Steve was born in Detroit into a poor immigrant family. On the maternal side, he has Belarusian roots, and his uncle still lives in Belarus itself, and even owns a small business in the form of a bakery. After graduating from high school in 1973, the future billionaire entered Harvard Business School. Ballmer’s classmates and later classmates noted his superior intellectual abilities and unbridled energy. One of the school teachers recalled how little Steve, standing at the blackboard, explained the solution to a problem. In one hand he held chalk, in the other a rag. The student waved them, at the same time erasing the already written and continuing to paint the solution. At the Harvard Business School, Steve Ballmer was noted not only for high marks but also for active participation in events. Having become the captain of the national football team, he also published in two university publications at once, which is completely atypical for both an athlete and a “nerd”. It all ended with a red diploma, but what is much more important – an acquaintance with Bill Gates, who studied there. However, Steve was in no hurry to join Microsoft and first got a job as an assistant manager in the multinational corporation Procter & Gamble. After working for a couple of years, the young and promising specialist decided to leave the company and continue his studies at Stanford Business School.
The first billion
After his first year at Stanford Business School, Steve decided to become more than just an assistant manager. At first, he considered the company Ford, where his father worked, but in the 80s the car crisis began, and eyes turned to Bill Gates and his Microsoft. The starting salary was 50 thousand a year, which was already quite good for those times. However, the very case happened when the wishes came true. Now Ballmer was not an assistant manager, but, on the contrary, was in charge of everything. Jurisprudence, HR, and accounting were all part of the job of the future Microsoft superstar. According to Steve Ballmer himself, most of all he liked to deal with the personnel he became the personnel department in one person, personally conducting interviews with each applicant. Ballmer knew practically nothing in programming, but he perfectly recognized people, choosing the most promising employees for the corporation.
Taking part in the development and promotion of the first MS-DOS, and later Windows, Steve saw how quickly the company grew and spent part of his salary buying Microsoft stock. Thus, by 1993, he became the first employee billionaire in history. Since then, the status has changed slightly. There are several more such billionaires in the world today, but Ballmer remains the richest of them. There is another interesting fact: at some point, Steve Ballmer became the largest private owner of Microsoft shares, overtaking even Bill Gates.
Microsoft’s controversial CEO
In 2000, Ballmer took over as CEO of the corporation, and this period in the history of Microsoft was the brightest, albeit controversial. On the one hand, many new sites were mastered, new products were created and successful purchases were made. For example, it was under Balmer that the Xbox was born, successfully competing today with PlayStation, Skype was bought, and cloud technology was mastered and implemented. Classic products like Windows and Office have also broken all sales records. On the other hand, Steve made a lot of blunders under the control of the same Windows Phone, which never found a niche in the market. Perhaps someone will even remember a player from Microsoft, into which incredible money was poured, but the whole world has remained faithful to the iPod. In addition, purchases of companies were made, sometimes at a cost of billions of dollars, which subsequently turned out to be useless for Microsoft. Nevertheless, during Ballmer’s leadership, the corporation’s profits have tripled. In 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft, saying goodbye with an emotional speech. In general, this is what made Steve different from other, reasonable and calm top managers. He could easily call Linux cancer on the body of the IT industry, or threaten to kill Google by throwing a chair against the wall. However, colleagues note that Steve is the most hardworking person they have ever met, and just as disciplined in their work aspects.
Another team from Los Angeles
It is unlikely that Steve deliberately pursued the title of the richest wage worker in history, and even more so he did not think about such records in sports. Nevertheless, today Ballmer is also the richest boss in the world of sports. He is the owner of any team in any sport. Immediately after parting with Microsoft, having already $ 22 billion, Steve allocated two billion to buy the club in the NBA Los Angeles Clippers. Historically, the face of Los Angeles in the NBA is the Lakers – perhaps this name is familiar to everyone, even a person not interested in basketball. However, there is another team in the city, which usually languishes at the bottom of the standings. With the change of ownership, the club’s business has improved markedly, reaching its highest point this season. Today Clippers are not only going to the playoffs but are also one of the main contenders for the championship title. Ten years ago, no one would have believed in such a result, and Clippers fans simply did not exist (there was only Ballmer). Everyone looked at Kobe and the Lakers while Steve made a real revolution. First, one of the best and, most importantly, relatively young coaches of the league were invited to the team. Gradually, they began to collect a completely new composition – someone was raised on their own, and others were bought. Today, Clippers are played by two superstars of the first magnitude, one of whom claims a place next to such people as the aforementioned Kobe, LeBron, and Jordan. Such transformations are due not only to the huge money of the new owner of the team but also to his interest in the development of the club. According to Steve, now his main activity is sports.
