About Me
Early life and education
Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father, Frederick Ballmer, was a Swiss immigrant; his mother, Beatrice Dworkin, was Jewish.[citation needed] Ballmer grew up with his younger sister in Farmington Hills near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Company.
During his studies at the Detroit Country Day School, Ballmer was the manager of the school's basketball team. In 1973, he graduated from school with a grade point average of 4.0 and was the valedictorian of his class. He scored a perfect 800 on the math SAT and competed in math tournaments. Ballmer won a scholarship to Harvard College. During his freshman year he developed a close friendship with his dormmate, Bill Gates, a friendship that continued even after Gates dropped out of Harvard to start his own software company, Microsoft. At Harvard, Ballmer was the advertising manager for both The Harvard Crimson and The Harvard Advocate. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in applied mathematics and economics in 1977.
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Career
After graduation, Ballmer worked for two years at Procter & Gamble as an assistant product manager before joining Stanford Graduate School of Business to get a Master of Business Administration degree. He dropped out of Stanford a year later when Gates persuaded him to work at Microsoft. Ballmer became Microsoft's 24th employee on June 11, 1980, the first business manager hired by Gates. 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% of the company.
Ballmer has headed several divisions within Microsoft, including Operating Systems Development, Operations, and Sales and Support. In July 1998, he was promoted to president, and on January 13, 2000, he was named chief executive officer when Gates stepped down from that position.
While Gates retains control of technological vision, Ballmer handles company finances. In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company. The same year, Ballmer ended the Microsoft stock-options program,[citation needed] a program he himself was instrumental in setting up in the early 1990s which made so many of its employees millionaires.
Ballmer is currently the longest-serving employee of Microsoft. Ballmer married Connie Snyder (a Microsoft employee) and has three children.
REVIEWS FOR STEVE BALLMER'S FIRST EP
"Inspiring. An inspirational voice to America's less fortunate"
-Billboard.com
"Through Steve Ballmer's songs we see God really DOES work in strange and mysterious ways!"
-The Pope
"They lyrics are pure genious. Amazing, insightful and never succumbing to potty humor."
-MTV
