Steve Ballmer

It's the story I just told you. It's what it told me about Satya. I mean, I love Satya. We were giving him more and more responsibilities anyway. But it told me this guy will do the right thing for the company. He'll prioritize that. He doesn't have an ego that gets in the way. And she did great work. I mean, she knew about search. She could bring in a different – The product got a lot better.

He was an old pro at it. And it started cash-flowing billions of dollars eventually. Eventually. I mean, Sach is not an engineer by training. She's an engineer. I mean, he's a PhD in computer science, and he had a lot to bring. Such has been great at managing product development. That's, that's for sure. But, um, you know, she's like that meeting digging the bits and bytes kind of thing.

He was an old pro at it. And it started cash-flowing billions of dollars eventually. Eventually. I mean, Sach is not an engineer by training. She's an engineer. I mean, he's a PhD in computer science, and he had a lot to bring. Such has been great at managing product development. That's, that's for sure. But, um, you know, she's like that meeting digging the bits and bytes kind of thing.

So, but the meeting is the thing that was important. She was important. Sure. But what Satya and Harry did that day where they just found a guy and said, we'll hire, please, Steve, go hire him as our boss. Yeah. You don't hear that very often. No. What year was that? Let's see, what year would she have come? Oh, it was probably, it was after Yahoo. Yeah, 08, 09.

So, but the meeting is the thing that was important. She was important. Sure. But what Satya and Harry did that day where they just found a guy and said, we'll hire, please, Steve, go hire him as our boss. Yeah. You don't hear that very often. No. What year was that? Let's see, what year would she have come? Oh, it was probably, it was after Yahoo. Yeah, 08, 09.

Six years before Satya became CEO, five years. And that let me then be able to also say, now I can give Satya more responsibility doing something else. Why did you move him to server and tools? I thought it would be great to get, we had Chi. So we could probably move him.

Six years before Satya became CEO, five years. And that let me then be able to also say, now I can give Satya more responsibility doing something else. Why did you move him to server and tools? I thought it would be great to get, we had Chi. So we could probably move him.

I thought it would be important to give him other experiences to try to get him right to be able to be CEO because he was on a list of three or four internals at that time. He'd been on a list of guys we'd been talking about because we did an annual succession plan thing. Uh, you know, succession plan has two candidates.

I thought it would be important to give him other experiences to try to get him right to be able to be CEO because he was on a list of three or four internals at that time. He'd been on a list of guys we'd been talking about because we did an annual succession plan thing. Uh, you know, succession plan has two candidates.

It's what happens if you get hit by a bus and what happens if you get served a term, whatever term feels like. And they're different people, right? If you get, Satya gets by bus, if Satya serves another five years, it's probably a different person. Um, no, I think that's true in most, most companies. You got to think about it differently anyway. Uh, so I said, Hey, get them another experience.

It's what happens if you get hit by a bus and what happens if you get served a term, whatever term feels like. And they're different people, right? If you get, Satya gets by bus, if Satya serves another five years, it's probably a different person. Um, no, I think that's true in most, most companies. You got to think about it differently anyway. Uh, so I said, Hey, get them another experience.

You know, he hasn't worked in apps, hasn't worked in server and tools. And it was kind of a good time to sort of switch things around. You know, Bob wound up obviously being super successful because Bob was running server and tools at the time. And I love Bob. Bob's one of my favorite guys I've ever worked with.

You know, he hasn't worked in apps, hasn't worked in server and tools. And it was kind of a good time to sort of switch things around. You know, Bob wound up obviously being super successful because Bob was running server and tools at the time. And I love Bob. Bob's one of my favorite guys I've ever worked with.

Worked out for everybody. He's done fantastically well, but we moved Satya into that job. Yeah. You know, he was on a great path and Cheese Hire made search as strong or stronger, showed just how right Satya was. We talk about this in basketball. You know, is it all about team first or not? All about team first, which is essential.

Worked out for everybody. He's done fantastically well, but we moved Satya into that job. Yeah. You know, he was on a great path and Cheese Hire made search as strong or stronger, showed just how right Satya was. We talk about this in basketball. You know, is it all about team first or not? All about team first, which is essential.

And we were able to give him the additional experiences, which were super helpful in terms of him then taking over as CEO.

And we were able to give him the additional experiences, which were super helpful in terms of him then taking over as CEO.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um... Two or three things. Number one, the phone was very on my brain. When you said, are you having fun? That was the thing that was eating at me the most was the phone. And I decided we needed to flip the model around. Your episode's pretty good about all that happened, so I'm not going to go through all that. But I knew we had to do hard work. I knew it. There was just no question.