Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announces he's quitting in 12 months

This has been a while coming. Microsoft is undergoing a massive transformation in their business model to adjust to the new trends in IT and leadership has been stagnant for a while. Hopefully they get someone in that has vision and can unify the company.

I guess it's finally official, Obama is the new CEO ...

I guess that is what happens when you had a Bill Gates type leader who called all the shots from a business perspective. You get people with good technical skills in key positions, but they did not develop the skills to make business decisions. Since Gates retired the technical decisions have been fine, but the business decisions have been questionable.

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I don't think it sucks too bad

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If he had known he could get the stock price up so much just by quitting, he might have done it a long time ago.

Seriously. That decision netted him over a half-billion dollars. Damn.

The only way I can relate is I always worry about my wife thinking I'd be worth more dead than alive. She's always pushing for me to up my insurance so I think I'm safe for now...

Ballmer Quits, Instantly Makes (Almost) $1 Billion

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Capitalism is hands down the best thing out there, but this situation is an extreme example of the quirks of the system being totally unjust

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what

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a tenure marked by the software giant's declining dominance and struggles to keep pace with its competitors.

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investors applauded the news by sending Microsoft's shares surging by more than 7 percent — adding a whopping $24 billion to the software company's market capitalization from Thursday's close.

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Under Ballmer's leadership, Microsoft's stock languished and its rivals — most of whom moved rapidly to profit from the explosive growth of smartphones and tablets — began separating themselves from the rest of the technology pack.

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he presided over a 37 percent decline in the company's stock price, relegating Microsoft to among the worst performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 Index.

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Just a cursory comment, nothing profound. Granted, working at Microsoft for 33 years he probably accumulated a decent amount of stock options and other such benefits which contribute to his large MSFT holdings, but I have to believe most of his huge pile has come in the form of CEO compensation.

Now, he is stepping down, which the market views as very positive for the company. This obviously says they would be better off without him, thank you for leaving, but now, because he holds huge piles of MSFT shares, he makes nearly $1 billion (on paper) in the process.

Fail at your job = huge financial windfall

In the context of the system, all is fair, he played by the rules and he profits. But it's just backward. That's all.

I believe Balmer was one of the very early techie people even before they went public. He was probably paid a sh*t load of shares in lieu of salary back before MSFT started earning money.

I agree it sucks to see a failure as a CEO get rewarded so much, but I'm pretty sure his biggest MSFT shares come from the time before he was CEO.