Book description
This work offers a summary of "Bad Boy Ballmer" by Fredric
Maxwell. Bill Gates is a name inextricably linked to Microsoft, and it
always will be. What many people don't realize is that Steve Ballmer
works so closely alongside him that they almost act as a single unit.
"Gates is the techie, the strategist, the commander-in-chief,
whilst Ballmer is the business guy, the tactician, the field
marshal." Although neither of his parents had the privilege of
attending college, Steve Ballmer's parents always assumed he would.
Fredric Maxwell describes Steve as "the brightest of the bright.
Everybody, after a few minutes, would now his amazing
intelligence." He was smart, loud, and hard to miss. He started at
Harvard in the summer of 1973 where he met Bill Gates. There different
personalities drew them together and they became close friends. Gates
was anti-social, entrepreneurial, rich and highly opinionated while
Ballmer was very sociable, thrifty and outgoing. After college Steve got
a job at Proctor and Gamble, after which he applied to Stanford Business
School. At the time when he was applying for his summer internship he
was approached by his old friend Bill Gates who offered him a job at his
newly founded company, Microsoft. After some hesitation, Ballmer
accepted the job of 'assistant to the president', making him the 28th
employee of Microsoft (which, at the time, was essentially a group of
programmers). From managing the firm's recruitment, to fending off
competitors, and eventually becoming the company's CEO, this summary
tells the amazing story of a highly intelligent, focused and inspiring
individual.
