Steve Ballmer is the Chief Executive Officer of the Microsoft Corporation

Steve Ballmer is the Chief Executive Officer of the Microsoft Corporation, one of the world's leading software development companies. Microsoft is best known for its Windows operating system for personal computing devices and the Microsoft Office Suite.

Steven Anthony Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 24th, 1956. His father was a Swiss immigrant who worked as a manager at the Ford Motor Company and his mother was a Jewish American. Raised with academic values, Ballmer graduated from Detroit County Day School in 1973 (where he now sits on the board of directors). While there he managed the school's basketball team and graduated as valedictorian.

With a perfect score of 800 in the mathematical section of the SATs, he was accepted into Harvard where he befriended Bill Gates, the man who eventually created Microsoft. Although Ballmer was interested in business and Gates prone to computer programming, they seemed to make a good match.

While in college, Steve Ballmer sold ads for the Harvard Crimson, managed the football team, and worked on the Harvard Advocate. After graduating magna cum laude in 1977 with a degree in applied mathematics, Ballmer joined the staff at Procter & Gamble to work as an assistant product manager. Despite his success working on publicity campaigns such as Duncan Hines Brownie Mix, Ballmer decided to return to school for his MBA after two years with the company. He quickly enrolled in Stanford Graduate School of Business.

After his first year at Stanford, Steven Ballmer decided to head up to Seattle to take a job with Microsoft for the summer. At the time Microsoft had only 23 employees and a total of $12.5 in annual sales. After a summer of work, Gates managed to convince Ballmer to quit school and work for Microsoft full time. They agreed on a salary of $50,000 and 7% ownership of the business. Ballmer never went back to Stanford.

As the first business manager hired by Bill Gates, Ballmer took control of employee pay scales and managed to double the number of employees. While Gates continued to work on the evolution of the software industry, Ballmer focused on building a greater financial structure for the company.

Over time Steve Ballmer headed various divisions within the company such as Operating Systems Development, Sales and Support, and Operations. With his strong work ethic and equally intensive management, Gates promoted Ballmer to President in July of 1998. Two years later he was named Chief Executive Officer when Gates resigned from the position. Although Bill Gates still maintains control over the "technological vision", Ballmer now controls the overall operations of Microsoft.

Ballmer sold of 8.3% of his stocks in 2003 but still maintains control over 4% of Microsoft shares. The same year saw Ballmer replacing Microsoft's employee stock option program with a stock grant program.

Steve Ballmer, a Detroit Pistons fan (NBA basketball team), has been happily married to Connie Snyder since 1990 and is the proud father of two sons. He is described as a funny, focused, passionate, sincere, and dynamic man that has infused Microsoft with energetic leadership and vision over his time with the company.

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