Steve Ballmer
Owner and Chairman, Los Angeles Clippers. On 2 shows, 1 appearance, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executiveinvestorfounder@Steven_Ballmer ↗usafacts.org ↗
Steve Ballmer served as Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer from 2000 to 2014 after joining as its 30th employee in 1980, overseeing the scaling of its enterprise software and server businesses. Today, he owns the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers and leads civic and charitable efforts, including USAFacts and the Ballmer Group.
2shows
1appearances
40statements
7resolved
6supported
1contradicted
86%fully supported
205said about them ↓ Everything Steve Ballmer said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Ballmer: Google remains only a one to one-and-a-half trick pony
“I might argue that Google's a one to one and a half trick pony. Still. I mean, if you just look at its revenue.”
Ballmer: Bill Gates and I did not speak for a year after I became CEO
“I think it was basically from sometime in about March or April of 2000 to 2001. I mean, literally we weren't speaking. I didn't know what it meant to be his boss and he didn't know what it meant to work for me.”
Ballmer: One of my major regrets is Microsoft losing its consumer muscle
“One of my regrets is we lost the consumer muscle along the way, because I think the ability to be ultra ultra, I mean, we're a great company, Microsoft's great company, but to have both of those muscles totally firing, if I'd been able to sustain that consumer…”
Ballmer: Microsoft wasn't seen as an enterprise company until late 2000s
“It was the late 2000. You know, certainly it wasn't before 2005. It wasn't the beginning of my tenure. We were still trying to prove that we were an enterprise company.”
Ballmer: Platforms must build the top first-party app to succeed
“Platforms need apps. You want to have the top first party app that runs on your platform. Otherwise your platform can't get good.”
Ballmer: Microsoft's mistake was forcing Windows into unnatural form factors
“I don't think we stuck with windows too long. I think what we did is we tried to put windows in places that it didn't naturally go, and we tried to be too windowsy, both in the API and the UI in some things.”
Ballmer: Mastering Voice Technology Requires Owning a Smartphone Platform
“There's so many technologies that are hard to not just popularize, but even get good at, unless you have a phone these days, just take voice. You know, if you want to really be good at voice. You got to get enough signal and you'll get the signal off the phone…”
Ballmer: Microsoft Built Surface Because PC OEMs Failed to Rival Mac
“There were no high end PCs that would really compete with Mac. And we, I decided the only way we were going to get there, we couldn't sit there with our OEM model and have it work. If we're going to have high end PCs that appealed to users, because I wanted us…”
Ballmer: Apple services is just iPhone monetization, not a new platform
“It's an additional monetization model, but it's not a new locomotive. A locomotive is a, the business that can pull the cabooses and the locomotive remains the phone. You know, the services business go away pretty quick if the phone volume fell apart.”
Ballmer: Microsoft only truly missed mobile devices and search
“So in the sense that we missed a major productivity area and we're in the productivity business and we were in the client Area, and we missed a client device. Those are the two. Nothing else we met, quote, missed.”
Ballmer: Longhorn was Microsoft's 'mistake of mistakes'
“Longhorn was a big mistake. I have to take accountability. I was a CEO. Bill's got to take a lot of accountability. And it was the mistake of mistakes.”
Ballmer: Gates strongly disagreed with Microsoft making Surface, phones, and HoloLens
“Disagreed about whether we should do hardware. That was a big one. We did, you know, surface was a big disagreement. Phone, big disagreement. HoloLens. Big disagreement.”
Ballmer: LA Clippers are far more secure than Microsoft stock
“No, that I do not own for financial purposes. And I will also tell you, unlike Microsoft, it cannot go to zero. Not a chance. It is far more secure than Microsoft. Why? They're not making more of them. And as long as anybody in the world's getting richer, the …”
Ballmer: Microsoft removed 'teamwork' as an official corporate value
“In Microsoft, I, we got rid of the value called teamwork. I didn't want that one. I said open and respectful and dedicated to making others better. Because teamwork could sound like a treat everybody, nice, nice.”
Ballmer: Intuit Dome bans visiting gear in its 4,000-seat fan section
“There's no suites on the side. We even built a student section right in the middle, i.e. It's standing room only. You must stand. That's what you have to agree to if you're going to sit there or be there. You have to agree to stand. You have to agree to cheer.…”
Ballmer: Visiting NBA teams shoot lowest free throw percentage against The Wall
“I saw data that said that the- Lowest free throw shooting percentage of the league for the visiting team is against the wall.”
Ballmer: Clippers Will Use Microsoft-Style Long-Term Grinding to Challenge Lakers
“Our goal is to be long-term grinders on that. And we want to beat them every time on the court. It's okay to have two popular teams. Los Angeles County, for gosh sakes, has the same number of people as the state of Ohio, pretty much. So there's plenty of peopl…”
Ballmer: Microsoft Office was the foundation for entering enterprise markets
“The truth of the matter is Microsoft office slash M three 65, whatever exactly it's called today is super important. It was the foundation for having permission to be in the enterprise. And yet it's a product that sits right there in front of users.”
Ballmer: Microsoft's first antitrust inquiry came from FTC over IBM collusion
“This was our first antitrust problem. I don't know if you guys know this, is the FTC at the time thought we and IBM were working to divide the market because we had done some positioning. What's windows good for? What's always too good for? We and IBM had done…”
Ballmer: The US military runs IT much better than civilian government
“And the military is a very, is a much more disciplined, advanced user of IT. They're just better. They're more professionally run than most parts of government.”
Ballmer: Office backend hit cloud infrastructure scale before Azure did
“The office three, what's now M three, 65, the office backend, because that got critical mass as a cloud infrastructure before Azure did.”
Ballmer: Verizon Chose Android Because Microsoft Missed Product Window
“Look, they would've taken our stuff cause they could put pressure back on the manufacturers, but we didn't have the stuff they wanted at the right time. They went Android.”
Ballmer: Azure started as PaaS to prioritize Windows developers
“We say we're going to build platform as a service because it's a Windows platform. Infrastructure as a service, a little bit if you think about it, you're sort of by nature accepting everybody's infrastructure. It's by nature, multi quote, multi-platform. You …”
Ballmer: Microsoft's mindset of doing all software was an unfocused mistake
“We've got to do all the software that these things will ever need. I mean, it was still of the mindset that said, and that there's an arrogance to that, and there's a hunger to that. That says there's just nothing we shouldn't do. And I don't think that was a …”
The other half of the tape: Steve Ballmer's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 189 times in 18 episodes across the shows. 16 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most David Rosenthal 94Ben Gilbert 88M.G. Siegler 6Michael Lewis 1
Statements about Steve Ballmer, by other people (16)
Rosenthal: Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie deserve all credit for Azure's vision
“I kind of think all of the credit for the vision for it and the championing it for the initial seven years within Microsoft goes to Steve and to Ray.”
Gilbert: Popular belief that Nadella originated Azure is historically inaccurate
“As the general public is concerned, Steve Ballmer was obsessed with Windows. He built the enterprise business. He left. Satya Nadella came in and launched Azure, and Azure has been great. Like, not exactly. That's not really what happened.”
Rosenthal: Microsoft's flat stock under Ballmer stemmed from failing to tell its narrative
“And I think what I realized a few minutes ago as we were talking is, this was the biggest failure of the company during this period. They did not tell their story, right? And so much of what we think of as the losses from this timeframe, and certainly everythi…”
Rosenthal: Ballmer replaced Muglia despite Server & Tools making $12B and growing fast
“Bob was crushing it as Head of server and tools. Revenue was growing, I don't know, 30, 40% a year. It's a twelve billion dollar business. But the reason that Steve made the change was he said, we need a new leader who's going to come in and change this organi…”
Rosenthal: Ballmer-era server products all became multi-billion-dollar revenue businesses
“These are All, every single one of those names I just mentioned become multi-billion dollar revenue enterprise IT server products that are built and sold during the Steve Ballmer era of Microsoft.”
DOJ Remedy Mandated Gates and Ballmer Work at Separate Breakup Entities
“Steve Ballmer had to work at one company, and Bill Gates had to work at the other. They could not work at the same company. Each of those two, after they picked their companies, had to divest all of their shares From the one that was not their employer, so the…”
Rosenthal: Steve Ballmer called Vista the worst moment of his CEO tenure
“In that conversation that we had with Steve, where he, you know, made the comment about my acquisitions, my mistakes, we just lost money on the bad ones, the genesis of that conversation was about Vista. You know, he was reflecting, he said, that probably was …”
Rosenthal: Ballmer positioned Nadella in Server & Tools to become CEO
“It was, let's get this guy the right exposure to the right important things that he could be CEO of this company someday in the not very distant future.”
Gilbert: Microsoft P/E multiple compressed from 75x to 14x under Ballmer
“The P.E. Multiple went from 75 X to 14 X. The market cap when he was announced went from six hundred billion to when he left at three hundred and thirty billion.”
Bill Gates personally absorbed 3.5% equity dilution to hire Steve Ballmer
“In fact, it created some tension with Paul Allen, where Bill asked Paul if they could go to five percent. Paul said sure, and then Bill actually offered him eight and a half percent, and Paul got upset, and Bill said, I'll eat the three and a half percent. It …”
Rosenthal: Ballmer declared Microsoft 'all in' on cloud at UW in 2010
“In 2010, Ray Ozzie actually leaves the company, but as he's doing, he and Steve roll Red Dog, by this point in time renamed Azure, back into the server and tools business, and the two of them go to the University of Washington, and Steve gives a speech at the …”
Gilbert: Microsoft revenue grew 3.5x to $84B during Ballmer's CEO tenure
“Revenue went from twenty three billion to eighty four billion. That's a three and a half X over 14 years. Operating income went from twelve billion to thirty billion. So almost a three X.”
Rosenthal: Ray Ozzie began recruiting for Project Red Dog in January 2006
“And so in January, 2006, Ray with Steve Bomber's full blessing goes and starts recruiting for a secret project within Microsoft incubated outside any of the existing divisions.”
Rosenthal: Ballmer's famous 2000 stage dance occurred during breakup threat
“The crazy dancing on stage. I love this company. That was in September of 2000. When they thought they were gonna get broken up.”
Steve Ballmer outscored Bill Gates on the Putnam math exam
“Steve is the guy that outscored Bill Gates on the Putnam exam.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Acquired 183
Big Technology 6
2026 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2025 21 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode
- 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
- Google Part II: Alphabet (Audio) · Acquired
- Google Part I: Origins of Search. How the Best Business in Human History Happened (Audio) · Acquired
- OpenAI’s IPO Plan, Deconstructing The AI Bet, Apple’s iPhone 17 Revival
- Mark Zuckerberg’s Personal Superintelligence, Layoffs & Payoffs, Writing With AI — With M.G. Siegler
- The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bank · Acquired
- What Apple's Failures Say About AI's Limitations — With M.G. Siegler
- Indian Premier League Cricket (Audio) · Acquired
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 162 mentions in 3 episodes 54 per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Steve's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACQUIREDLEDGER | Owner and Chairman, Los Angeles Clippers | 1 | 40 | 86% 6/7 | full record on Acquired → |
| BIG TECHNOLOGYLEDGER | Owner and Chairman, Los Angeles Clippers | 0 +1 | 0 | — | full record on Big Technology → |