Ballmer
was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1956. His father worked as a manager
for Ford
Motor Company. After scoring well in High School, Ballmer attended Harvard
for his bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics. While Ballmer
was attending Harvard, he took care of a plethora of tasks including
managing the basketball team, the university literary magazine and lived
down the hall from the soon to be Harvard drop-out Bill Gates. After
his BS, he attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business until
he was confronted by Bill Gates. He could either continue to work for
Procter & Gamble for the rest of his life, or he could be part of
Bill's vision to dominate the future.
Steve
Ballmer was hired by Microsoft in 1980, as a business manager with
Bill Gates. Over the past 20 years, Ballmer has been a loyal employee.
His
tasks ranged from sales and support to OS development. After 18 years
of
service, Ballmer was promoted to President of Microsoft, an arduous
task. After serving two years at his post, Ballmer was named CEO
of Microsoft in 2000 assuming full responsibility of the company, while
Bill Gates stepped down to become the visionary .
Ballmer is a respected man by his peers, and those who work
under him. He is said to bring vigor to the workplace and to bring out
potential in the workers they did not know they had. Together with Bill
Gates he has set out to create a seamless experience across a wide range
of computing and even in non-PC devices such as handhelds.
Ballmer
is known to be very energetic, dynamic, and funny. I don't think that
America will forget the time
that he was hopping on
the stage in front of a crowd of nerds yelling, "How badly do you
want it?". Ballmer is passionate about his work, and his long term
devotion to Microsoft payed off. Ballmer is now worth over 14 billion
dollars.
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