Steve Ballmer: 1956–2000

**Caemin** (0:10)
Morning, folks, and welcome to today's episode called Steve Ballmer 1956 to 2000 And let me start with a quote.
I didn't pull you out of Stanford Business School to bankrupt the company. So that's from Bill Gates early on in their business career, arguing with the man he just hired as Microsoft's first ever business manager. And that man, of course, was Steve Ballmer. And the two of them would go on to build one of, obviously, the most valuable companies in history together, but through huge arguments, a legendary contract with IBM, and a decade of really ruthless sales tactics that got windows onto practically every computer on the planet, or at least 90% of them. And this episode takes Ballmer from his childhood, right up to becoming Microsoft's CEO in 2000 It's a cracker. Enjoy. So Steve Ballmer, born Detroit, March 24th, 1956, and his father Fritz was a Swiss emigrant, and he was fluent in six languages. So as a result, he got to work as a translator at the first Nuremberg trial. And this then landed him a mid-level management job at Ford in Detroit, and his mother Beatrice was a housewife. Ballmer was described initially as a shy, anxious kid, but he obviously comes out of his shell, and he also excels at maths. He graduates valedictorian in 1973 with a perfect 800 on the Math SAT, and then he plays football, manages the basketball team. He becomes very outgoing. Classmates, they describe him as intense, but this almost overwhelming force who never seems to run out of energy. And any of one of you who have watched Ballmer will know of this energy. And for those of you who aren't familiar with him, I mean, you are in for a treat, because what I really recommend is that you pause this podcast for a minute if you can, go on to YouTube and type in Steve Ballmer going crazy on stage. It is hilarious stuff. It is just so funny. Now, Ballmer has said of his energy, and this is a quote from him, I personally feed off energy, and it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it's me.
Personally, I find Ballmer's energy kind of weird, yeah, kind of overwhelming, definitely, and it's not for me.
So I can't really explain why I love it. I mean, maybe it's because when I showed the videos of Ballmer going nuts to my kids, they got such a laugh out of it.
But I think why I like it is because I think it's authentic. I mean, sometimes it might not look to be authentic, but having read and seen so much of Ballmer, I believe it really is who he is. It's always how he's been, this intense energy. Now, Ballmer starts Harvard in 1973, majoring in applied maths and economics. And in typical Ballmer fashion, he throws himself into everything, joining every club that he can. And he also forms a friendship with a certain Bill Gates, who lives down the hall from Ballmer, and they also go to the same economics class. And like, while they're opposites, Ballmer is gregarious, he's outgoing, Gates is much more insular. They do share the same intensity. Classmates recall the two of them arguing furiously over economic theory. And they also had this very distinct and unusual habit of rocking back and forth in their chairs while they're studying and concentrating.
And while Gates is so, so smart, when it comes to maths, Ballmer is way better than him. And it's a result of Ballmer's brilliance in maths that Gates realises he was never going to be a world-class mathematician, and that nudges him further towards computers. Now, Gates' friend, Paul Allen, who's also from Seattle, same as Gates, he at this time is working at Honeywell, also based in Boston. And he and Gates have a company at that time, while Gates is in Harvard, called Trafodata. It's analysing automobile traffic data. And Ballmer was very, very impressed that this geeky young kid already had a company. Then in December 1974, Popular Electronics Magazine put the Altair 8800 on the cover. And I think it's 8800s. It might be 8800s. I'm not a techie. I don't know. But this was the world's first commercially successful microcomputer. Alan buys the magazines and he hurries to Gates dorm room and he says, it's happening without us. A month later, in January 1975, Gates dropped out of college and he and Alan founded Microsoft. Ballmer stays at Harvard. He finishes his degree. He graduates magna cum laude in 1977, joins Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati as an assistant product manager in the food division. So he's looking after the marketing for brownie and cake mix and making around $20,000 a year. Now, interestingly, he shares this cubicle with another young hire named Geoffrey Immelt, who will go on to become the CEO of General Electric, succeeding, of course, the legendary Jack Welch, who we covered in an episode. Now, it didn't turn out too well for Immelt. GE more or less crashed during his reign, but that's another story and I will cover it. Anyway, Ballmer, he talks fondly of his time at P&G, but it's pretty clear that his talents are being wasted. Like, here's a guy with boundless energy and ambition. He's got a Harvard degree in Applied Maths and Economics, and he's trying to come up with new ways of selling more cake mix. And at the same time, he's watching Microsoft grow by 1978, three years after its foundation, Microsoft had 13 employees, a million dollars in annual revenue. I mean, yeah, not huge money, but it's growing year on year. What Microsoft was doing at the time, it was licensing custom versions of BASIC, one of the first ever programming languages, to companies like Apple and Commodore. Then in spring 1979, Ballmer, he leaves P&G after being accepted into Stanford's Graduate School of Business to do an MBA. And at Stanford, Ballmer, he stands out immediately, because this is the late 70s, and the Californian vibe at that time is shorts and sandals, but Ballmer is wearing pressed trousers and a crisp white button down shirt. And this is one of the things I've always liked about Ballmer. He doesn't mind standing out in a way that might make him look prudish or even an idiot, because yeah, he's a bit weird, he's a bit different, but so what?