Why Does Everyone Hate Ballmer?

As my readers know, I'm the sole champion of Steve Ballmer in the media. In my opinion he has done a skillful job of not only growing Microsoft but also making it one of the most profitable companies in the world. This is despite various write-offs that stem from the aggressive tactics investors like to see.

So why do people routinely refer to Ballmer as the worst CEO ever? Here is an excerpt from a note I got from a well-known venture capitalist friend of mine:

…Or if you want to look at his tenure another way, Microsoft was worth $600 billion the day before he assumed control. Yesterday its market cap was south of $270 billion. Name me one other CEO whose company lost $330 billion during his reign. You can't, right?

And, of course all anyone really cares about is the price of the stock, not the actual inner workings of the company. So why does Ballmer attract this sort of vitriol? As corny as it sounds the answer is karma. If it were a commodity, Ballmer would have run out of it.

I have listed the top 10 karmic drainage scenarios behind the decline of Microsoft's image, its stock, and Ballmer. These are probably more important than other commentary by other pundits who generally are no more insightful than "fix Windows 8!"

Here is why Ballmer ran out of karmic goodwill and knows it.

1. The company is perpetually arrogant. Ballmer sees every little project as a threat to Microsoft's core business and demeans the product. Witness his comments about Linux. Linux is a good karma company that cannot genuinely compete with Microsoft. Ballmer insults it.

2. The employee talent pool. Ballmer became enamored with the odious stack-ranking or forced-ranking system which should only be employed for short periods during a turn-around. Microsoft has operated this way for years. It tends to get rid of any genuinely creative people who will go off and "bad mouth" Microsoft and Ballmer. A fellow on Twitter says: "Ballmer's beloved employee-ranking system made me secretive, cynical, and paranoid." This obviously creates bad feedback in the system. Bad karma.

3. Good money after bad. It does not help when Microsoft buys up companies thinking it would be a good idea, then discards them like yesterday's garbage.

4. NIH syndrome. Ballmer is part of the Not-Invented-Here cadre within Microsoft. The company, filled with stack ranked yes-men, has trouble incorporating any ideas better than the ones developed in the company. Why they even try is a mystery.

5. Stealing ideas and patents. Do you want to create bad blood? Lift other people's ideas. Exploit the patent process by taking a patent, paying no royalties, then getting sued and paying the royalties later while the company that owned the patent languishes. Worse, get a reputation for this. Microsoft's reputation for being an unoriginal copycat has probably hurt the company more than anything.

6. Play dirty. When IBM and Microsoft were still partners of some sort, Microsoft sabotaged everything IBM was doing. During the OS/2 era, Ballmer took a floppy disk into the IBM booth at a COMDEX and installed malware to prove that OS/2 was not crash-proof. It was a hilarious dirty tricks stunt that did nothing for his reputation.

7. Yell and scream. Ballmer is well-known as a screamer who shouts at employees. Gates was actually much the same, but less loud and perhaps more insulting as he would commonly ask someone "Do we actually pay you to work here?" This fear factor is not something that creates a fun working environment.

8. Unprofessional conduct. Running around on stage like a maniac, Ballmer did not create the image of a dignified, sane CEO worth supporting. We've all seen the videos. There are probably worse examples from other CEOs at other companies, but they never get posted.

9. Isolationism. Ballmer, Gates, and many of the higher-ups at Microsoft used to mingle with the customers and the public. Gates made a point of travelling in coach and eschewing limos. Now he follows the practice of having two limos (a second in case the first breaks down). This mingling resulted in real-world feedback as opposed to reading reports of the user experience. I can let Ballmer slide a bit on this because of the psycho public, but Gates and Ballmer never worried before.

10. Lack of noteworthy highly-publicized good works. We all know what Bill Gates is doing with his wealth. Paul Allen has done a lot too, including oddball good works such as fixing the old Cinerama Theater in Seattle. Where is the Steve Ballmer Museum of Natural History? Where is the Steve Ballmer Little League Park? The Steve Ballmer Scholarship Program? I'm not saying Ballmer does not write checks to do these things. The fact is, this is not the era of doing quiet good works if you are a CEO and want some good vibes to come your way. Now it's too late to get any sort of public recognition.

All the points above are negative. Unfortunately, they are also all legacy stereotypes of Ballmer who has managed to dig a hole deeper than he can escape. Except for the second item, a rationalization for all these complaints is possible.

But nothing will change the public or the industry's perception. Worse, there is no list of 10 items showing us what a great guy Ballmer is. We see no pictures of Ballmer fishing with his kids, hugging his wife, launching a boat. All we envision is a maniac on stage shouting, "I love this company!" A rather pathetic legacy indeed.

I can tell you Microsoft will be worse off without Ballmer. That's a fact.