Steven Anthony Ballmer needs no introduction. He has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 24th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates. As a visionary and leader, Steve Ballmer has led Microsoft to the top of the computer software world.
Bio
Steven Ballmer
Steven A. Ballmer is Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of software for personal and business computing. Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and was the first business manager hired by Bill Gates. Since then, Ballmer's leadership and passion have become hallmarks of his tenure at the company.
Ballmer and the company's business and technical leaders are focused on continuing Microsoft's innovation and leadership across the company's core businesses. Microsoft's goal is to provide an integrated platform to enable a seamless experience across a wide range of computing and non-PC devices and services.
Variously described as ebullient, focused, funny, passionate, sincere, hard-charging and dynamic, Ballmer has infused Microsoft with his own brand of energetic leadership, vision and spirit over the years.
Ballmer was born in March 1956, and grew up near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the university literary magazine, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. After college, he worked for two years at Procter & Gamble Co. as an assistant product manager and, before joining Microsoft, attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
U.S. computer firm, the leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Wash., also publishes books and multimedia titles and manufactures hardware. It was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen (b. 1954), who adapted BASIC for use on personal computers. They licensed versions of it to various companies, developed other programming languages, and in 1981 released MS-DOS for the IBM PC. The subsequent adoption of MS-DOS by most other personal-computer manufacturers generated vast revenues for Microsoft, which became a publicly owned corporation in 1986. It issued the first version of Microsoft Word, its popular word-processing program, in 1983, and Microsoft Windows, a graphical user interface for MS-DOS-based computers, in 1985. In 2001 Microsoft released Xbox, a video game console that quickly captured second place in the $10 billion video gaming market. In 2002 Microsoft launched Xbox Live, a broadband gaming network for their consoles.
Glow in the dark escape route systems are required Local Law 26 in New York City... soon to be International Law.
How many 7 story buildings are there in the World?
Revolutionize the US economy using the profits to heal the disease and decay in Society based upon the business plan of Milton S. Hershey, who built the town of Hershey, PA during the Depression. "Business is a matter of Human Service"
I enjoyed Steve's answer to what is more useful: learning from a stable corporate environment or diving into start-up that has a high failing probability. I strongly believe that we're learning from both positive and negative experiences, but the main goal is to give it a hundred percent at the same time enjoying what you do.
I think you would do well to actually look at the history of 1) Microsoft recognizing at it's highest levels that it has always been behind it's competitors in product innovation and quality. The internal emails that have come out in the copious trials are quite illuminating. Which leads to 2) the history of perhaps being the most litigated company in history, and the billions paid out in cases where the judgement was public (or even the public out of court 2 billion to SUN), plus the unknown amounts in undisclosed out of court settlements, which arguably wouldn't be necessary if they were the innovation leader rather than trailer....and it speaks to the real business model of the company. As long as they can make more money from a product than they pay in judgments - well, that is a positive balance sheet.
One of my favorite examples from the early 2000's was a new first line manager to our group. Had been in the industry for quite some years, and had also taught night school tech classes for more than a decade. Basically, his take was 'look, you seem to be a smart guy, I just don't understand your Microsoft bashing ... they are clearly the leader .... I even use their products (particularly Project) in my classes for years - I just don't see the problems you talk about'. I first sent him down the road I mentioned above - looking at the internal mail from the court cases and the overview of the court cases themselve - and challenged him to use Project for a real life case, not just a small class assignment. After about a month of building with Project, it (famously) swallowed all the work to that point - an no amount of working thru the Windows support teams could he recover anything - coupled with the reading led him to the quite a different view and an apology to me.
From time to time I start to collect the various personal tidbits like that and swear I am going to make a book of it - but even I find it more rewarding to learn what I can do with software that works with me than spending too much time showing how the lessons I learned over a decade ago still apply today.
Though a little bit every once in awhile is cathartic. 8-)
when a guy asking question told steve tht microsoft hasnt been doing breakthrough innovation...the guy should hav thought about the awesome Microsoft Surface and Microsoft Home before sharing his opinion ........
member. 
