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Steven Anthony Ballmer (born Detroit, Michigan March 24, 1956) has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.

Pre-Microsoft & life history

Steve Ballmer was born on March 24, 1956, to a Swiss-American father and a Jewish-American mother whose family came from the Eastern European city of Pinsk (today in Belarus). He grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a private college preparatory school in Beverly Hills, Michigan, and now sits on its board of directors. In 1977, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He then worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, who would later become CEO of General Electric. In 1980, he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft.

Microsoft career

Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980 and became Microsoft's 24th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates. Ballmer loved working in Microsoft. He was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. He has headed several divisions within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support." In January 2000, he was officially named chief executive officer. As CEO Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates still retained control of the "technological vision." In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in 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 keynote at CEO, since Bill Gates left Microsoft.

Viral videos

Ballmer is known for his eccentric and over-the-top behavior. For example, featuring Ballmer's flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events have been widely circulated on the Internet, becoming viral videos. The most famous of these is commonly titled "Steve Ballmer going crazy." This video Ballmer after being introduced at a Microsoft employee convention. Ballmer is also featured in a mock ad for Microsoft Windows 1.0, enthusiastically promoting the operating system's features. Another video, captured at a developers' conference, features a sweat soaked Ballmer chanting the word "developers". A video of Ballmer [non-violently] signing a Mac laptop has recently surfaced.

Free and open source software

He has referred to the free Linux operating system as a "[…] cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." Ballmer used the notion of "viral" licensing terms to express his concern over the fact that the GNU General Public License (GPL) license employed by such software requires that all derivative software be under the GPL or a compatible license.