Monday, 22 October 2012

19.Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer

Net Worth
$15.9 B As of September 2012
At a Glance
  • CEO, Microsoft
  • Age: 56
  • Source of Wealth: Microsoft, self-made
  • Residence: Hunts Point, WA
  • Country of Citizenship: United States
  • Education: Bachelor of Arts / Science, Harvard University; Drop Out, Stanford University
  • Marital Status: Married
  • Children: 3
Forbes Lists
 
Profile:
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft since January 2000, is intent on proving the world's biggest software firm is keeping pace with its nimbler, younger rivals. In the past several months he's unveiled a significantly new desktop and mobile operating system (Windows 8), a new tablet (Surface) to take on the iPad, and switched clunky old Hotmail to a Webbier version of Outlook. He's taken his lumps, too, in July writing down 98% of Microsoft's $6.3 billion acquisition of online display ad seller aQuantive from five years ago. During his tenure, Ballmer has tripled revenue to $70 billion and boosted profits 155% to $23 billion. The stock price? You'd have been better off with an index fund. Ballmer may be getting ready to hand over the reins: he sold 18% of his shares in November 2010 and said his keynote appearance at the giant CES trade show in January 2012 would be his last. Ballmer continues to keep a tight lid on his personal life. Colleagues say he does little more than work, spend time with his family and play basketball with buddies. He's a big hoops fan: Ballmer has been identified as part of an investor group bidding to bring a National Basketball Association team back to Seattle, which lost the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City. As for his personal philanthropy, he told one reporter, "My own world's my own world, so I continue to treat it that way." A Detroit-area native, Ballmer dropped out of a Stanford M.B.A. program to join Harvard classmate Bill Gates in 1980 as employee number 30 at Microsoft.
 

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