Ballmer was incredibly successful for the majority of his career but by the time I arrived at Microsoft (2011), I really think his hubris and attitude had a deleterious effect on Microsoft employees.<p>His style of thinking about competitor&#x27;s and their innovations trickled down to all levels of the company; people anywhere in the company displayed the same dismissiveness of almost anything Google or Apple or others did. Working at Microsoft is weird and feels like your in some special universe where other technology doesn&#x27;t exist; socializing with Microsoft engineers (of any age and almost in any environments) and realizing they all had their blinders on was really disheartening.<p>Things may be really different now, I don&#x27;t know, but Steve was right to leave when he left.