Summary: Bad Boy Ballmer - Fredric Maxwell

This work offers a summary of "Bad Boy Ballmer" by Fredric Maxwell. Bill Gates is a name inextricably linked to Microsoft, and it always will be. What many people don’t realize is that Steve Ballmer works so closely alongside him that they almost act as a single unit. "Gates is the techie, the strategist, the commander-in-chief, whilst Ballmer is the business guy, the tactician, the field marshal." Although neither of his parents had the privilege of attending college, Steve Ballmer’s parents always assumed he would. Fredric Maxwell describes Steve as "the brightest of the bright. Everybody, after a few minutes, would now his amazing intelligence." He was smart, loud, and hard to miss. He started at Harvard in the summer of 1973 where he met Bill Gates. There different personalities drew them together and they became close friends. Gates was anti-social, entrepreneurial, rich and highly opinionated while Ballmer was very sociable, thrifty and outgoing.
After college Steve got a job at Proctor and Gamble, after which he applied to Stanford Business School. At the time when he was applying for his summer internship he was approached by his old friend Bill Gates who offered him a job at his newly founded company, Microsoft. After some hesitation, Ballmer accepted the job of 'assistant to the president’, making him the 28th employee of Microsoft (which, at the time, was essentially a group of programmers). From managing the firm’s recruitment, to fending off competitors, and eventually becoming the company’s CEO, this summary tells the amazing story of a highly intelligent, focused and inspiring individual.