This and the Michael Dell quote are referenced so often. I'm an Apple fanboy but I actually enjoy a lot of MS / Dell products (not the base models but the more premium stuff).
I think these quotes were mistakes even at the time, it was clear these two leaders were out of touch. I also think that these guys get way too much crap for something they said 10+ years ago.
Watching the full interview, Ballmer should not look @ his time in Microsoft as he said something like a 10 person company to a billion dollar company in the 30 years he was there. He wasn't running it for 30 years and during his time, all of his competitors soared in stock & revenue while Microsoft simply got by selling Windows & Office licenses.
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I don't fault Ballmer for who he is, a lover of Microsoft, someone that bleeds microsoft and is passionate and a great leader and overall a very likable guy. I fault him because his directions lead to Microsoft missing the boat on a few key computing areas, even ones that Bill Gates had said were the future and Ballmer chose to ignore or squander them. Watch Bill Gates' CES Keynotes from 2001-2005. He said a lot of things that eventually came true but Microsoft missed the mark repeatedly so much that without group licensing their Windows & Office products, they'd be out of business by now.
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Without knowing the behind the scenes of it all, I imagine a big area of contention between Steve & Bill Gates beyond that maybe they worked well together but simply didn't get along outside of work would be that Bill set in motion a lot of things that simply weren't delivered under Steve and this lead to Bill feeling like Steve really screwed the pooch.
would Windows Phone, AR, VR, Bing, Office 365, One Drive, Xbox, Mobile Gaming, Home theatre PCs & content deals happened under Bill Gates? we'll never know. Steve may have tried to execute on his predecessors ideas but failed because the MS culture was too IBM-Like and it took radical restructuring to make that work. Steve may have inherited an organization that was pre-disposed to miss these boats?