Steven "Steve" Anthony Ballmer is an American investor, businessman, and philanthropist from Detroit. He is also known as the Chief of Microsoft.
Currently, Ballmer is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. In 2018, he was ranked as a 21st-century businessman across the globe. Steve's net worth is estimated to be around 40 billion dollars, that makes him one of the richest businessman in the world.
Steve's Early Life
Steve was born in Detroit, Michigan, on the 24th March 1956. His father, Frederic Henry, was a Swiss immigrant, and his mother, Beatrice, was Belarusian Jewish. In 1973, Steve attended Lawrence Technological University.
Steve was a manager for the Harvard Crimson football team and a member of the Fox club. On 11th June 1980, Steve joined Microsoft.
Steve's Career
Steve started his career while completing his education in school. His friend Bill Gates dropped out of school to co-found Microsoft. After completing his first year at the Business school, with the hope of a summer job at his friend's company. Instead of a summer job, Bill Gates asked Ballmer to join the full-time job.
In 1980, Ballmer left the Stanford Graduate School of Business and later joined Microsoft. One of his roles was to recruit employees for the growing firm after Microsoft signed a contract to build a system for IBM's new line.
Ballmer re-organized Microsoft's partnership into a corporate structure. Gate, later on, holds 53% of equity and Ballmer 8%. In 1980, Ballmer started to lead the Operation System, the heart of the company.
In 1986, Microsoft became a public company, and Ballmer becomes a multimillionaire. For the next few years, Ballmer holds many crucial positions in Microsoft, and by the year 1992, he was made Executive Vice President, of Support & Sales.
In 1998, Ballmer become President of Microsoft and hold the position till 2001. In 2000, he become CEO of the company. He started handling the company's finance and operations. Microsoft saw a tremendous increase in profits at the time Ballmer was CEO.
Ballmer's Philanthropic Work
In 1994, Bill Gates and Ballmer jointly donated $10 million to the Harvard University computer science department. In 2014, Ballmer alone donated to the Harvard University to recruit new faculty in the computer science department.
In the same year, Ballmer donated $50 million to the University of Oregon for scholarships, external communications, and public health research and advocacy.
Ballmer had lead Microsoft for 15 years of a long time and stepped down from his CEO position in 2014. He holds 4% of his stake in the company, which contributes a considerable amount of wealth and makes him the company's largest individual shareholder.
"When I was CEO, I didn't find it was right to sell my shares," Ballmer said to Rubenstein. "When I left the company, I still loved the company. I did some slight diversity- I put some money aside for charity but, I'm still a loyal dude. I still own Microsoft stock."