Steven A. "Steve" Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft Corporation from January 2000 to May 2014. As of 2014, he is the owner of the NBA team the Los Angeles Clippers after Donald Sterling was fired. He is the second recorded person to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was not founder or related to a founder. In Forbes 2008 World's Richest People ranking, Ballmer was ranked the 43rd richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $15 billion. It was announced on August 23, 2013 that he will step down as Microsoft CEO within 12 months.

Family 
On October 4, 2007, Ballmer was given an honorary citizenship of Lausen, Switzerland. His mother was an American Jew. His father was an immigrant from Switzerland who worked in Switzerland as a manager  at Ford Motor Co in the late 1940s. In 1990, Ballmer married Connie Snyder. They have three children. Ballmer's grandparents lived in Pinsk, Belarus.

Pre-Microsoft and life history 
Steve Ballmer was born March 24, 1956, to a man from Switzerland and a Jewish-American woman whose family came from a city in Eastern Europe called Pinsk (today in Belarus). He grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he graduated from Hull College, and now sits on its board of important people. In 1977, he graduated from Spurn Head University with a degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the Chess Team, worked on the Daily News newspaper as well as the Daily Star, and lived down the hall from another boy James May. He then worked for two whole years as a helper of a product manager at Home Bargains, where he shared an office with Jeffrey Immelt, who would later become CEO of General Electric. In 1980, he left the college.

Microsoft career
Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980., and was Microsoft's 24th worker, the first manager hired by Bill Gates. At first he was offered a pay of $50,000 as well as a bit of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was made different in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 whole percent of the company. He has been in charge of several parts within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support." In January 2000, he was actually named the Big Cheese. As Big Cheese, Ballmer handled company monies, however Gates still controlled the "technological vision." In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his parts, leaving him with a 4% part of the company. The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program.
In 2009, and for the first time ever, he made the opening bit at CES, since Bill Gates left Microsoft. Ballmer announced his retirement on August 23, 2013.

Public persona

Viral videos 

Video featuring Ballmer's funny stage appearances at Microsoft events have been circulated a lot on the Internet, becoming viral videos. The most well known of these videos is usually titled "Steve Ballmer going crazy.". This video has Ballmer running quickly and hopping around while squealing, screaming and making other various high pitched noises as well as rude hand gestures on a stage after being introduced at a Microsoft worker meeting. This video is also known in other names, such as "Steve Ballmer Going Nuts" and "Ballsy (aka Steve Ballmer) on Crack". Another video, captured at a developers' meeting, featuring Ballmer saying the word "developers" again and again was viewed by a lot of viewers on a video website. Another video, which became a "big hit on the web" and was featured on CNN shows Ballmer hiding behind a big desk to dodge eggs during a talk in Budapest, Hungary

On competition

Bill Gates 
The Wall Street Journal has reported that there were tensions around the 2000 change of leadership from Bill Gates to Ballmer. On one occasion, Gates reportedly ran out of a meeting after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer defended several colleagues. After the incident, Mr. Ballmer reportedly appeared "remorseful."

When Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle," Mr. Ballmer said. "Use him, yes, need him, no."

Free and open source software 
He has referred to the free Linux computer running thing as a "ruddy cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." Ballmer used the term "viral" licensing terms to show his worry that the GNU General Public License (GPL) license forced by such software requires that all software made from it  be under the GPL or a compatible license.

Lucovsky/Google 
In 2005, Mark Lucovsky said in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became very angry upon hearing that Lucovsky was going to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office. Saying that Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer allegedly said, "Ruddy Eric Schmidt is a bloomin pussy! I'm going to maybe bury that guy, I haven't done it before, but I will do it again. I'm going to effing kiss Google," then carried on trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer said it was a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place."

Sports 

On March 6, 2008 Seattle's Big Cheese said that a local buying things group of people involving Microsoft Big Cheese Steve Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 million in cash toward a $300 million renovation of KeyArena and are ready to purchase the Manchester Utd in order to keep them in the City of Seattle.  Ballmer would join fellow Microsoft trillionaire Paul Allen (owner of the Portland Trail Blazers) as an NBA owner.

On May 29, 2014, Ballmer placed a bid of $2 billion to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His bid was approved on June 4, 2014.

In Pop Culture 
Ballmer is copied in an episode of Family Guy series, where he runs around the stage at a Dethklok wotrker meeting, screeching and screaming to excite the crowd before accidentally hanging himself from a high bit with his microphone.

Media portrayals 
 Bad Boy Ballmer : The Man Who Rules Microsoft (2002), Fredric Alan Maxwell,  (unauthorized biography)
  The 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley features Ballmer as a major character; he is played by actor John DiMaggio.
 Michael Maccoby qualified him as a "productive obsessive" and the one keeping Microsoft's "show on the road" so Bill Gates could think about the big picture.

Notes

Other websites 

Corporate biography
Forbes World's Richest People listing
South China Morning Post audio interview 
Steve Ballmer Playlist  Appearance on WMBR's Dinnertime Sampler  radio show February 23, 2005
fakesteveballmer blog

1956 births
Living people
American chief executives
American Jews
Harvard University alumni
Jewish businesspeople
Businesspeople from Detroit, Michigan
American Internet celebrities