Winning the Race to Billions: Stock Options Trader and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

It's all about Steve

Steve Anthony Ballmer was born on March 24, 1956 in Detroit, Michigan. He studied at Detroit Country Day School and graduated in Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics. He also attended Stanford University Graduate of Business.

During college, Ballmer managed the college football team and worked on the school paper.

Aside from working in Proctor and Gamble and later in Microsoft Corporation, we can only guess how Steve Ballmer got his billions. He was neither connected nor a relative of Bill Gates yet he was able to get his current worth while juggling his stock options while he was still in the company.

How it all started

Steve Ballmer worked in Microsoft in different divisions such as Operating Systems Development, Sales and Support and Operations. On 1998, due to his hard work and patience, he was promoted as President of the company and later became the Chief Executive Officer when Gates stepped down in 2000.

Gates at the time may have stepped down from being a CEO, but he was still head of the technological division while Ballmer headed the finance department. Ballmer was also noted to have replaced the stock option program of the company which has a habit of turning mere employees into millionaire.

The heat of the competition

Steve Ballmer is well known for his heated sense of competition; not only was he loyal to the Microsoft Corporation but also to everything about it as well, which includes all that came from it.

He and his family, with wife Connie Snyder (which is also an employee of Microsoft) and children were all brought up to hate Google and iPod. He admonished Linux software system as a parasite and attributes it to communism which attaches itself to other software and bleeding it dry. He also criticized iPod on how the popular brand "stole" its music format from the company and never made its own. He was asked in a press release if his has ever used an iPod which he answered "No, I do not, nor my children."