Steve Ballmer Quotes

We're going to try to do more to communicate the value of activation to customers in addition to making the process simpler and more consistent.

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

I didn't leave business school to go bankrupt.

If I was in government and running government, I think I would use the government data, because I wouldn't know where else to look, quite frankly. And if I didn't like that data, I would work hard to make sure it got better and better and better, whether it was at the state or local or federal level.

Make hiring a top priority.

Since I'm not a seller of the stock, I don't really care what it is today.

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.

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

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.

This is a great opportunity for Don, and I wish him success. I am incredibly proud of the work and vision culminating in Xbox One. I'm particularly excited about how Xbox pushes forward our devices and services transformation by bringing together the best of Microsoft.

Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.

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

Accessible design is good design.

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

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

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.

Our goal in making these changes is to enable Microsoft to achieve greater agility in managing the incredible growth ahead and executing our software-based services strategy.

The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone

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.

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

There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category. It is bad for the long-term worth of the economy.

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.

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.

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.

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

I've found three or four things that are quite interesting to me that I'm focused on. That's been fun.The Clippers is obviously one of them.

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

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

Almost three years ago, when I retired, my wife and I were talking about our philanthropic work and how does one help give opportunity, particularly to kids growing up in very disadvantaged situations.And my initial kind of sense was, the government does that primarily, and what we should mostly do is pay our taxes. My wife said, no, I don't think that's quite right for us. We need to do more. We can do better.

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

I meet with Satya [Nadella] what probably amounts to four or five times a year - either to brainstorm something or just as a shareholder, we'll sit down and chat. That's always quite helpful for me and hopefully him in terms of thinking things through. I still have a number of friends and colleagues who occasionally want to brainstorm or chat about something, and that's always fun.

There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete, we're going to compete very, very hard.

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.

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.

The one thing that I think separates Microsoft from a lot of other people is we make bold bets. We're persistent about them, but we make them. A lot of people won't make a bold bet. A bold bet doesn't assure you of winning, but if you make no bold bets you can't continue to succeed. Our industry doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels forever. I mean, you can milk any great idea. Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.

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.

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.

We're very focused in on outcomes for government with respect to the amount of tax that goes in and the amount of expenditures that go out.

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.

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.

From a client perspective, I really think the work Microsoft's doing with Surface, with HoloLens, with Xbox, that stuff's absolutely essential to the company's future. Because innovation in the future will either be from the cloud out to all devices, or from devices as supported by software in the cloud. I think it's important for Microsoft to participate both ways.

The world is changing, but so is Microsoft.

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.

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.

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

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

Developers, developers, developers...

I love the fact that Satya Nadella's checked the checkbox for cross-platform for a number of our services. I still think it's very important to do the right kind of innovative integration across Windows and our hardware platforms with our cloud services. I think the company's doing a lot of good stuff. Real competition in AWS. Real competition in terms of the clients, particularly from a hardware perspective, there's also [competition] from Chrome. But all in all pretty good.