Steve Ballmer's Kevo

Steven Anthony Ballmer grew up in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Michigan. His father, an executive for Ford, taught him about corporate loyalty, the same loyalty that Ballmer today expects from his employees at Microsoft.

In 1974, Ballmer met Bill Gates at Harvard's Currier House in Gates' sophomore year. They went to the movies together, a double bill of A Clockwork Orange and Singin' In The Rain. That was the beginning of what was to be a very long friendship, both personal and professional. Ballmer graduated from Harvard in math and received an offer from Stanford. He deferred and went to work at Procter & Gamble, where he redesigned food-mix boxes to make them more competitive. From there he decided to seek his fame and fortune in Los Angeles, but when plans didn't go as expected, Ballmer eventually accepted Stanford's offer. He dropped out later after encouragement from Gates.

In 1980, Gates and Paul Allen hired Ballmer as Microsoft's first manager. They invited him with a stake of about 8% and a salary of about $40,000 (some sources report $50,000). As Operations Manager, Ballmer helped Microsoft purchase DOS, the backbone of MS-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. He took the bull by the horns right from the start and began hiring new employees, even over reservations from Gates. In 1992, Gates named Ballmer head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. Continuing his climb, Ballmer joined Microsoft's nine-member executive committee in 1996 and, in July of 1998, Gates appointed him president, a promotion from Executive Vice President of Sales and Support. In this position, all executives, with the exception of Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's chief technology officer, report directly to Ballmer.

Today as Microsoft's third billionaire, Ballmer still owns approximately 5% of the company. He ranks fifth on the Forbes 400 for 1998 and has been a member since 1990.
Climb to Fame
President of Microsoft Corp.
Work History
(01/2000) Becomes CEO of Microsoft when Bill Gates steps down.

(10/06/1999) Takes over presidency of Microsoft just weeks before going to trial (anti-trust case).

(03/19/1999) Meets a key milestone of the third and finished final beta of Windows 2000, and sets a goal for shipping the final version.

(07/21/1998) Promoted to president of Microsoft.

(1998) Appears with Gates in a Volkswagen commercial parody. Video shows Gates and Ballmer driving around until they see a Sun computer left on the side of a curb. The two take the computer and put it in the back seat, but soon notice a bad smell. The final shot shows the computer in a trash can on the side of the road.

(1996) Becomes member of Microsoft's nine-member executive committee.

(1980s) Sits as Executive Vice President of Sales and Support.

(1980) Joins Microsoft as Operations Manager .

(late 1970s) Assistant product manager at Procter and Gamble; redesigns food-mix boxes to give them a competitive advantage.

(c. 1974) Student manager of the Harvard football team.
Affiliations
Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory

on the executive boards of both his alma maters (Harvard and Stanford)

Harvard Board of Overseers

Harvard Fox Club