Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer turns 68 today, and the sixth richest person in the world has a lot to celebrate.
With a net worth of about $148 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ballmer is now just shy of overtaking his old boss, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who sits at $154 billion.
A look at Ballmer’s illustrious career reveals the secrets behind his success, but it wasn’t always so fascinating. At 24, Ballmer dropped out of Stanford Business School to join Microsoft and Gates, his former Harvard classmate. As the company’s 30th employee, Ballmer earned a base salary of $50,000.
The small tech startup quickly became one of America’s fastest-growing companies, surpassing today’s Apple and dominating the growth of personal computers in the 1990s by developing Windows, an easy-to-use operating system. Ballmer took over from Gates at a key transition point in 2000, managing the fallout from a landmark 1998 antitrust case, as well as the aftermath of the dot-com bust and the emergence of fierce competition from rivals both older and older. and new: Google and Apple.
Ballmer tripled Microsoft’s annual revenue to nearly $78 billion during his tenure, and profits rose to $22 billion during his last full fiscal year as CEO, but the stock didn’t reflect his dominance. In retrospect, Ballmer set the stage for a remarkable comeback in the decades that followed. Microsoft is now in 13th place in the Fortune 500, while its market capitalization has conquered all others: it is the most valuable company in the world, at $3.2 trillion.
Ballmer still holds an estimated 4.5% stake in Microsoft, and has seen its value rise further, following his successor Satya Nadella’s bet on OpenAI. In 2021, Ballmer became the ninth person in the world to report a net worth of more than $100 billion, and Ballmer is the only billionaire to have made his fortune as an employee, not as an entrepreneur.
After thanking employees for the “time of my life” in an emotional farewell presentation in 2014, Ballmer set his sights on other entrepreneurial adventures. The same year, he purchased the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion (Forbes now values the franchise at more than $4.5 billion).
Since leaving Microsoft, Ballmer has been heavily involved in philanthropy. In 2018 he gave nearly $2 billion to a donor-assisted Goldman Sachs Philanthropy fund focused on economic mobility. Most recently, he invested $400 million to support Black-owned businesses in 2022; $43 million in Washington State’s early childhood education workforce last March; and last September announced a $175 million investment over the next seven years aimed at helping 4 million young people, especially in communities of color who face systemic inequities, along the path to economic mobility.
In one of his last interviews as CEO of Microsoft in 2013, Ballmer met with Fortune to share some of his biggest tips for success.
- Take a look at the big picture
“If the CEO doesn’t see the playing field, no one else can,” Ballmer said in the 2013 interview with Fortune. “The team might need to see it too, but the CEO really needs to be able to see the entire competitive space.”
Microsoft’s variety of products, such as cloud services and personal computing, touch many different markets, and competition seems to be lurking around every corner. During his time as CEO, he was criticized for not adapting quickly enough to changing market trends. Competitors in mobile devices, such as Samsung and Nokia, and cloud computing services, such as Google and Apple, were on the rise. Microsoft’s stock was stagnant in the years leading up to his retirement in 2014. However, Microsoft’s revenue nearly quadrupled under his watch.
- Always look for talent
While at Microsoft, Ballmer hired some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names, such as Steven Sinofksy, who headed Windows; J Allard, who served as Chief Technology Officer of Xbox; and Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft.
In a 2009 interview with the Wall Street JournalBallmer said that to “be dynamic,” companies should aim to promote internal workers “70% or 80% of the time,” and when a company wants to make external hires, it should be “open-minded” and ask for references.
In interviews for potential new hires, the two most important qualities he looks for are passion that he “can see in the eye” and someone he can relate to. One of her favorite questions to ask is “tell me about something you’re proud of.”
- Always reconsider: Here’s how to find the most successful business model
At Microsoft, Ballmer’s name of the game was rethink, rethink, rethink.
“There was a day when people said all the money was in software; get out of the hardware,” he said Fortune in 2013. Hardware was where Apple and Samsung, Microsoft’s biggest rivals at the time, were profitable. In 2013, Apple reported revenue of 170.9 billion. Google reported $55.5 billion. “Then someone will say, ‘oh, it’s all about advertising,’” which is what its rival, Google, was banking on.
“The playing field is always changing,” he said, and the sentiment holds true in his current endeavors on the basketball court.
A decade after buying the Clippers, Ballmer is still thinking creatively about how to revamp the franchise. He signed and retained superstars like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook to form a quartet of stars in preparation for the Intuit Dome’s grand opening in August, Forbes reported, the team’s future home court and the NBA setting 2026. All-star weekend.
This month he launched a new brand, Halo Sports and Entertainmentwhich will feature the new dome, the LA Clippers, their G-league affiliate team called the Ontario Clippers, and the KIA Forum, a music and entertainment arena in Inglewood, which it purchased in 2020.
- Plan for the short and long term
“Doing the big things that make all the money, it’s a long cycle,” Ballmer said Fortune in 2013, noting that “to really execute in a way that allows you to do that, that’s a short cycle.”
One of the long-term projects he has worked on is USAFacts, a database that collects and analyzes how federal, state and local governments generate revenue and spend money. The database also includes reports that users can run to gather information on topics ranging from tax rates to overdose and crime rates across the country.
The site bills itself as a “non-partisan, non-profit civic initiative,” with no “political agenda or commercial motive.”
- Find out where you fall short
“I obviously understand business issues better than technology issues,” Ballmer concluded in the 2013 interview, but adding, “I grew up, and when you grow up, you go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know what I knew.’” I do not know.”
A joke theory has come out related to its limitations: It’s what the Urban Dictionary calls Ballmer Peak, or the “theory that computer programmers gain almost magical, superhuman coding abilities when they have a percentage of blood alcohol concentration between 0.129% and 0.138%. ” The theory is loosely related to Ballmer, but it inspired a San Francisco organization, Originate, to organize a Ballmer Peak-A-Thon: an open bar event where people have “5 hours to find the elusive Ballmer Peak and build the best and the worst.” possible business.” The bar offers “lots of starter domain names” to get the party started.