14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer left Microsoft in early 2014, after spending no less than 34 years within the company, handing over the helm of the world’s number one software firm to Satya Nadella, who is only the third CEO in the history of Microsoft.
While the decision became official in February, Steve Ballmer says in a recent interview that the original plan was to announce the name of his successor before Christmas, but the board decided to postpone it until early next year.
So with him waiting for the board’s announcement to leave the company, Ballmer had almost nothing to do, pretty much because getting involved in new projects when the departure was imminent didn’t make sense at all.
“The Good Wife”
This is why all he did in the last few weeks at Microsoft was watch Netflix, with the former CEO admitting that he watched nearly 100 episodes of “The Good Wife.” For what it’s worth, The Good Wife has 7 seasons and 156 episodes, so Ballmer watched nearly the full show while waiting for the CEO switch to become official.
“I binged in this show 'The Good Wife.' I watched 100 episodes of 'The Good Wife' in three weeks. That was actually before I retired. I had everything planned out so that we were going to announce my successor before Christmas. And then the board decided not to. They hadn't made a final call. Can you start a new project when you think you have two weeks left or three weeks left? So I said, now what do I do?” he said in the interview.
Shortly after his departure from Microsoft, Steve Ballmer found several other ways to stay busy 24/7, including being in charge of a basketball team that he’s the owner of right now. Ballmer also has a big share in Twitter and remains the largest individual Microsoft stakeholder at this point as well.