It’s an interesting story HOW he got such a large stake in Microsoft when he wasn’t a founder.<p>It boils down to Bill Gates organizing for Microsoft to lend Ballmer $50,000,000 to buy Microsoft shares and then Ballmer making clever further purchases when the share price was down for unimportant reasons.
That's basically the definition of investing, and that's basically how most wealthy people accrue their money, it just so happens that his investment was on something that turned out to be very big.
Nothing? Then anyone could do it. No, he first made billions, and is investing it (enabling the company's operations to do <i>something</i>) with risk of losing a billion to make it. It's not physical labour, but it's certainly <i>something</i>. I don't think this is the most effective way of distributing capital, but wouldn't call it nothing.
The kernel of truth here is that it is, in fact, absolutely remarkable for a single individual to earn over a billion dollars in cold hard cash dividends from a single stock in one year. I don't think that has ever occured before.
When Ballmer was CEO, he has to be involved personally in every deal $10M+. No one doubts he excelled at being a great cheerleader but a CEO needs to lead and have an achievable vision that shapes the future.
Silly article. Lots of talk about big numbers. Keep in mind a billion doesn't necessarily buy you the same as it did when Microsoft started. So large part of these numbers is just due to inflation. Also taxes will take a huge chunk. And what would happen to MS stock if he actually started to dump a bunch of it? It would tank and he'd never realize all those gains.<p>Yes, I'm jealous.