14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer was officially replaced at the helm of the software giant Microsoft by Satya Nadella, but the man who has been in charge of the company for 13 years remained on board as director.
And still, it turns out that Ballmer is also pondering a complete retirement from the company, which could be a bit surprising given the fact that the former CEO is known as a true Microsoft man who said with several occasions that the software firm is like his child.
But according to the Wall Street Journal, Ballmer confesses in an interview that he’s not sure how long he will remain a Microsoft director and that the time off that he has after his retirement could help him figure out his next challenge.
“It really as much as anything depends on how I see rest of my life playing out,” he said. “I have a chance to really think.”
Ballmer has also admitted that the role of board member is very different from the CEO position, so he was very quiet during the company’s recent meetings a couple of weeks ago.
“I didn’t talk like I did when I was CEO,’’ he explained.
Seeing Ballmer go would be a bit awkward, given the fact that he’s one of the executives that really struggled to boost Microsoft’s profits and to eventually push the company towards a devices and services approach that would help it cope with the demands of the modern IT world.
Ballmer is also one of the most eccentric tech company leaders, dancing, screaming, and even crying on stage with several occasions. He expressed his love for the software giant during almost every speech, explaining that “Microsoft is one of the great companies in the world.”
“I love this company. I love the bigness and boldness of what we do. I love the way we partner with other companies to come together to change the world. I love the breadth and the diversity of all of the customers we empower, from students in the classroom to consumers to small businesses to governments to the largest enterprises,” Ballmer said in his last letter to company employees as Microsoft CEO.
Ballmer however is yet to make any public statement on a potential retirement from Microsoft, so we have nothing else to do than to wait and see if the former CEO is ready to abandon his “child” and look for a another challenge in life.