Steve Ballmer is the former CEO of Microsoft and has a net worth of $21 billion. Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft from January 2000 to February 2014 and was succeeded by Satya Nadella. Even though he stepped down as CEO, Ballmer still remains on the board of directors at Microsoft. Here are five things you (probably) didn’t know about Steve Ballmer.
He scored a perfect 800 on the math section of his SATs.
Steve Ballmer was a math whiz even going as far back as high school. Born in Detroit, Ballmer went to Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, Michigan, while also taking college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University. All this excellent probably helped him achieve a perfect score of 800 on the math section of the SAT. It’s not reported how Ballmer did on the verbal section, but I’m sure he had to do pretty well on that as well to end up going to the college he attended, which was…
He went to Harvard.
…Harvard. Ballmer, like Bill Gates, who he actually met while at school, attended the prestigious Ivy League university, but, unlike Gates and Paul Allen, Ballmer actually graduated from Harvard. While there, Ballmer worked on The Harvard Crismon newspaper and was the manager for the football team. Ballmer ended up graduating from Harvard University magna cum laude with an A.B. in applied mathematics and economics, and he now sits on the board of directors for the university. After working for two years at Procter and Gamble, Ballmer went to Stanford Graduate School of Business for about a year before dropping out and joining Microsoft in 1980.
He’s all about Seattle Sports and making them even better.
Ballmer did his best to keep the SuperSonics in Seattle before they became the Oklahoma City Thunder by forging a partnership with Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, investing $150 million into the team and proposing a $300 million renovation of the KeyArena. He also attempted to purchase the Sacramento Kings and bring them to Seattle through a $650 million deal that would have provided the team with an entirely new arena, but that deal also fell through. Just this year, however, Ballmer did buy the Los Angeles Clippers from Donald Sterling, after his major scandal, for $2.15 billion. The NBA approved his bid on June 4, 2014, and it is unclear Ballmer will try to move the Clippers to Seattle at any point in the near future.
He’s probably the world’s most energetic businessman.
Steve Ballmer is known for being one of the most enthusiastic executives that was ever a part of Microsoft, or the tech world in general. He would high five customers at Microsoft Store openings and even found himself with the supposed nickname of “Monkey Boy.” To see someone of Ballmer’s unmatched energy, you can Google “Steve Ballmer goes crazy” or “Steve Ballmer goes nuts” and are sure to find some type of video that will show you just how pumped up the man gets about his business and just how competitive he can get.
He appeared in South Park.
Okay, so Ballmer himself didn’t actually appear and voice his own character, but South Park did feature their own animated versions of both him and Bill Gates in their recent Game of Thrones parody trilogy. In the episode, Gates actually “fires” Ballmer by killing him after his performance as CEO ends up hurting Micorsosft during the extremely tense video game war between the Xbox One and the Playstation 4. It’s as absolutely as ridiculous as it sounds, but it’s also pretty darn funny.
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