Ballmer was there since the earliest days of Microsoft. Only a fool would somehow think he just came along for the ride.<p>Gates chose to give him a large slice of equity because he saw that he wanted something that Ballmer had and as far as I can tell that worked out extremely well.<p>I won&#x27;t argue that Steve Ballmer was the technical creative genius that Microsoft needed but to suggest that in some way he stumbled in and rode the gravy train, well I don&#x27;t buy that.<p>The new generation probably have little concept of how absolutely and totally Microsoft dominated the computer industry, in a way that <i>no company</i> does now (nope, not even Apple dominates today anything like the way Microsoft dominated in the 80&#x27;s and 90&#x27;s).  It was Microsoft&#x27;s world in a very real way.  There were two men behind that complete domination - Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates. The cynical (and there are many) might say &quot;well it&#x27;s Ballmer that lost that domination&quot;, but I wonder if such ongoing utter domination was even possible in the greatly expanded industry post WWW, regardless of who the leader was.<p>Steve Ballmer is more than worthy of admiration, if you were smart you&#x27;d try to learn from him rather than portraying him  as a buffoon sidekick to Bill Gates.  To evaluate him in this way just displays ignorance.<p>I think Gates brought on Ballmer as the business partner he needed, not the business partner he started with (Paul Allen).  I&#x27;m not knocking Paul Allen but Bill Gates felt he needed Ballmer as his partner and as far as I could tell Ballmer and Gates were a powerful team, not Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.<p>And when compared with Steve Jobs, it&#x27;s worth remembering that Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates comprehensively beat, pounded and dominated Steve Jobs&#x27; Apple until &quot;Steve&#x27;s return&quot;. Apple was on the brink of going out of business when Steve returned and stayed in business because Gates and Ballmer provided Apple with $150M to stay in business - a wise move at the time because Microsoft was in trouble with the justice department and needed to ensure that there were companies still in existence that could even vaguely be argued to be valid competitors to Microsoft.<p>Many, many entrepreneurs tried and failed to get the better of Gates and Ballmer until eventually a perception formed that you were an idiot if you tried to compete with them.  VC&#x27;s wouldn&#x27;t invest in anything that was even seen as <i>potentially</i> an area that Microsoft might be interested in being involved with. Ballmer is one of the most formidable and, in his time, feared businessmen ever.<p>Ballmer is one of the greatest business people of all time even if he doesn&#x27;t have the romantic and charismatic story of Jobs or Gates.<p>Respect is due.