Steve Ballmer Quotes & Sayings

I have four words for you: I love this company, yeah! — Steve Ballmer

[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum ... If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue. — Steve Ballmer

I don't know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me. — Steve Ballmer

The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone — Steve Ballmer

Accessible design is good design - it benefits people who don't have disabilities as well as people who do. Accessibility is all about removing barriers and providing the benefits of technology for everyone. — Steve Ballmer

I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad. — Steve Ballmer

Make hiring a top priority. — Steve Ballmer

Our industry is going through quite a wave of innovation and it's being powered by a phenomenon which is referred to as the cloud. — Steve Ballmer

In a sense technology is a tool of sort of individual choice, individual creativity, individual empowerment, individual access. My kids will never understand that it used to be kind of hard to access and find things, and know what the world knows and see what the world sees. Yet it becomes easier and easier every day. — Steve Ballmer

Most people still steal music. — Steve Ballmer

500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine. — Steve Ballmer

I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking. — Steve Ballmer

I'd rather use Windows and Internet Explorer in Hell than I'd use Linux and Mozilla Firefox in Heaven! — Steve Ballmer

I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life. — Steve Ballmer

Accessible design is good design. — Steve Ballmer

It's the luxury of time that lets me in some ways now spoil myself. I get my workout in every day. I get a good, long sleep every day. I won't say they're guilty pleasures. When I first left Microsoft, I would say I spent the better part of a year saying, "OK, how do I get as busy and crazy and manic as I was at Microsoft?" Since then I said, "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity." — Steve Ballmer

In terms of the public positioning of the company, Satya's [Nadella] done a very good job. He sort of pivoted in a way that I don't think would have been possible for me to do even if I'd seen it that way, to really talk about this mobile-first, cloud-first world. — Steve Ballmer

I think there are lots of opportunities to improve the product. When you read the press, people say, "Oh, the product needs improvement." I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product. That leaves more upside from an innovation and revenue potential than you're gonna find in [a] lot of places. So you could say that's a downside, I see that as an opportunity. — Steve Ballmer

Every NBA arena has six cameras in the ceiling. The question is what does the software do with video feeds? How to surface that in a set of analytics? There are some "playbooks," but in most sports these days what you really want to share out with coaches and players is a set of video that lets you visualize what's going on and what's the best way to do things. — Steve Ballmer

It's always great when you get a lot of people pushing themselves to do better, be better, invent better, better serve, better lead customers in new directions. — Steve Ballmer

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders. — Steve Ballmer

Our company has to be a company that enables its people. — Steve Ballmer

Analytics only goes so far. Basketball, more than baseball, for example, is really a team sport. — Steve Ballmer

Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards. — Steve Ballmer

Certainly, we continue to bring in new people. We'll hire, net new, over 4,000 people this year, and attract great people into the company. I'm very bullish about the employee base and what it can accomplish. — Steve Ballmer

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world. — Steve Ballmer

Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have. — Steve Ballmer

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that. — Steve Ballmer

Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications - they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone. — Steve Ballmer

The world is changing, but so is Microsoft. — Steve Ballmer

My wife spent a lot of time on what we do from a civic contribution giving perspective, for a number of years, I've really joined her in that. We're focused on issues in the United States, particularly issues with people who have been trapped in neighborhoods in what I might call intergenerational poverty. — Steve Ballmer

No. 1 thing is that life is just not as interrupt-driven as when you're running a company. — Steve Ballmer

It's hard to invent a new thing, and it's just as hard to invent another new thing. — Steve Ballmer

"There's no CEO for the government." But if you were CEO for a day at the government, would you have tools and reports and wherewithal to look at government the way a business would look at its lines of business, its spending, its revenue? I've actually been working, first by myself and then with a group of people, on then on and off, and now much more on, almost since the I time left Microsoft. — Steve Ballmer

We will make our products work out of the box. — Steve Ballmer

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. — Steve Ballmer

A plane is a guilty pleasure. I have one. It's a great luxury. I appreciate it. I couldn't do what I do. It's not something you can write down as anything other than, "Wow, I can't believe I have this and I'm absolutely spoiled and entitled." On the other hand, I have one and I use it. — Steve Ballmer

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. — Steve Ballmer

We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference. — Steve Ballmer

I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft. — Steve Ballmer

I'd like to own Microsoft shares until I either give something to charity or I die. — Steve Ballmer

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team. — Steve Ballmer

The stock market has always had its own meter. Sometimes it's ahead of itself, sometimes it's behind itself. A broken watch is right twice a day. — Steve Ballmer

We're going to think big, we're going to bet big. — Steve Ballmer

You get some success. You run into some walls ... it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success. — Steve Ballmer

I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06. — Steve Ballmer

I'm not an insider. I'm not on the board. I'm an outsider. That implies a certain kind of separation ... because the company can't, without an appropriate nondisclosure and trading rules, share confidential data with me that it would not share with any other shareholder. You could say that implies a certain kind of separation. — Steve Ballmer

I think PCs are going to continue to shift in form factor. The real question is: What's a PC? — Steve Ballmer

We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either. — Steve Ballmer

It actually turns out to be much harder to really understand government across state local and federal. — Steve Ballmer

I like to tell people that all of our products and business will go through three phases. There's vision, patience, and execution. — Steve Ballmer

In many ways I think the company's doing quite a good job. If you look at the transition to Office 365 we started when I was there, I'm excited about that and I think the company's doing a great job on that. — Steve Ballmer

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation. — Steve Ballmer

If you look at companies with upside potential, Twitter's right there. They've established a brand in a world where it's extremely difficult to establish a brand. It's a global brand, people recognize it, people want to let you know what their Twitter handles are, etc. — Steve Ballmer

I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly. — Steve Ballmer

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally. — Steve Ballmer

There are other ways I think of myself as spoiling myself ... I ... get a massage once a week. Other people can, I didn't used to, and I can now. — Steve Ballmer

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. — Steve Ballmer

We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get. — Steve Ballmer

Baseball is a set of individuals doing their thing in the same team, but it's much more individual. In basketball people are making real time decisions about who gets the ball, do we trust everybody out on the court, and the analytics certainly don't show you all those subtle dynamics, but they're very important. — Steve Ballmer

I don't think there is one size that fits all [] I've been to too many meetings with journalists who spent the first 10 minutes of the meeting setting up iPad to look like a laptop. — Steve Ballmer

Eventually the Internet will be accessed by PC, television, and wireless devices. — Steve Ballmer

Everyone likes to differentiate between business and consumers but I don't see the difference really. Most people are people. I get personal and business mail and I have one set of contacts from my life. I don't want to manage two sets. I want one view of my world. — Steve Ballmer

As a shareholder I have expressed my frustration with not getting more information about revenue and margins from the cloud. — Steve Ballmer

I would love to see all open-source innovation happen on top of Windows. — Steve Ballmer

I'm a shareholder in Microsoft Corp. of some size, and while I don't work for the place anymore, I think a lot about that investment, how - as an outsider - might I add value or not add value? Do I believe that things are headed in a good direction? So I wouldn't say I spend the majority of my time on that, but I spend some time on that as well. — Steve Ballmer

I can tell you first-hand from my experiences with Sacramento, the league does try to honor the fan bases it has, and encourage teams to stay in their home markets. — Steve Ballmer

I've been doing lot of work, and hopefully will bring it to fruition in a way people can see it, really understanding - this is going to sound funny, but what does government really do, how is it really funded, and what measures exist to evaluate how it does at what it does? No forecast, no policy, no prediction, just a realistic perspective on what is. Call it like a "10k for government" we've been working on with a website, with additional data. — Steve Ballmer

Only our company and a handful of others are poised to write the future. — Steve Ballmer

[At Microsoft] I had many years of experience and history and seeing connections. With my direct reports, the job at Microsoft was to delegate and then be able to properly review, but not to micromanage. To have a way of connecting and integrating without getting in the way. — Steve Ballmer

I don't have a lot of experience running basketball teams.I'm just trying to get smart enough even to understand everything going on. As much of a fan as I am, I haven't played the game since ninth-grade. If you told me when I bought the team that there were 12 kinds of pick and rolls, I would've told you I have no frickin' clue about that. — Steve Ballmer

I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work, — Steve Ballmer

When you take a look at the transition from server software to Azure, what's going on in terms of cloud infrastructure, the company is absolutely the No. 1 company serving enterprise backbone needs, which is fantastic. It's making the migration to cloud. We started a good thing with Azure, and the company has made well more than two years of progress in terms of being able to compete with the right cost profile, margin structure, and innovation versus Amazon. — Steve Ballmer

I'm going to f
ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f
ing kill Google. — Steve Ballmer

I loved every minute of my time at Microsoft, but I had always envisioned having another phase of life just because I thought that would be interesting. It had never been my plan to work until I literally didn't want to do anything and then hang it up. — Steve Ballmer

Not only because the product wasn't a great product, but remember it took us five or six years to ship it. Then we had to sort of fix it. That was what I might call Windows 7. — Steve Ballmer

All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android. — Steve Ballmer

I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs,and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people. — Steve Ballmer

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there. — Steve Ballmer

The company I invested in is probably a leader in that area. They're a company called Second Spectrum, which happens to be based in LA but was started by two USC computer-science professors. It's filled with guys who love sports, who played sports, but really look like programmers. — Steve Ballmer

You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone, — Steve Ballmer

So, I think the output of our innovation is great. We have a culture of self-improvement. I know we can continue to improve. There is no issue. But at the same time, our absolute level of output is fantastic. — Steve Ballmer

I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value. — Steve Ballmer

The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There's nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn't think they could do the day before. — Steve Ballmer

It's how tenacious you are that will determine your success. — Steve Ballmer

I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative. — Steve Ballmer

I want people to understand the amazing, positive way our software can make leisure time more enjoyable, and work and businesses more successful. — Steve Ballmer

Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders. — Steve Ballmer

The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen.' — Steve Ballmer

My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod. — Steve Ballmer

You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones. — Steve Ballmer

I'm very, very bullish about our prospects, and as I tell our board, as I tell our employees, this is the time to invest. There's so much opportunity. Let's just invest in that opportunity, and really get after it. — Steve Ballmer

As a global company, our future growth and success requires that we constantly look at ways to improve our ability to serve customers worldwide. — Steve Ballmer

Great companies with the way they work, first start with great leaders. — Steve Ballmer

If the CEO doesn't see the playing field, nobody else can. The team may need to see it too, but the CEO really needs to be able to see the entire competitive space. — Steve Ballmer

There's a huge crowd out there that basically will go nuts recommending to every coach on the planet, "Hey, coach, I've been playing with the analytics. I think you should do X, Y, and Z." — Steve Ballmer

The way I do things I usually always prefer to have a very clear strategy and be very focused. At the same time to be very rock solid, and crisp in execution. — Steve Ballmer

At Microsoft, we're investing heavily in security because we want customers to be able to trust their computing experiences, so they can realize the full benefits of the interconnected world we live in. — Steve Ballmer

Getting the big things right that make all the money, that's long cycle, really executing in a way that allows you to do it, that's short cycle. — Steve Ballmer

In general, I'm pretty busy with the other things I charted ... I bought a piece of a sports-tech company. We do a lot of work with at the Clippers. I think that'll be great. We're really looking at the possibility of extending and building a real over-the-top distribution channel with value-added services for the Clippers, that could lead to other partnerships and investments. But most of the stuff I'm looking at isn't because I say, "Hey, I want to invest." It sort of comes around from the work we're doing with the Clippers. — Steve Ballmer