Microsoft’s current CEO Steve Ballmer is set to retire soon and the company is still searching for a new CEO. New details have emerged detailing Ballmer’s road up until he announced his retirement plans.
Ballmer may have shocked the world when he announced his retirement soon after he set forth new plans to restructure the company. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ballmer revealed that Microsoft could change faster if he retired.
“At the end of the day, we need to break a pattern. Face it: I’m a pattern,” Ballmer stated in an interview. Ballmer only recently began drafting retirement letters, going as far as writing up to forty letters.
“While I would like to stay here a few more years, it doesn’t make sense for me to start the transformation and for someone else to come in during the middle,” Ballmer reportedly stated in a Microsoft Board meeting back in June. The Board of Directors were not shocked or surprised to hear that Ballmer wanted to retire and believed that a fresh set of eyes might actually be a good thing for the company.
Ballmer admitted during the interview with the WSJ that when he broke the news to his family that he was considering leaving Microsoft, his wife and kids cried. On August 21st, the board of directors accepted Ballmer’s retirement plans.
“Not a soul in this room doesn’t think we need to go through this transition. As much as I wish I could stay your CEO, I still own a big chunk of Microsoft, and I’m going to keep it,” Ballmer stated at a recent executive meeting.
Ballmer has a less-than-awesome approval rating when compared to other tech CEOs, which we learned not that long ago. The Washington Post recently put together a list of major CEOs and ranked them based on their approval ratings listed on Glasdoor.com. The result? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has a 47% approval rating.
You can read the entire interview with the WSJ at the VIA link below.
