Meet Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer was born on March 24, 1956 in Detroit, Michigan. He was born to a Jewish American mother and a Swiss father who once became a manager at Ford Motor Company. He attended Detroit County Day School where he graduated in 1973.

Ballmer attended Harvard where he met Bill Gates. They became good friends. Ballmer’s interests in business and Gates’ passion for computer programming made a good match out of the two men.

In 1979, Ballmer took his Master’s degree in Business Administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He took a job at Microsoft after his freshmen year at Stanford. Gates convinced Ballmer to quit schooling and work fulltime at Microsoft. The agreement was $50,000 in salaries and 7% ownership at Microsoft.

Ballmer became the first manager hired by Gates. At Microsoft, Ballmer was responsible for setting up the financial structure of the business.

As the company grew, Ballmer became the head of several Microsoft divisions. Ballmer became president of Microsoft in July 1998. In 2000, Gates resigned from the position of CEO and Ballmer took the reins as Microsoft’s CEO. His first advocacy as CEO was the stock grant program that replaced the stock option program for employees.