How Steve built the fortune
Ballmer was not one of Microsoft's founders, but he arrived early enough to receive a meaningful ownership stake. Bill Gates, a friend from Harvard, hired him in 1980 as the company's first business manager, and Ballmer was granted equity as the company grew. When Microsoft listed in 1986 he was already one of its largest shareholders.
What sets his story apart is that he never sold much. While Gates sold and gave away most of his Microsoft stock, Ballmer held on to the bulk of his, and he owns about 4 percent of the company. That decision has proved highly profitable. After he left the company in 2014, his successor Satya Nadella shifted its focus toward cloud computing and subscriptions, and Microsoft's market value rose many times over. Ballmer's stake grew with it, and the dividends it pays give him a large annual income.
His other major asset is the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, which he bought in 2014. Professional sports franchises have risen steeply in value since then, and the team's new arena has added to what the business is worth.
The Clippers purchase came after the league forced out the previous owner, Donald Sterling, over racist remarks, and Ballmer paid a record price for an NBA team at the time. Many observers considered the price too high. Since then, rising television and streaming deals, together with the arena project, have made the purchase look far more reasonable, and the team has become a meaningful part of his wealth alongside the Microsoft stake.
Companies and holdings
Ballmer's holdings are concentrated in a few areas:
- A large shareholding in Microsoft, where he is the biggest individual owner
- The Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association
- The Intuit Dome, the Clippers' privately financed arena in Inglewood, California, which opened in 2024
He left the Microsoft board in 2014, a few months after stepping down as chief executive, and has no management role at the company. As chief executive he oversaw the growth of Windows and Office into very large businesses, the launch of the Xbox console and the beginnings of the Azure cloud platform, but his tenure also included costly setbacks in mobile phones and internet search, including a write-down of the Nokia phone business it bought in 2014.
Early life and career
Steven Anthony Ballmer was born in Detroit in March 1956. His father emigrated from Switzerland and worked as a manager at Ford Motor Company, and his mother's family had roots in Belarus. He grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended Detroit Country Day School, where he excelled in mathematics.
At Harvard University he studied applied mathematics and economics, managed the football team and lived down the hall from Gates. After graduating in 1977 he worked as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, learning brand marketing, and then enrolled at Stanford's business school. He left Stanford in 1980 to join Microsoft. Over the next two decades he ran sales, support and operations, and became president in 1998. He succeeded Gates as chief executive in January 2000 and led the company for 14 years, during which its revenue and profits grew strongly even as its share price stalled.
Philanthropy and public life
Ballmer and his wife, Connie, run the Ballmer Group, which focuses on improving economic mobility for children and families in the United States. It funds organizations working on early childhood education, youth employment, behavioral health and data tools for social services, with a particular focus on Washington state, Los Angeles and Detroit. The couple has also made large gifts to the University of Oregon, where Connie Ballmer studied.
In 2017 he launched USAFacts, a nonpartisan nonprofit that gathers government data on spending, revenue and outcomes and presents it in plain language. He has said he started it after trying to understand where public money goes. Ballmer is known for his energetic style at public events and courtside at Clippers games, and he has taught classes on business and government at universities in California.