Steve Ballmer: Is there a single family office?

Where does the fortune of Steve Ballmer come from?

Steven Anthony Ballmer is an American businessman and investor who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, after which he left his MBA programme at Stanford University. He eventually became president in 1998 and replaced Gates as CEO in 2000.

Update 2024: As of March 2024, his personal fortune is estimated at $121 billion, making him the 8th richest person in the world.

How did Ballmer’s company develop?

Ballmer did not make his fortune by building and owning a company, but as mentioned above, he was employed by Microsoft for a long time. Microsoft’s first global success was the operating system called MS-DOS. To date, Microsoft has developed a number of different revenue streams, but the main product remains its operating systems for both home and professional users. Various software solutions are offered, such as Microsoft Office and Azure. Although Microsoft is highly profitable, Ballmer’s time at Microsoft has been controversial, with the company tripling sales and doubling profits, but losing its market dominance and missing out on 21st century technology trends. During his tenure, he was widely criticised as the worst CEO in America.

Is there a Steve Ballmer family office?

When Steve Ballmer sold all of his Twitter shares in 2018, he described himself as “not really excited about being an investor as a profession”. So it’s not really surprising that he doesn’t own a single family office, but he does run philanthropic activities through his “Ballmer Group”.

How does the Steve Ballmer family office invest?

As mentioned, Ballmer does not have a family office, but he is active in other areas of investment. For example, he bought the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion in 2014. His philanthropic company, the Ballmer Group, works to improve economic mobility for children and families in the US who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty. Another philanthropic investment was in Social Solutions, a company that makes software for non-profits and government agencies.

Update 2024: Ballmer’s investment in the Los Angeles Clippers has been very lucrative. So far, the Clippers have been valued at around $5 billion, which would double Ballmer’s investment.

This article is part of our detailed report “The single family offices of the richest US families“.

Picture source: Johny Vino

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