The Madness of Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer is an interesting guy. He was the CEO of Microsoft for 14 years and now owns the LA Clippers.

On the one hand he’s an intelligent, shrewd, and hard-nosed businessman. He scored a perfect 800 on the math section of the SATs. He even out performed Bill Gates on a math exam while they were at Harvard. He helped build Microsoft from a small business into one of the worlds largest and most important corporations. Along the way he managed to snag 8% of Microsoft's stock in it’s early days despite being employee #30 and is now worth over $20 billion.^[1]

But Steve Ballmer has another side to him. A goofy side. A very goofy side in fact. And most interestingly - he is very public about it. I can't think of a better example of someone who on paper looks like a Very Serious Person, but is really just a giant goof ball. The fact that Steve Ballmer has thrived in our society, despite his goofiness, is a good thing.

Just this last week Robin Williams committed suicide, which was a tragedy. I was a huge fan of his, particularly because he was also goofy. The one quote of his that always stood out was, “You're only given a spark of madness. You musn't lose it.”

Steve Ballmer never lost his madness. He put his whole personality out there for the world to see, and couldn't care less what people thought. In honor of goofballs everywhere here are a few classic Steve Ballmer moments to soak in.

1. Selling Windows

This is Steve Ballmer in his element. I can just imagine how relentless he was at sales and business development back in the day (except in Nebraska). He also ended up doing a remake of this for Windows XP.

2. Developers Tirade

It's completely logical for Microsoft to care about developers writing software for their platforms. But Steve Ballmer's chant about developers is so epic that it's turned into a popular internet meme.

3. Steve and Bill's Night at the Roxbury

The anti-trust case against Microsoft was one of the preeminent regulatory battles of the 1990's. But Steve Ballmer, and surprisingly Bill Gates, decided to mock it while hilariously dressing up as characters from A Night At The Roxbury.

4. Dismissing the iPhone

The iPhone has clearly been one of the most significant product releases in the last 20 years. The profound impact that smartphones have had can't be understated. But Microsoft, under Steve Ballmer, clearly missed the boat on the whole mobile revolution. His reaction is hillariously dismissive, "it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine".

5. Exuberance for and Love of Microsoft

Say what you want, but he sure does know how to get a crowd excited. He is also possibly the only person who truly is in love with a corporation. I guess it makes sense since corporations are people.

6. Retirement Concert

While the failure of Surface, Microsoft's attempt to compete with the iPad, ultimately led to Ballmer's resignation, he didn't go out with a whimper.

^{1. Biographical information obtained from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer↩}