Steve Ballmer

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation

Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born 24 March 1956) is an American businessman and investor who was the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft from January 13, 2000, to February 4, 2014.

Quotes

1990s

• When we tell the story about what's happening today with browsers ten years from now, I want the thing that replaces Windows to be Windows. I don't want to wake up in a position one day where the guys at Netscape say, "Isn't Windows just that little thing that we use to put up menus and draw lines? Let's just write our own and suck it up into our client."
  • Interview by CNET (May 1996)

2000s

I have four words for you. I. Love. This. Company. Yes!

• I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.
  • "DOJ Case: Your Voice Counts!". Freedom to Innovate Network. Microsoft (17 January 2000). Retrieved on 2018-01-03.

• Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Come on! Get up, get up! Come on! Come on, give it up for me! Whoo! Whoo! Come on! Who said 'sit down'? I have four words for you. I. Love. This. Company. Yes!
  • 25th Anniversary Event of Microsoft at Seattle (5 September 2000).

• We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is "stolen".
  • Lettice, John (7 October 2004). "Love DRM or my family starves: why Steve Ballmer doesn't Get It". Software (The Register). Retrieved on 2007-04-20. 

• Most people still steal music.
  • McCue, Andy, and Michael Parsons (5 October 2004). "Ballmer talks tech". Application Development (ZDNet News). Retrieved on 2007-04-20. 

• Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
  • "Microsoft CEO takes launch break with the Sun-Times" (1 June 2001) Chicago Sun Times

• I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.
  • Demos, Telis (29 March 2006). "The sleeping giant goes on the offensive". Fortune (CNNMoney.com). Retrieved on 2007-04-20. 

• I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.
  • "Ballmer says Google's hiring pace is 'insane'". Bloomberg News. 16 March 2007. Retrieved on 2007-04-20. 

• Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.
  • Steve Ballmer - Developers. YouTube. Retrieved on 2017-04-02.

• There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.
  • CEO Forum: Microsoft's Ballmer having a 'great time'. USA TODAY. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.

• [Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. … If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.
  • Worth Watching: Steve Ballmer in the heart of Silicon Valley in ZDNet (26 September 2008)

• All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.
  • Ballmer sees Mac as a main competitor, iPhone as just buzz in AppleInsider (24 February 2009)

• You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones.
  • TechCrunch Interview With Steve Ballmer in YouTube (24 September 2009)

• Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications — they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.
  • Ballmer: "The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone" in Business Insider (21 October 2009)

2010s

We are in the Windows era — we were, we are, and we always will be.

• Whatever device you use... Windows will be there. … Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise.
  • Live from Microsoft's CES 2011 keynote in Engadget (5 January 2011)

• We are in the Windows era — we were, we are, and we always will be.
  • Ballmer: We Will ALWAYS Be In The Windows Era in Business Insider (15 November 2011)

• I don't think anyone has done a [tablet] product that I see customers wanting.
  • Here's Why Surface Beats Apple's iPad: Ballmer. CNBC's Squawk Box (25 October 2012). Retrieved on 2014-02-28.

• We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it's the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We'll see what winds up mattering in tablets.
  • Ballmer's New Mission for Microsoft. The Wall Street Journal (29 October 2012). Retrieved on 2014-02-28.

• Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware-software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.
  • Steve Ballmer says Microsoft plans to compete with Apple in every market in AppleInsider (10 July 2012)
• Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.
  • "Ballmer Boosts Harvard Computer Science Faculty" (13 November 2014)
• I think fully accepting that things are not the way they need to be, and going to work on those issues in a way that people understand you are serious about, as opposed to the tech industry generally appearing arrogant, I understand that.
  • Business Insider: "Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has advice for Facebook and Google: Don't make the mistake we did" (23 June 2018)
• Is there fake news on Facebook? Of course there is. I could go right now on Facebook and say there’s an earthquake, Richter scale 7, in Washington, D.C. And should I be allowed to do that or should that be something that somehow Facebook has a way to control? I don’t know. I get how Facebook could control advertising. I don’t get how they’re a value proposition, which people – the world does like. I don’t understand how it works at all if you have no freedom of speech, even if you are saying things that are patently false.
  • Yahoo Finance: "Ex-Microsoft CEO Ballmer: How Silicon Valley should handle some of its most vexing questions" (22 June 2018)
• My dad said, "What the heck is software?" and my mom said, "Why would a person ever need a computer?" They said, "OK, OK, we hear you, but if it doesn't work out, you'll go back to business school right?" And I said "Right," and I never came back.
  • CNBC: "How Steve Ballmer went from making $50,000 a year as an assistant at Microsoft to becoming a billionaire" (27 July 2018)

Attributed

• Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google.
  • Attributed by Mark Lucovsky in court documents. Carlson, Nicholas (14 July 2009). "Google Loses Prized Engineering Director". Business Insider, Inc.. Retrieved on 2011-12-21. 
  • In a statement, Ballmer described Lucovsky's recollection as a "gross exaggeration. Mark's decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate." (author unidentified) (3 September 2005). "Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google'". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2007-01-26. 

• Google’s not a real company. It's a house of cards.
  • 2005 court records as quoted by Kurt Eichenwald in Microsoft's Lost Decade Vanity Fair (August 2012)

See also

• Bill Gates