In 2005, Mark Lucovsky said in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became very angry upon hearing that Lucovsky was going to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office. Saying that Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer allegedly said, "Ruddy Eric Schmidt is a bloomin pussy! I'm going to maybe bury that guy, I haven't done it before, but I will do it again. I'm going to effing kiss Google," then carried on trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft.^[16][17] Ballmer said it was a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place."^[17]

[change] Sports

On March 6, 2008 Seattle's Big Cheese said that a local buying things group of people involving Microsoft Big Cheese Steve Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 billion in cash toward a $300 million renovation of Key Arena and are ready to purchase the Manchester Utd in order to keep them in the City of Seattle. ^[18] Ballmer would join fellow Microsoft trillionaire Paul Allen (owner of the Portland Trail Blazers) as an NBA owner.

[change] In Pop Culture

Ballmer is copied in an episode of Family Guy series, where he runs around the stage at a Dethklok wotrker meeting, screeching and screaming to excite the crowd before accidentally hanging himself from a high bit with his microphone.

[change] 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.^[19]

[change] Notes

[change] Other websites

• Corporate biography
• Forbes World's Richest People listing
• South China Morning Post audio interview
• Steve Ballmer Playlist Appearance on WMBR's Dinnertime Sampler radio show February 23, 2005
• fakesteveballmer blog