Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Talks Entrepreneurship at Saïd: MBA News

Find out more about Saïd Business School

CEO of Microsoft from January 2000 up until February of this year, Steve Ballmer is estimated to be worth around US$18 billion and is ranked 21st on the Forbes 400 list.

With some spare time on his hands this week, just one month in to his retirement, Ballmer visited Oxford University’s Saïd Business School to host a talk on entrepreneurship for the school’s MBA students.

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as the company’s first business manager and worked his way up to his CEO position in roles including senior vice president of sales and support, senior vice president of systems software and the vice president of marketing. Under Ballmer’s leadership, Microsoft doubled its profits and tripled revenue.

He is a business school dropout, enrolling at Stanford University Graduate School of Business before quitting to join Microsoft. As such, Steve Ballmer is perhaps one of the best examples of how an entrepreneur can succeed without an MBA. Nevertheless, the tech entrepreneur opted to talk with the MBA students of Saïd Business School in order to share the secrets of Microsoft’s startup success.

Although many at the time told him to stay in business school, Steve Ballmer, as one might expect, stands by his decision. “I dropped out of school to join Microsoft mostly because I knew Bill [Gates] from college [Harvard],” Steve Ballmer explains at the talk covered by BusinessBecause. “Being a world leader in something big with smart people is a good place to be, whether you start a company or join one.”

Ballmer attributes some of the success of Microsoft to the recruitment process, stating that although he knew little at the beginning, his most valuable addition to Microsoft in the early years was getting “the hiring machine going”, what he labels ‘the lifeblood’ of a new company.

Saïd Business School MBA students receive startup advice

Ballmer emphasized the importance of patient persistence to the MBA students of Saïd Business School. “If you’re going to do a startup, you’ve got to be in and stay in, not just for six months or a year, and take a long-term view.” He also puts emphasis on sustaining employee motivation and loyalty. “You better be able to say you love your company. How will any of your employees if you don’t?” he says.

On the subject of Microsoft’s mistakes and the high number of failing startups today, he said, “Really great companies modify their ideas. They see the core proposition needs to change… and you keep working it until you get it to be successful. Only a small percentage are colossal successes. You have to set your mind on having the tenacity to stick with the idea or a modification of an idea. While things are faster today, the notion of taking a long-term point of view is a thing missing in most companies – big, small or startup.”

Ballmer went on to tell the entrepreneurial minds of Saïd Business School the essentiality of engaging with all aspects of their new businesses as well as becoming an expert in time management. The overriding message from Ballmer however is that whether you’re an entrepreneur or just a regular person with inspiration, the importance of a great idea is paramount.

“Do you have a good idea? Is it interesting enough? Is it compelling enough? People can get carried away with everything else… capital, charisma, people leadership. But try to get an idea that’s powerful enough to really be worth pursuing,” Ballmer incites. “An interesting idea that somebody wants to use and buy… eventually you’ll collect money for it. You can change the idea but you’ve got to start with something. And that’s true whether it’s a start-up or a big company.”