Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and a co-founder of the Ballmer Group, a philanthropic investment company. As of February 2026, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his personal wealth at around $145 billion, making him the thirteenth-richest person in the world, while the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List ranked him fourteenth with a net worth of $130 billion.
Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as its 30th employee and first business manager, eventually becoming president in 1998 and CEO on January 13, 2000. He retired as CEO on February 4, 2014, and was succeeded by Satya Nadella, remaining on the board until August 19, 2014. During his 14-year leadership, Microsoft tripled sales and doubled profits but lost market dominance and missed key trends such as the rise of smartphones. In recent years, Ballmer has expanded his activities into sports ownership and philanthropic investing, including significant involvement in Artificial intelligence ventures.
Early life and education
Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer, a Ford Motor Company manager who emigrated from Switzerland in 1948. Through his mother, he is a second cousin of actress Gilda Radner. He grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and lived in Brussels from 1964 to 1967, attending the International School of Brussels. He graduated as valedictorian from Detroit Country Day School, scoring 800 on the mathematical section of the SAT and earning National Merit Scholar status.
At Harvard University, Ballmer was a manager for the football team, worked on The Harvard Crimson and Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from Bill Gates. He scored highly in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, outperforming Gates, and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in applied mathematics and economics in 1977. After two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with future General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, he briefly tried screenwriting in Hollywood before enrolling at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where Mukesh Ambani was a classmate. He dropped out in 1980 to join Microsoft.
History with Microsoft
Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, with a salary of $50,000 plus 10% of generated profit and no equity. As the company grew, his profit-share ballooned, prompting a reorganization proposal from Dave Marquardt that Ballmer own 8% of the company in exchange for cancelling the profit-sharing model. Paul Allen initially disagreed, but Gates and Allen reached an agreement with Gates funding an outsized majority of Ballmer's stake. When Microsoft incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8% of the company. In 2003, he sold 39.3 million shares for about $955 million, reducing his ownership to 4%, and replaced the employee stock options program.
In his first 20 years, Ballmer headed divisions including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. He became Executive Vice President for Sales and Support in February 1992 and led development of the .NET Framework. He was promoted to President in July 1998, becoming the de facto number two after Gates.
Chief executive officer (2000–2014)
Ballmer was officially named CEO on January 13, 2000, shedding the president title in February 2001. As CEO, he handled finances and daily operations while Gates remained chairman and chief software architect until 2006. Upon taking over, Microsoft faced an antitrust lawsuit from the US government and 20 states, plus class-action suits. Ballmer sought settlements, stating that being the object of a government complaint was an awkward position with all downside. He required detailed business justification for new products, curbing speculative projects. In 2005, he recruited B. Kevin Turner from Walmart to become chief operating officer, instilling more process and discipline.
After Gates' retirement, Ballmer oversaw a shift away from Microsoft's PC-first heritage, replacing major division heads to break down fiefdoms. In 2012, Businessweek said the company arguably had its best product lineup in history. Ballmer drove a connected computing strategy with acquisitions like Skype. Under his tenure, annual revenue surged from $25 billion to $70 billion, though the share price stagnated.
Post-Microsoft career and philanthropy
After retiring from Microsoft, Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014 for $2 billion. He has financed the construction of the Intuit Dome, a new arena, and has been noted for acquiring superstar players. Until a recent scandal, some viewed his ownership as an improvement over previous owner Donald Sterling. He co-founded the Ballmer Group with his wife Connie, focusing on philanthropic investments in economic mobility and education.
Ballmer has also become an investor in Artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI, reflecting a broader interest in Machine learning and Generative AI technologies. His investments align with his belief in the transformative potential of Large language model systems and Deep learning approaches, though specific details of his portfolio are not fully public as of 2026.
Legacy and impact
Ballmer's legacy at Microsoft is mixed: he tripled sales and doubled profits but missed the smartphone revolution led by Apple and Android. His leadership style was energetic and demanding, earning a reputation for enthusiasm. As a philanthropist, he has committed billions through the Ballmer Group. His ownership of the Clippers has revitalized the franchise, and his AI investments position him as a significant figure in the technology landscape beyond his Microsoft years.