
How to be like Steve Ballmer - drb311
https://medium.com/@drb/how-to-be-like-steve-ballmer-cf4c9803d74c#.xfttmyket
======
bigdipper
Let me add some color to the speculation here, I worked under Ballmer for
sometime leading a product.

Ballmer was a math genius, he was also a spreadsheet whiz and knew as much as
a CFO did at anytime. His memory was that of a thousand elephants, and could
recite forecasts, actuals and numbers for multiple years in one go.

Microsoft played in the enterprise space, and Ballmer was a marketing genius
when it came to enterprise positioning. I credit him with driving the attach
revenue concept within the enterprise. Companies that bought Windows, bought
office, bought Exchange server, bough maintenance and more.

Even more, he was a relationship marketing genius. He had a photographic
memory and remembered names of people he would meet once and recall entire
conversations after months/years. And this was globally, he took the company
global in a very aggressive way.

He rewarded people, both Bill and Steve weren't stingy about doling out stock
- unlike Jobs. This kept a strong talent pool of A players at Microsoft.

He had a strong penchant for the enterprise and where he started faltering was
when the Internet started maturing and consumer experiences started converging
with the enterprise.

Nevertheless, this man took Microsoft from $15B to $70B in revenue and you
can't belittle that.

~~~
kraftman
So your saying it might take more than just sticking my tongue out and
saluting in the next conversation I have?

~~~
faizmokhtar
Yeah, and not to mention screaming out DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!

------
loeber
Something rarely mentioned: Ballmer could've been a first-rate mathematician.
He graduated magna cum laude with an AB in math, and beat Bill Gates on the
Putnam exam, finishing well within the top 100 contestants that year.

~~~
jernfrost
This is something that puzzles me. I've met many people like him who I know
objectively speak are highly intelligent. But still on many levels they just
come across as really stupid. Like they believe in completely wacky ideas or
conspiracy theories or make obviously faulty reasoning.

I really have trouble understanding why people can be so smart and stupid and
the same time.

~~~
philwelch
Intelligence and nuttery/crackpottery are two separate things. In fact,
intelligence can even enable nuttery because an intelligent nut is better at
rationalizing his own nuttery than an unintelligent nut. Someone can be
literally a world-class brain surgeon and still believe that the pyramids were
constructed to store grain, for instance.

~~~
fab13n
> a world-class brain surgeon can believe that the pyramids were constructed
> to store grain

Carson is a world-class surgeon trying to convince whatever subset of the
Republicans (a) can decide the outcome of the primary and (b) aren't already
secured by Trump.

He probably says whatever nonsense he thinks will please rednecks with a 90 IQ
and an sinking feeling that "their" country and its core values are being
pulled from under their feet.

And I can understand if he's a hard time empathising with people who think
that >6k years ago, when pyramids where built, the Earth didn't even exist.

TL;DR: I think/hope he's failing at understanding plebeians, not Life. It
might be wishful thinking because I don't want to live in a world where
someone could be both so smart and so dumb.

~~~
cookiecaper
The problem is that you assume people who feel their country and its core
values are being pulled are necessarily 90 IQ rednecks. There are _a lot_ of
intelligent socially conservative people. One who can't admit that is
brainwashed.

~~~
fab13n
> you assume [conservative] people are necessarily 90 IQ rednecks.

I don't; I assume that the "90 IQ redneck" subset of conservative voters are
the ones worth trying to seduce, according to GOP candidates. Because that's
whom their political speeches and positions seem targeted towards.

I guess that's because there are many of them, and until recently they've been
easier to influence. I must admit there's a bit of shadenfreude in seeing
Trump out-rednecking the GOP elite at the game they invented for themselves.

------
brudgers
Ballmer was the "business guy" at the startup that created the greatest ever
amount of money for its founders and employees by holding off an IPO and
raising a minimal amount of outside investment. The amount of equity he and
Gates retained allowed Microsoft to take a long term rather than a quarter by
quarter Wall Street driven approach for about twenty years following the IPO.

If Microsoft is currently undergoing a renaissance, it may be because Ballmer
got the supertanker turned onto the right heading. Unlike the much beloved
Sun, Microsoft is still around and its works are trending toward the right
side of history while Sun's legacy is increasingly sliding into the pale of
Oracle.

~~~
sbilstein
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.

His style of thinking about competitor'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'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.

Things may be really different now, I don't know, but Steve was right to leave
when he left.

~~~
tomcam
Huge bummer to hear that. Was the exact opposite of that for my 1996-2000
tenure. Many decks used UNIX, many PMs used Macs--it was encouraged so you'd
know the competition, whom they respected.

~~~
sbilstein
Really interesting. It was nothing like that while I was there. Being caught
with an iPhone just felt so awkward.

------
MichaelGlass
"Here’s somebody who’ll wear their mediocrity with such energy, with such
boundless enthusiasm and unbridled passion, that nobody else even tries to
compete. You’re not Steve Jobs. You’re mediocre, like me. You’re reading
shabby online articles about how to be like somebody else. Do you think Steve
Jobs did that?"

A+ Be all the Balmer u can be. Balmer forever and ever.

~~~
puredemo
No, this is dumb. Balmer was never mediocre.

~~~
CamperBob2
What other term do you use to describe his failure to see modern smartphones
coming, even after Apple waved one under his nose?

That said, while I've often been critical of Ballmer, I've been reconsidering
my attitude towards him now that I've seen the aggressively-invasive direction
in which Satya Nadella is taking Windows. Under Ballmer's leadership, Windows
7 never popped up unsolicited ads for Metro on the toolbar, much less ads
_that I couldn 't turn off._

~~~
Spearchucker
By that measure Dr. Chris Barnard is mediocre, for supposedly performing ~50
heart transplants on dogs. Similarly Nelson Mandela would qualify for his role
in founding and leading a militant wing of the ANC. One fact, error, moment or
even period do not a mediocre person make.

~~~
CamperBob2
Well, this thread got irrelevant in a hurry.

~~~
oldmanjay
Since your initial complaint was the start of the irrelevancy, this is mighty
disingenuous of you

------
SonicSoul
fun read but i'm not convinced about the advice. I'm sure Balmer is a smart
guy and lucked out by joining MS as #30 (is it really so unlucky to be #30 at
MS?). He was also outspoken, loud, and perhaps had some leadership qualities
lacked by other nerds at that moment. And now it's easy to pick him apart and
"be more like Balmer" but I doubt mirroring his annoying personality will get
you far.

 _Next time you give a presentation, repeat the same key word or phrase at
least 5 times. Preferably 10._

i think Balmer succeeded despite this behavior, not because of it.

 _When you sense a gap that’s closing push yourself in with full energy. Love
the party, get into it, then make it your own_

the "make it your own" is almost like saying "tell a funny touching story that
everyone will love".

 _Imagine you are — or be — the tallest person in the room. (Create situations
where you’re standing and they’re sitting?)_

this reminds me of the NLP craze back in the day, i.e. micro behaviors that
are subconsciously making you more attractive / easy to relate to / superior
etc. Dubious at best.

 __ __* not to dismiss micro behaviors completely. There are numerous TED
talks about body language that present convincing evidence that it works. I
think they are especially applicable if you 're the kind of person that tries
to occupy least space and remain un-seen in meetings. For an average person I
just think this is a minor tweak, not the big change standing between you and
tres commas club.

~~~
ovi256
>micro behaviors that are subconsciously making you more attractive / easy to
relate to / superior etc. Dubious at best.

Have a look at primate domination behavior. It's a big subject of study for
zoologists/ethologists. Displays of dominance are a real thing, even if NLP
sold it as pop psychology.

~~~
tedks
Don't conflate NLP with pop psychology. _Willpower_ or _The Marshmallow
Effect_ or even _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ are pop psychology. NLP is overt
psuedoscience that has never had any basis in fact.

~~~
ImNotAKompjoetr
Funny anecdote about NLP: I accidentally took a NLP class because it had
Programming in the name, and for some reason I didn't bother to read the
description. First lecture, second slide in the lecturer presented the quote:
"We only use 10% of our brain, imagine what we could do if we used 100% of it"
~ Albert Einstein. And continued to claim that we could use more of our brain
by using NLP or something like that.

Never dropped a class so hard in my life.

------
allenbrunson
i was prepared to snark. i don't like steve ballmer, i don't want to be like
him. i don't like what he stands for. i can't think of one positive thing
about the guy, other than perhaps his loyalty. but this article has a bunch of
interesting insights nonetheless, delivered in a funny way.

~~~
rifung
Another positive thing about him was that he was a genius, or at least
incredibly smart. He scored in the top 100 in the Putnam while at Harvard.

------
volandovengo
Despite his public perception, he's incredibly intelligent. He has an IQ of
150.

His strategy of being a fast follower worked great for Microsoft when it had
crappy competitors - it was ill equipped to deal with good ones like Apple and
Google.

~~~
lectrick
IQ of 148 here (not that I put much stock in it). Ballmer is an idiot. What he
lacks in idiocy, he more than makes up for with... lack of leadership, lack of
charisma, lack of ethics, and just raw lack of coolness period.

Anyway, that's what I thought BEFORE I read the article. This article is
actually pretty awesome! And points out some good things about the guy. I like
him a little more now. Nice work, Medium!

One thing I would note is that sticking with 1 company for a long period of
time is not necessarily great. You (and the companies you switch among) can
learn a TON from each other if you move around a bit. There's even studies
that show this (your value to a company is largely exhausted after 2 years).

~~~
marknutter
If there is one unequivocal truth I have learned about social interactions,
it's that nobody wants to know what your IQ is.

~~~
lectrick
I would agree. I said it in direct response to someone pointing out his IQ of
150. I was making a point... Or would you say that it's OK to talk about
someone ELSE'S IQ?

I also suspect that people would rather not know your phallus size or six+
figure income. All these things are left to discover as a side effect of
normal interactions ;)

~~~
marknutter
> All these things are left to discover as a side effect of normal
> interactions ;)

Haha. Bingo.

------
someear
Dude has passion. Worked at Microsoft for a few years, and even though I
didn't agree with many of his decisions...he does what he loves, and loves it
so much, that it passes on to others as well. We need more of that everywhere,
in every aspect of life, not just business.

------
hoodoof
Ballmer was there since the earliest days of Microsoft. Only a fool would
somehow think he just came along for the ride.

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.

I won'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't buy that.

The new generation probably have little concept of how absolutely and totally
Microsoft dominated the computer industry, in a way that _no company_ does now
(nope, not even Apple dominates today anything like the way Microsoft
dominated in the 80's and 90's). It was Microsoft'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 "well it's Ballmer that lost
that domination", but I wonder if such ongoing utter domination was even
possible in the greatly expanded industry post WWW, regardless of who the
leader was.

Steve Ballmer is more than worthy of admiration, if you were smart you'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.

I think Gates brought on Ballmer as the business partner he needed, not the
business partner he started with (Paul Allen). I'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.

And when compared with Steve Jobs, it's worth remembering that Steve Ballmer
and Bill Gates comprehensively beat, pounded and dominated Steve Jobs' Apple
until "Steve's return". 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.

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's wouldn't invest in anything that was even
seen as _potentially_ 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.

Ballmer is one of the greatest business people of all time even if he doesn't
have the romantic and charismatic story of Jobs or Gates.

Respect is due.

~~~
eegunnar
Good point, I agree that Gates must have saw something, but what precisely did
he see see? I don't see Ballmer as some sort of marketing or technical genius
(or even close). I'm having a hard time imagining what he offers.

~~~
reality_czech
Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers!
Developers! Developers! DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

------
NickHaflinger
'SteveB went on the road to see the top weeklies, industry analysts and
business press this week to give our systems strategy. The meetings included
demos of Windows 3.1 (pen and multimedia included), Windows NT, OS/2 2.0
including a performance comparison to Windows and a “bad app” that corrupted
other applications and crashed the system. It was a very valuable trip and
needs to be repeated by other MS executives throughout the next month so we
hit all the publications and analysts.'

'The demos of OS/2 were excellent. Crashing the system had the intended effect
– to FUD OS/2 2.0. People paid attention to this demo and were often surprised
to our favor. Steve positioned it as -- OS/2 is not "bad" but that from a
performance and "robustness" standpoint, it is NOT better than Windows'.

[http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/011107/PX_0860.pdf](http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/011107/PX_0860.pdf)

"I have written a PM app that hangs the system (sometimes quite graphically)."

[http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/011107/PX_0797.pdf](http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/011107/PX_0797.pdf)

~~~
72deluxe
Informative and interesting. I like how the emails are straight to the point.

------
rthomas6
You know, in the same vein... Salieri was a pretty decent composer. He got
some fame and recognition. Maybe it's not so bad to be a Salieri and not
Mozart, because he's still a hell of a lot better than most.

~~~
Apocryphon
He'll always be known for being an also-ran, but most of us won't even get
that far.

------
pcunite
The photo of Gates and Ballmer is from this article, online here:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/09/30/long-
ago...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/09/30/long-ago-twist-
yielded-ballmer-a-fortune-in-microsoft-stock/)

------
kareemm
The one thing Ballmer did right was double down when he saw a huge, once in a
lifetime opportunity.

Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger say that without their top 20 performing
stocks, they'd be also-rans. Which really goes to show that when you find a
great opportunity in life, you should go at it as hard as you can.

------
exelius
So Ballmer is the ultimate PHB?

This is a great way to build a career, but if you look at his track record at
Microsoft, I'm not sure Ballmer is the guy we want to be emulating. He was
hard-headed, amazingly risk-averse when it came to Microsoft's core platforms,
and was not a great manager (he was unable to control a lot of the culture
problems that plagued Microsoft in the early 2000s).

It's fine to make bold moves that fail, but Ballmer's failed moves weren't
really all that bold. They were big, but not incredibly bold, and were often
doubling down on a failing business inside Microsoft.

~~~
cookiecaper
People usually don't get credit for what didn't happen, but in the case of
CEOs, they deserve it. There are so many choices that _could 've_ been made,
and would've been made by a worse exec, that would've destroyed MS. It takes
effort to maintain the status quo in a competitive world.

Microsoft might not have been as hip as Apple or Google, but they became and
remained the most significant software company in the world for _decades_.
They're _still_ the number one desktop OS by a huge margin. Compare Steve
Ballmer to Carly Fiorina, Jonathan Schwartz or Stephen Elop and tell me he
wasn't a good CEO.

I also think Ballmer deserves credit for .NET. "Developers developers
developers" has been MS's saving grace as OS X emerged, and Nadella is
essentially banking the company on .NET-as-a-platform via Azure. It's entirely
possible that we'd all be using Solaris on SPARC workstations by now if .NET
hadn't existed.

~~~
chimeracoder
Ballmer also served during the toughest time in Microsoft's history. He took
the reigns right before the final ruling in a massive antitrust lawsuit that
literally almost broke the company apart[0]. The DOJ continued to have
oversight over Microsoft until _2012_ [1]. I'm sure Microsoft would have loved
to make much bolder decisions during that decade (particularly when it comes
to hardware), but they were hardly in a position to do so legally[2].

A lot of the good things Microsoft has (deservedly) received praise for
recently under Nadella were started under Ballmer's tenure. Yes, he is not
personally responsible for everything that goes on at the company, but it's
important to keep that in mind.

[0] While the decision was reversed on appeal, Microsoft was literally ordered
by the courts to split itself into separate companies:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment)

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2011/04/depart...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2011/04/department-of-justices-long-oversight-of-microsoft-to-end/)

[2] Incidentally, the Surface, which now appears to be Microsoft's attempt to
clean up the wild west that OEMs have created, was announced right at the end
of the DOJ's oversight. I cannot believe that this is a coincidence.

~~~
vezycash
Your comment and the parent comment hits close to home.

The anti trust investigation killed Microsoft's mojo. They never under
estimated any one in the past. They were paranoid and always responded to
"potential threats" with crappy solution but they responded nonetheless.

In my opinion, Google and the iPhone owe their dominance to time granted them
by the anti trust suit.

The same tactics that got Microsoft in trouble is being used my Google and
Apple today.

Google services is bundled in Android. There is no alternative browser in
chrome OS by design. The default browser can't be changed in IOS(not sure if
that's still the case).

It's difficult to take risks when everything you do is under a microscope.

~~~
striking
You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration. But the
rest of Google Play Services, yeah I see your point.

~~~
chimeracoder
> You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration.

You can (and I do, because it's the only way to block ads without root on
Android).

But that was literally the same claim that was made against Microsoft - while
you could install alternative browsers, you couldn't really uninstall IE. And
as parts of IE were factored into separate components for reuse by other
applications, the concern was that IE was being turned into part of the
operating system.

(The difference is that Android's market share, while still dominant, is still
not as high as Windows's was back in the 90s[0]. Ditto for iOS, which has a
minority market share. But in terms of the software vs. OS components, it's
almost exactly the same.)

[0] or even as high as the Windows marketshare is today, for that matter.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's not the same claim. The claim against Microsoft was that browser and OS
dominance had killed competition ("cutting off the oxygen supply" of other
browser makers) and was literally distorting the industry.

Browser dominance on its own was not the problem. The problem was that
Microsoft's strategy was deliberately anti-competitive and monopolistic, and
the browser was one symptom of that - not just because it gave MS massive
market share, but because it created a technological chokepoint which limited
the commercial potential of everyone working in the PC and Internet
industries.

Remember, MS spent a lot of time and money promoting site/browser technologies
like ActiveX that only really worked on Windows PCs, and seem to have been an
attempt to look out everyone else.

It's hard to argue that iOS or Android are anywhere close to doing the same.
Both may be walled gardens, and both have toxic effects. But they're not de
facto standards setters, and they can't use their influence to kill competing
products at equivalent scale. (They can and have killed or assimilated smaller
products - but that's plain unethical behaviour, not clear evidence of
monopoly. Taking steps to crush Twitter, WhatsApp, or Facebook would probably
count as monopolistic. Killing SmallAppCo is just shady; sad, but true.)

If it was found that Apple and Google were colluding, _that_ would be a
serious problem - just as both had problems when it was proved they'd made
secret agreements about employee mobility and salary negotiations.

------
m52go
> Go to the mirror and practice these faces.

Great piece. This article is worth a click for that lead image alone. I really
wonder what the context was for such an expression.

------
CurtMonash
IIRC, Ballmer at one point went double or nothing, margining his stock to
double his position. That explains half of his stake right there.

That's when he was worth $100 or $200 million, not long after the IPO.

Jim Treybig of Tandem Computers did something similar when he lost half his
stock in a divorce.

------
srameshc
I would have passed this article anywhere else if not for Hacker News. This is
a great insight and great way to work on your personality.

------
rogerbinns
It all comes down to sales being easier to measure than other parts like
development. Something like "doubling revenue" can be reasonably objectively
measured. Trying to do the same thing for a developer is way too hard: double
X? halve X? where X is lines of code, bugs, hours of attendance, appraisal
scores, or other measurements don't remotely cut it, and are easy to game.
(Revenue can also be gamed to some degree, but people/companies parting with
cash is a higher hurdle.)

That let him make a measurable deal with Gates & Allen. A new developer as
employee #30 doesn't have anything comparable.

------
talles
I thought the article was serious until I reached the "Steve Ballmer mission
pack". Author can't be serious.

~~~
jey
It's serious, but not literal.

~~~
drb311
Perfect summary of what I hoped to achieve. Thanks for reading. And defending!

------
l33tbro
The Charlie Rose interview is a pretty decent insight into the man. Certainly
shuts up the armchair quaterbacks here with 20:20 hindsight calling him an
idiot for certain career moves.

Sauce:
[http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60463433](http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60463433)

------
keepitsurreal
:P

Am I doing this right?

------
CurtMonash
Anyhow -- Steve had all the personality at the Windows 1.0 launch. Well, Steve
and John Dvorak. Mike Maples and Jon Shirley, however, seemed like bigger
deals in the company than Steve a while each.

Steve is basically a great salesman. He's both a huge extrovert and a great
listener. He's delusional enough to completely believe, yet well smarter than
other similarly delusional people. I presume he has all the sales process
mechanics mastered too, but I don't actually know that for a fact.

------
rajacombinator
This just shows that terminal net worth is not that important.

------
ape4
from wikipedia: In 2007, Ballmer said "There's no chance that the iPhone is
going to get any significant market share. No chance."[55]

~~~
corford
And in a funny sort of way he was kind of right :)
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougolenick/2015/05/27/apple-
ios...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougolenick/2015/05/27/apple-ios-and-
google-android-smartphone-market-share-flattening-idc/)

Android: 79% versus iOS: 14%

------
umaguma
Did Ballmer ever do any programming?

If not, why?

Did he just have no curiosity or interest?

Sounds like he had far more capacity for maths than Jobs.

------
kozukumi
My personal opinion of Ballmer is that he was/is brilliant but he failed to
prioritise in the right areas during the mid 2000s. He did well with investing
in Azure and cloud tech but he was an idiot for letting Sinofsky run Windows
into the ground with Windows 8.

------
0mbre
So introvert vs extrovert?

------
x0
You forgot "do a line of coke before giving a presentation"

------
visakanv
> i was prepared to snark

I don't know why but this just got me laughing so hard. I'm thinking about one
of those infomercials. "They laughed at me when I sat at the piano... but when
I started to play!"

It's like the Hacker News slogan or manifesto or something. HACKER NEWS: WE'RE
PREPARED TO SNARK.

~~~
dang
> _It 's like the Hacker News slogan or manifesto or something_

I know you mean this in good humor but I have to protest. Snark is an invasive
species, and part of keeping it under control is not to forget that or
identify with it.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10671199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10671199)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
qwerty_asdf
You can't stop us from snarking, Dang.

~~~
dang
Oh believe me I know. But it's more about what kind of community the community
wants to be—and I do think that can shift over time. Indeed we've seen it do
so.

------
MattBearman
[https://xkcd.com/323/](https://xkcd.com/323/)

~~~
mahouse
No, please.

------
cookiecaper
Awesome article.

------
rbanffy
Why?

------
jheriko
its a shame this is a joke.

you really could learn better from ballmer than from jobs imo.

i'd much rather be successful for the like ballmer than jobs. cult following
is creepy, and recieving kudos even when you do nothing makes it easy to lose
perspective.

jobs was great at what he did, but massively overrated thanks to the excellent
work of the apple marketting guys. those guys are absolutely amazing at what
they do. its a shame they don't get more credit.

~~~
fredkbloggs
How is Jobs overrated because of Apple's marketing team? He was the CEO; it
was his marketing team. Even if you want to argue that it was already great
when he got (back) there, it's still to his credit that he built the company
around making such good use of it. If you want to blame CEOs for everything
that goes wrong with a company, you pretty much have to give them credit for
everything that goes right, too. Normally I don't think CEOs are nearly that
important either way, but in this case it's fair to give Jobs a lot of the
credit, precisely because Apple's brand marketing was so effective and the
company positioned itself and its products around that brand as well as it
did.

That's exactly what Microsoft, and especially Ballmer, never did. As the
author points out, maybe Steve Jobs crashing your party would make the other
guests feel less cool, but the reality is that a lot of people want to be
hangers-on and aren't sufficiently introspective to feel uncool about it. The
completion of the analogy is that Jobs got a lot of your guests to pay him
$300 for the privilege of following him to crash the next party, while Ballmer
brought $20 worth of bad vodka, then robbed your apartment while you were
passed out. They both made money without creating much value; the difference
is at whose expense they did so.

~~~
jheriko
i shouldn't have said it maybe.

you are right that he deserves some credit, it just always irks me that the
cult follower types seem to think he was single handedly responsible for all
of the success of apple.

like most CEOs he set a direction, and it was the people underneath him that
took the company there under his guidance, but without that direction nothing
would have happened. (or something else would have happened)

