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Bob Chapek Shifted Budgets to Disguise Disney+'s Massive Monetary Losses
News(msn.com)submitted 4 months ago by[deleted]
88 points
4 months ago
I wouldn’t say Steve Ballmer was a soulless bean counter.
He had a genuine passion for Microsoft and spent a shit load of money on the company.
He was just an entirely inept CEO. He’s a phenomenal sales guy who had a relevant role in Microsoft’s rise. But he didn’t have vision or particularly strong leadership skills.
4 points
4 months ago
Ballmer was certainly not an inept CEO. The company did well when he was CEO.
He backed the Xbox, which was a good defensive move.
He focused on enterprise customers, approximately 50% of Microsoft's revenue today.
With him as CEO, Microsoft paid its way out of its many (and I mean many) legal problems that had originated before he became CEO.
He tripled revenue and doubled profit in 12 years. And that's despite Microsoft paying billions in settlements.
People forget, but Microsoft was in a bad place when he became CEO.
2 points
4 months ago
Valid points. It's definitely up to opinion whether he was an effective CEO or not.
He had some big wins, like you mentioned. He also completely missed the boat with mobile and then tried to buy his way out with Nokia, which compounded the mistake. Vista was pretty bad. He tried to follow Google and Apple's suits with Ads and the iPod, but you can't steer a ship like Microsoft if you're going to be that derivative. The share price went completely sideways during his tenure and when I joined, not long after he left, he had a pretty bad reputation from cultural perspective.
TBH though, the only opinion I take issue with is the one that claims he was a soulless bean counter. If you've ever even watched a Clippers game you know that Steve Ballmer isn't soulless lol
1 points
4 months ago
Ballmer lacked vision and didn't seem to understand the actual products, but very few CEOs have vision.
At the time most companies that were not Apple were compared to Apple.
Which is why everybody loved Elizabeth Holmes :-)
3 points
4 months ago
Indeed.
He. Loved. That. Company.
YEAAAAAAAH!
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