Must Read Summaries - Bad Boy Ballmer - Fredric Maxwell

One analyst calls Microsoft the Bill and Steve Show. A former company vice president talks about the personality of Gates and Ballmer. Though much of the time Gates and Ballmer act as a single unit, when they divide it is along set lines. Gates is the techie, the strategist, the commander-in-chief. Ballmers the business guy, the tactician, the field marshal. Gates ran the antitrust trial defense while Ballmer was running the company. Gates is a balance sheet person. Ballmer is an income statement type. A former coworker says, Gates likes really smart people, period. Steve likes guys who get stuff done.

Fredric Maxwell

Microsoft today could stop producing software, close up shop, give away a copy of Windows XP to every one of the over six billion human beings on the planet, and still be more profitable than over 99-percent of all American companies. Microsoft could lay off all fifty thousand of its employees, giving each one of them one hundred thousand dollars in severance pay plus ten thousand shares of stock, and it would still have over twenty-five billion dollars in its coffers. A 10-percent annual return on its remaining wealth would give it two and a half billion dollars a year in income. Imagine a true challenge for Gates and Ballmer. In negotiations with the Justice Department, Gates said, You can give me any seat at the table at Linux, Sun or any other tech company, and I can blow away Microsoft! If, like Silicon Graphics and Netscape founder Jim Clark, Gates and Ballmer just walked away from Microsoft and started all over again with, say, a measly billion dollars each, theyd find a way to make another personal computer operating system and give their former company a run for the money.

Fredric Maxwell

The good boy Ballmer, his higher self, was the nearly perfect student and supportive classmate who won full-ride scholarships to prep school, Harvard, and then Stanford. He was the beloved but awkward valedictorian of his class. He was the devoted son who made sure his father of relatively modest means received over a million dollars worth of stock in Microsofts 1986 IPO. Hes also the unpretentious, well-grounded corporate cheerleader who will do cartwheels on stage to prove a point, even if that means shouting out Microsofts Win-doze! Win-doze! Win-doze! so loudly that he ripped his vocal chords. He is known for making his employees want to dig deeply into themselves and bring out their absolute best, if not for themselves then for him. But, of course, theres also the bad boy Ballmer, the earthier level of his soul. It was this Ballmer who announced impending software release dates fully aware some couldnt happen until years later, a business practice he knew IBM had been forced to stop, a move coldly calculated to stifle Microsoft customers interest in competing products. Ballmer proclaimed there was a Chinese Wall between Microsofts operating system monopoly and applications division when no such thing existed. Theres the General Sherman war-is-hell Ballmer, who carried out the pilferage of competitors products with a so-sue-us attitude, which many of the judges and juries forced to referee the conflicts would find Microsoft guilty of. And theres the dark side of Ballmer, who ominously thundered at a client whod signed up with rival Netscape, Youre either with us or against us, and youre the enemy now!. Ballmer is vast. Ballmer contains multitudes.

Fredric Maxwell

FREDRIC MAXWELL is a researcher and writer based in Seattle, Washington, Missoula, Montana and south Florida. He has written numerous articles for Newsweek, The New Yorker and Harpers.

So what does the future hold for the CEO of the worlds largest software company?

Microsoft did not break antitrust law and has a very strong set of factual legal arguments. Values are super-important to Microsoft. It matters to me that were a company of fine integrity. It matters to me a lot. It matters to me when I address my kids. We have spent the past twenty-five years thinking of ourselves as a small, aggressive company playing catch-up to large companies, even though at some point along the way we became a large company. Perhaps our passion for being the best has sometimes been misinterpreted.

Steve Ballmer

People like Steve Ballmer because hes passionate, committed, brilliant, energetic, authentic and thoughtful.

Linda Stone, Microsoft vice president in charge of corporate and industry initiatives.

In the early days, Steve Ballmer would go on account calls with me. We would be driving to an account and Steve would turn the radio to a Top 40 station, turn the volume all the way up, and bang on the dashboard like a drum. It was an outlet for his energy. Hes an amazing barrel of energy, even when he was sick, except when he was sick he was a little bit subdued. He would stimulate you to be at the top of your game. He was very appreciative of what you did. Steve was always willing to come along. What I got from Ballmer was the best strategic feedback of anyone in the company. And Steve is a guy that its easy to be loyal to because you always had a sense that hes loyal back. In the eighties there wasnt any training at the company. You learned by following the footsteps of others. The place didnt have much institutional memory. When Id been at the company for a few weeks, Ballmer asked me a question and I didnt know. Ballmer said, Thats unacceptable. Its your job to understand. You have to understand. You are going to be the company expert on the issue. There are two types of meetings with Steve. One is where he does all the talking, the other is when I did all the talking new issues, I was educating Steve. Id take him through the thought process. And Steve listened, he always listened. Then he would very much give you his point of view. Hed go, Oh! Oh! Oh! when he saw my internal logic. He wanted to know what the opportunity map looked like. Hed ask, what is the map of the market? Where is the low-hanging fruit for us? Steve is always logical and consistent and he demands that you be the same.

Cameron Mhyrvold

When most people think of who made Microsoft, the names of co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen come to mind. Yet it was Gates and Ballmer who took Microsoft from fewer than thirty employees to some fifty thousand, annual revenues from twelve million dollars to more than twenty billion, and from relatively petty cash in the bank to over thirty-six billion dollars on hand. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are the companys co-leaders, its intellectual equals, and its dynamic duo. They are the new economys most powerful partnership, softwares longest running buddy act.

Fredric Maxwell

Out of all of Ballmers truly extraordinary accomplishments, probably his greatest is putting up with Bill Gates for over two decades. Paul Allen couldnt, nor could any other Microsoftian. In fact, Ballmer is Microsofts longest-serving employee. During the antitrust trial and appeals Paul Allen resigned from Microsofts board of directors, for the second time, and quietly sold 130 million shares of his company holdings making Ballmer Microsofts second-largest individual stockholder; he owns some 240 million shares.

Fredric Maxwell

Ballmer adjectives abound. Steves described as richly experienced, hyper-competitive, hardworking, relentless, a bully, Mr. Loud, quick-witted, impatient with fools and sharply critical. Hes Microsofts chief coach, cheerleader, and hatchet man who focuses with laser intensity. Sun Microsystems co-founder and Java programming language co-inventor Bill Joy told me, Gates is over the top but Ballmers mad, hes insane. A former fellow executive says his impact is felt in every molecule of Microsoft. The economist pronounced him maniacal .. A rapid fire intervention force with relentless dynamism whos mean enough and brutal enough to make, then implement, the thought decisions necessary to guide Microsoft through their antitrust litigation. This Ballmer does. What lies ahead for Ballmer and the Microsoft he leads and the brave new worlds they face? An answer can be found in the words well written seventy-five years ago by Aldous Huxley, about his futuristic brave new world. Huxley observed, The machine turns, turns and must keep turning for ever. It is death if it stands still....Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. Microsofts wheel are tended by Steven Anthony Ballmer, sometimes acting like John Belushi on coke, other times as though hes like other folk part Hemingway, part Hercules and part Attila the Hun. Steve Ballmer can remind you of many people.