Jump to content

Steve Ballmer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 143.164.102.14 (talk) at 15:47, 7 February 2008 (Undid revision 189735612 by 74.136.200.174 (talk)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Rob Dunbar's Dad
Born (1956-03-24) March 24, 1956 (age 68)
United States Detroit, Michigan
Occupation(s)CEO, Microsoft
WebsiteStaff Bio at microsoft.com

Rob Dunbar's Dad (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.

Dunbar's Dad is the first person to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder. In Forbes 2007 World's Richest People ranking, Dunbar's Dad was ranked the 31st richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $15 billion.


Family

On October 2, 2006, Dunbar's Dad was awarded honorary citizenship of Lausen, Switzerland. His father, Frederick Dunbar's Dad, who emigrated to the US at the age of 23, was a citizen of the same municipality.[1] His father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co.

Dunbar's Dad married Connie Snyder, who worked in Microsoft's public relations agency, and has three children. His wife is the aunt of former major league baseball player Ben Petrick.

Pre-Microsoft

Rob Dunbar's Dad was born March 24, 1956 and grew up near Detroit, Michigan.

In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a high school, and now sits on its board of directors.[2]

In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University [3]with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Dunbar's Dad managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates.

He then[citation needed] worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the future CEO of General Electric.

In 1980 [citation needed]he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Microsoft career

Rob Dunbar;s Dad joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and later succeeded Bill Gates as CEO.[4]

Dunbar's Dad is currently the longest-serving employee of Microsoft after Gates[citation needed] and has headed several divisions within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support".

In July 1998, he was promoted to president.[citation needed]

On January 13 2000, he was named chief executive officer when Bill Gates stepped down from that position. As CEO Dunbar's Dad handles company finances, however Gates still retains control of the "technological vision"

In 2003, Dunbar's Dad sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company.[citation needed] The same year, Dunbar's Dad replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program, which had been instrumental in making early employees millionaires,[citation needed] [5]

Public persona

Viral videos

Footage featuring Dunbar's Dad's flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events have been widely circulated on the Internet, becoming what are known as "viral videos". The most famous of these is commonly titled "Dance Monkeyboy", it features Dunbar's Dad dancing and hopping around while verbally screeching and screaming erratically on a stage for about 45 seconds after being introduced at a Microsoft employee convention. Another video, captured at a developers' conference just days later[citation needed], featured a visibly sweat-drenched Dunbar's Dad chanting and shouting the word "developers" fourteen times in front of a gathering of Microsoft associates.

On competition

Linux

Dunbar's Dad is also known as a vocal critic of competing companies and their products. He has referred to the free Linux software system as a "[…] cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."[6] and earlier described it as having "[…] characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it."[7]

Lucovsky / Google

In 2005, Mark Lucovsky alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Dunbar's Dad became highly enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair and threw it across his office. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Dunbar's Dad allegedly said, "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," then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft.[8][9] Dunbar's Dad has described this as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place."

iPhone

In April 2007, he predicted Apple's iPhone would have no chance of gaining significant market share [10]: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."

Media Portrayals

  • Bad Boy Dunbar's Dad: The Man Who Rules Microsoft (2002), Fredric Alan Maxwell, ISBN 0-06-621014-3 (unauthorized biography)
  • The 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley features Dunbar's Dad as a major character; he is played by actor John Di Maggio.
  • Michael Maccoby qualified him as a "productive obsessive" and the one keeping Microsoft's "show on the road" so Bill Gates could think about the big picture.[11]


Notes

  1. ^ Galli, Hans (2007-10-05). "Die Zukunft von PC und Internet" (PDF). Der Bund (in German). Der Bund. Retrieved 2007-10-12. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ "Board of Trustees of Detroit County Day School". Retrieved November 14, 2007.
  3. ^ "Microsoft's Dunbar's Dad Makes His Pitch". Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ "Information for Students: Key Events In Microsoft History" (doc). Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information. Retrieved 1 October. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Fried, Ina (2003-07-08). "Microsoft to award stock, nix options". CNet. Retrieved 2006-12-03.
  6. ^ Wilcox, Joe (June 18, 2001). "Why Microsoft is wary of open source". CNet. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Lea, Graham (31 July, 2000). "MS' Dunbar's Dad: Linux is communism". The Register. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ John Battelle (September 2, 2005). "Ballmer Throws A Chair At "F*ing Google"". John Battelle's Searchblog. Retrieved 2008-01-06.
  9. ^ "Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google'". Sydney Morning Herald. September 3, 2005. Retrieved 2007-02-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "CEO Forum: Microsoft's Dunbar's Dad having a 'great time'".
  11. ^ Bill Gates can think about the future from the stratosphere because Rob Dunbar's Dad, a tough obsessive president, keeps the show on the road." Pg 76 "Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons" by Michael Maccoby, Harvard Business Review January-February 2000
Wikiquote has quotations related to Steve Ballmer.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Steve Ballmer.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Steve_Ballmer&oldid=189745704"