14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer may not fight in K1, but he’s one very aggressive CEO. At least, that’s how he seems to be when we hear stories about Ballmer smashing furniture and shouting so hard, as to have damaged his vocal cords.
Joachim Kempin, a former Microsoft executive, revealed in an interview with ReadWriteWeb that Ballmer used to play the bad guy role during company meetings, so he often brought a baseball bat with him whenever he was happy. That’s right. He brought a baseball bat when he was happy.
“Steve sometimes walks down the hallways bouncing a basketball. Or if he’s having a really good day he’s swinging a baseball bat. Do you think that sends a signal? Sometimes he brings it with him into the conference room. Is it symbolic? Maybe. I don’t know. I would never do that. For me it doesn’t send the right message. The man has some nervous energy and that’s how he gets rid of it. Have I heard him yelling? Yeah, I have,” he said.
And still, Ballmer appears to regret some of his “explosions,” as he usually apologies whenever he crosses the limit in front of his colleagues.
“Most of the time he apologizes afterwards. He’s just a very high-strung guy. He’s not a bad guy. He just goes overboard sometimes,” Kempin added.
Kempin is one of the former Microsoft employees who suggested that the company may do better without Steve Ballmer, saying that an outside CEO might actually help the software giant improve its business in the future.
One of the reasons why Steve Ballmer is still at the helm of Microsoft is because of his relationship with Bill Gates, Kempin explained in a separate interview.
If you were wondering, Kempin officially left Microsoft in 2002 and, according to his very own statements, he never went back to the Redmond campus to talk to his former boss, Steve Ballmer.
We can really see why.