"Microsoft" Steve Ballmer Hand Signed 8X10 B&W Photo Todd Mueller COA

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Up for auction
"Microsoft" Steve Ballmer Hand Signed 8X10 B&W Photo.  This item is authenticated By Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity.
ES-3947D
Steven Anthony Ballmer
(
/ˈbɔːlmər/
; born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as the
chief executive officer
of
Microsoft
from 2000 to 2014 He is the current owner of the
Los Angeles Clippers
of the
National Basketball Association
(NBA). As of August 2021,
Bloomberg Billionaires Index
estimates his personal wealth at 8.5 billion, ranking him as the 8th richest person in the world.
Ballmer was hired by
Bill Gates
at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at
Stanford University
. He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by
Satya Nadella
; Ballmer remained on Microsoft's Board of Directors until August 19, 2014, when he left to prepare for teaching a new class. His
tenure and legacy as Microsoft CEO
has received mixed reception, with the company tripling sales and doubling profits, but losing its market dominance and missing out on
21st-century technology trends
such as the ascendance of
smartphones
in the form of
iPhone
and
Android
. Ballmer was born in
Detroit
, Michigan; he is the son of Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer (Fritz Hans Ballmer), a manager at the
Ford Motor Company
. His father was a Swiss immigrant who predicted that his son, at eight years old, would attend Harvard. His mother was
Belarusian Jewish
. Through his mother, Ballmer is a second cousin of actress and comedian
Gilda Radner
. Ballmer grew up in the affluent community of
Farmington Hills
,
Michigan
. Ballmer also lived in Brussels from 1964 to 1967, where he attended the
International School of Brussels
. In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at
Lawrence Technological University
. He graduated as
valedictorian
from
Detroit Country Day School
, a private
college preparatory school
in
Beverly Hills
,
Michigan
, with a score of 800 on the mathematical section of the
SAT
and was a
National Merit Scholar
. He formerly sat on the school's
board of directors
. In 1977, he graduated
magna cum laude
from
Harvard University
with a
Bachelor of Arts
in
applied mathematics
and economics. At college, Ballmer was a manager for the
Harvard Crimson football
team and a member of the
Fox Club
, worked on
The Harvard Crimson
newspaper as well as the
Harvard Advocate
, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore
Bill Gates
. He scored highly in the
William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
, an exam sponsored by the
Mathematical Association of America
, scoring higher than Bill Gates He then worked as an assistant product manager at
Procter & Gamble
for two years, where he shared an office with
Jeff Immelt
, who later became CEO of
General Electric
. After briefly trying to write screenplays in Hollywood, in 1980 Ballmer dropped out of the
Stanford Graduate School of Business
to join Microsoft. Ballmer joined
Microsoft
on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates. Ballmer was offered a salary of ,000 as well as 5-10% of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8% of the company. In 2003, Ballmer sold 39.3 million Microsoft shares equating to approximately 5 million, thereby reducing his ownership to 4%.The same year, he replaced Microsoft's
employee stock options
program. In the 20 years following his hire, Ballmer headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. From February 1992 onwards, he was Executive Vice President, Sales, and Support. Ballmer led Microsoft's development of the
.NET Framework
. Ballmer was then promoted to President of Microsoft, a title that he held from July 1998 to February 2001, making him the de facto number two in the company to the chairman and CEO, Bill Gates.