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Steven Anthony Ballmer
Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American businessman and has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. Ballmer is the first person to become a billionaire (in U.S. dollars) based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which neither he nor a relative was the founder. In its 2006 "World's Richest People" ranking, Forbes magazine ranked Ballmer as the 24th richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $13.6 billion.
Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father, Frederick Ballmer, was a Swiss immigrant; his mother, Beatrice Dworkin, was Jewish.[citation needed] Ballmer grew up with his younger sister in Farmington Hills near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Company.
During his studies at the Detroit Country Day School, Ballmer was the manager of the school's basketball team. In 1973, he graduated from school with a grade point average of 4.0 and was the valedictorian of his class. He scored a perfect 800 on the math SAT[citation needed] and competed in math tournaments. Ballmer won a scholarship to Harvard College. During his freshman year he developed a close friendship with his dormmate, Bill Gates, a friendship that continued even after Gates dropped out of Harvard to start his own software company, Microsoft. At Harvard, Ballmer was the advertising manager for both The Harvard Crimson and The Harvard Advocate. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in applied mathematics and economics in 1977.
Ballmer is currently the longest-serving employee of Microsoft. Ballmer married Connie Snyder (a Microsoft employee) and has three children.
Trivia
- In 1991 he blew out his vocal cords in Japan requiring him to have surgery to repair his throat. Urban legend has it that his screaming caused the damage but in and interview he put the record straight:
- It's actually the funniest story, because people assume it's from yelling. It's not. It's exactly the opposite. I went on a tour in Asia and I had a cold, which is always tough on the vocal cords. And so I got a sore throat on the airplane. And I got to Japan and I had to give a speech to a group of (computer-makers), and I didn't have my voice. I had laryngitis. So I whispered my speech. Whispering is the hardest thing on your vocal cords, by far. It is a vocal abuse nightmare.
- Before they did the surgery, I had to take eight weeks of voice training ... they don't want to go in and take these nodules off the vocal cords and see you back in six months because you're still abusing your vocal cords. It's part of the next round of prevention.
