Steve Ballmer famous quotes

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Technology #Thinking #Numbers

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Rocks #Way #Execution

I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work,
-- Steve Ballmer

#Jobs #Condolences #Heart

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

#Thinking #Ideas #Done

The world is changing, but so is Microsoft.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Microsoft #World

Accessible design is good design - it benefits people who don't have disabilities as well as people who do. Accessibility is all about removing barriers and providing the benefits of technology for everyone.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Technology #People #Design

I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.
-- Steve Ballmer

#People #Collections #Values

In a sense technology is a tool of sort of individual choice, individual creativity, individual empowerment, individual access. My kids will never understand that it used to be kind of hard to access and find things, and know what the world knows and see what the world sees. Yet it becomes easier and easier every day.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Creativity #Kids #Technology

Great companies with the way they work, first start with great leaders.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Leadership #Inspiration #Way

The stock market has always had its own meter. Sometimes it's ahead of itself, sometimes it's behind itself. A broken watch is right twice a day.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Broken #Watches #Sometimes

Accessible design is good design.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Design #Good Design

Ultimately progress is measured sort of through the eyes of users.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Eye #Progress #Users

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

#Inspirational #People #Vision

It's hard to invent a new thing, and it's just as hard to invent another new thing.
-- Steve Ballmer

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Numbers #Space #Innovation

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Years #Ideas #Hands

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

#Iphone #Chance #Share

It's always great when you get a lot of people pushing themselves to do better, be better, invent better, better serve, better lead customers in new directions.
-- Steve Ballmer

#People #Pushing

Maybe I'm an emblem of an old era, and I have to move on.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Moving #Eras #Emblems

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Strong #Thinking #Talking

I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs,and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Knowledge #Learning #Thinking

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

#Television #Internet #Devices

You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Smart #Years #Apples

You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone,
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #Phones #Needs

At Microsoft, we're investing heavily in security because we want customers to be able to trust their computing experiences, so they can realize the full benefits of the interconnected world we live in.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Microsoft #Investing #Benefits

I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Break Up #Thinking #Trying

I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.
-- Steve Ballmer

#People #May #Want

I’d like to own Microsoft shares until I either give something to charity or I die.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Giving #Charity #Microsoft

I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #People #Information

I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Years #Growth #Pipeline

I don't think anyone has done a [tablet] product that I see customers wanting.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #Done #Tablets

Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications - they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Iphone #Trying #Looks

All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Real #Apples #Mojo

[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. ... If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Apples #Issues #People

Most people still steal music.
-- Steve Ballmer

#People #Stealing #Stills

If the CEO doesn’t see the playing field, nobody else can. The team may need to see it too, but the CEO really needs to be able to see the entire competitive space.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Team #Space #May

Our industry is going through quite a wave of innovation and it's being powered by a phenomenon which is referred to as the cloud.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Clouds #Innovation #Wave

We've grown from 18% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry to 23% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry over the last five years. Profits are up over 70%, where the industry profit is up about 35%. Pretty good.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Years #Lasts #Profit

I'm very, very bullish about our prospects, and as I tell our board, as I tell our employees, this is the time to invest. There's so much opportunity. Let's just invest in that opportunity, and really get after it.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Opportunity #Boards #Employee

Throughout our history, Microsoft has won by making big, bold bets. I believe that now is not the time to scale back the scope of our ambition or the scale of our investment. While our opportunities are greater than ever, we also face new competitors, faster-moving markets and new customer demands.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Moving #Believe #Ambition

This is all about having great leaders who can drive agile innovation and agile decision-making.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Leader #Decision #Innovation

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Goal #Growth #Agility

The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There's nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn't think they could do the day before.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Technology #Thinking #People

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Cancer #Intellectual #Linux

Ford shared this vision. We are inviting more players to join in.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Player #Vision

What we've gone through in the last several years has caused some people to question 'Can we trust Microsoft?' .
-- Steve Ballmer

#Business #Years #People

We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference..
-- Steve Ballmer

#Business #Differences #Share

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

#Positive #Four #Yeah

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Children #Stupid #Kids

You get some success. You run into some walls...it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Inspirational #Motivational #Running

I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Kids #Ipods #Google

Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Years #Ideas #People

I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Guy #Google #Done

The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone
-- Steve Ballmer

#Iphone #Internet

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

#Real #House #Google

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Mean #Winning #Thinking

I would love to see all open-source innovation happen on top of Windows.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Innovation #Window #Source

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

#Ipods #Common #Stolen

I don't know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Monopoly

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Xbox #Opportunity #Games

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

#Determine

Whatever device you use... Windows will be there. ... Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Use #Compromise #Window

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Impact #People #World

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Leader #Mail

So, I think the output of our innovation is great. We have a culture of self-improvement. I know we can continue to improve. There is no issue. But at the same time, our absolute level of output is fantastic.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #Self #Issues

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Technology #Google #Fascination

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Technology #Long #Economy

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Innovation #Computer #Operating Systems

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

#Real #Thinking #Form

I think the biggest mistake most people make when they pick their first job is they don't worry enough about whether they'll love the work, and they worry more about whether it's good experience
-- Steve Ballmer

#Love #Jobs #Mistake

We're going to think big, we're going to bet big.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #Think Big #Bigs

I want people to understand the amazing, positive way our software can make leisure time more enjoyable, and work and businesses more successful.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Successful #Technology #People

We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Believe #Reality #Innovation

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Communication #Trying #Process

Not only because the product wasn't a great product, but remember it took us five or six years to ship it. Then we had to sort of fix it. That was what I might call Windows 7.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Years #Marketing #Might

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.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Stupid #Phones #People

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

#Writing #Company

"Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...."
-- Steve Ballmer

#Stupid

I don't think there is one size that fits all [] I've been to too many meetings with journalists who spent the first 10 minutes of the meeting setting up iPad to look like a laptop.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Thinking #Ipads #Looks

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Team #Moving #People

I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Chairs #Honestly #Thrown

We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
-- Steve Ballmer

#Player #Phones #Apples