Steve Ballmer quotes

Steve Ballmer is an American businessman best known for his role as CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. Under his leadership, the company expanded its product lines and revenue dramatically. He later became owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. Here are 60 of his quotes:

I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft. (Steve Ballmer)
Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Most people still steal music. View quote
Steve Ballmer
We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either. View quote
Steve Ballmer
We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works. View quote
Steve Ballmer
I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life. View quote
Steve Ballmer
There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. View quote
Steve Ballmer
I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod. View quote
Steve Ballmer
I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Whatever device you use, Windows will be there. Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise. (Steve Ballmer)
The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen.' View quote
Steve Ballmer
[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. ... If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue. View quote
Steve Ballmer
My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Accessible design is good design. View quote
Steve Ballmer
All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders. View quote
Steve Ballmer
All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android. View quote
Steve Ballmer
I don't think anyone has done a [tablet] product that I see customers wanting. View quote
Steve Ballmer
You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones. View quote
Steve Ballmer
The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications - they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone. (Steve Ballmer)
We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it's the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We'll see what winds up mattering in tablets. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Is there fake news on Facebook? Of course there is. I could go right now on Facebook and say there's an earthquake, Richter scale 7, in Washington, D. C. And should I be allowed to do that or should that be something that somehow Facebook has a way to control? I don't know. I get how Facebook could control advertising. I don't get how they're a value proposition, which people – the world does like. I don't understand how it works at all if you have no freedom of speech, even if you are saying things that are patently false. View quote
Steve Ballmer
Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware-software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch. View quote
Steve Ballmer