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CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired

97 points by asto 14y ago

diminish 14y ago
"Oops! Five CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired (Cisco, GE, WalMart, Sears, Microsoft)" Surprised not to see Steven Elop of Nokia in the list.
- untog 14y ago
  He hasn't failed yet. He has pursued a risky plan to reinvent Nokia, one that might yet work out.
  - r00fus 14y ago
    How many new CEOs get more than 1-2 quarters before they're judged? Why is Elop treated differently? Over 4 quarters of disastrous results after an equally disastrous abandonment of his suppliers customers and products. Elop can legitimately be described as a disastrous CEO and should have been dismissed as soon as he uttered "burning platform". Even the similarly disastrous Apotheker who manned HP got less than a year and wasn't as bad by the numbers or employee sentiment.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Killswitch 14y ago
Ouch, that's kind of a kick to the ego. I do kind of agree with the article... Ballmer is washed up and making Microsoft hurt for it.
- hobin 14y ago
  I think that's nonsense. I don't like Ballmer, either, but nowhere have I seen any evidence that he's hurting Microsoft because of it. Look at NASDAG:MSFT, and you'll see that Microsoft is actually an incredibly stable company. This is very likely to change in the future, of course, but this has little to do with Ballmer, per se, and more with the fact that its flagship (i.e. Windows) is becoming less necessary for a lot of people. http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1337112000000&chddm=993531&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:MSFT&ntsp=0 http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...
asto 14y ago
Windows 7 is pretty good in my opinion. I only run a linux box right now, but when I need Office/Photoshop/Games, I'm much more likely to go with Windows than Mac. What's wrong with windows as of Windows 7? As far as I can see, not very much. It seemed quite stable for the limited time I used it. It's good to look at. It gets the job done. What more do I need? I'm sure Windows 8 will be a decent move up from here. A better choice for worst CEO would have been the former RIM CEO or the current Nokia one. I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DITCHED MEEGO IN FAVOUR OF WINDOWS PHONE!!! AARRGGGG!
- beedogs 14y ago
  > I'm sure Windows 8 will be a decent move up from here. I've used it. It isn't. It's well and truly a horrorshow. And I like Windows 7.
  - asto 14y ago
    I've tried out the consumer preview as well. Can't say anything about how it performs because I tried it on VM but it had some obvious flaws that affected usability. I don't think we should judge them before the final release though. (or maybe we should wait till SP1 :D)
  - freehunter 14y ago
    And there are people still using XP because they say 7 is a horrorshow. I've worked (in the last year!) with some salesmen at my company who still ask to be moved back to DOS because they can't figure out Windows. Opinions are a funny thing: they're not always logical.
    - pessimizer 14y ago
      People are mostly still using XP because they said Vista was a horror show, and the upgrade path from XP to 7 is either extremely difficult or impossible.
      - holychiz 14y ago
bstar77 14y ago
As much as this pains me to say it, I don't think Ballmer is the worst by far. The reality is that MS's numbers are still great despite not having the stranglehold over the PC industry that they once had. It's still a very strong company. I don't care for their products, but many people still do. Ballmer deserves the crap he's gotten for his prior arrogance, but I have not seen that behavior in a long time. I have a hard time criticizing him for his lack of clairvoyance of Apple's success, but who else had it in 2007? Only Google comes to mind. This story is just out there to get picked up by bloggers and hopefully go viral. I actually think the man deserves more respect.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  That's fine, but the problem is that his early mistakes means that Microsoft has been playing catchup, and will continue to play catch up. They've effectively coasted on their existing installed base without innovating. Nothing about the experience of Windows now is any different from what it was in 2000. There is nothing audacious about what Microsoft has attempted to do this century, save for the xbox & the kinect. My life isn't better because of Microsoft. That despite the fact that Microsoft has had some awesome researchers and projects. They have by and large failed to bring any those tools and products to market (the kinect again being a notable exception).
  - bstar77 14y ago
    You could say the same thing about the release of OSX. MS is playing catch up in the mobile sector, a place they never dominated. They still OWN pc marketshare. Now make me stop defending these guys, I'm getting heartburn.
    - knowtheory 14y ago
      You really think that about OSX? iTunes? The app store? Redesigning touchpad interactions for OSX?
      - bstar77 14y ago
epynonymous 14y ago
this article is poorly written, microsoft is still a very profitable company with tons of cash in the bank and though ballmer hasn't innovated much over the past few years, they haven't fallen as much as the author likes to suggest (unless you're talking about stock price which is moot anyway since microsoft's a value company now). it takes different ceo's to steer a company through different times. surely you don't think companies are at the top forever do you? DEC anyone? for the record, i am not a fan of (developers developers developers) ballmer or microsoft, but this article just pure stinks. competition has heated up and this is after all the technology sector where even things like social media can lead the industry.
giis 14y ago
I hope he continues as M$ CEO :)
randomdrake 14y ago
I am disappointed that there was not more direct information regarding the links between Ballmer and the directions the mentioned technologies have taken. I can't help but think that there are other factors besides a single individual regarding Zune, Vista, CE, and so on. Can it really be true that one individual is responsible for every one of those going the wrong way? Microsoft is still a valuable company and continues to be in millions of homes, businesses and schools around the world. Keeping a foothold in that market seems like a success, to me. Losing stock value is one aspect of the measurement of successes of a company, but is it truly the reflection of a single individual?
- saddino 14y ago
  In corporate culture, the CEO is, fairly or not, a proxy for the company, and thus, the individual held responsible for the success or failure of the corporate entity. No different from firing the manager or head coach of a sports team (which may inherit a losing streak due to pure luck or regression to a mean from a spectacular run of winning seasons). The buck has to stop somewhere.
bluedevil2k 14y ago
I submit Robert Nardelli for the Worst CEO Hall of Fame. CEO of Home Depot, drove customer experience at the store to the ground all in the name of profits, stock price was unchanged during his tenure (and his tenure saw the biggest run up in home prices in American history). CEO of Chrysler, drove it to bankruptcy.
shelf 14y ago
Aaand we revert to the usual correlation/cause confusion that usually surrounds leadership discussion. For all you know, Microsoft could have been much worse off without Ballmer. Fate and the actions of the collective other will always have this kind of unpredictable, mountain-moving power, and foolish men will always try to attribute it to something they can measure. Nothing is this simple.
- megablast 14y ago
  Everybody in history could have done worse. So what? We should never judge them?
gouranga 14y ago
Granted the guy is a holy grade prick, but he's kept Microsoft together fine over the last few years. In fact they've improved as a company quite incredibly recently, bar the legal shenanigans...
alapshah 14y ago
Like others here, I think Nokia/RIM ceo's are worse. I liked this article about tech CEO's in general: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-tech-ceos-seem-so-dumb http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-tech-ceos-seem-so-dumb
jroseattle 14y ago
This article is actually phenomenally ignorant of what it means to run an entity such as Microsoft. Ballmer is no gem, but the author suggests he failed because he didn't re-invent an inherited, gigantic behemoth constructed in the eyes of Gates, who hung around for years in a non-official capacity. Oh, and he lost to Apple. Could he have done better? I guess. Could he have done worse? I'm sure.
- andrewljohnson 14y ago
  The buck has got to stop somewhere. Getting beat by Apple is not an "oops." If he can't do it, they should get someone else who can. MSoft is becoming increasingly less relevant to my life, and I don't think I'm alone.
- Tloewald 14y ago
  Indeed, Microsoft under Ballmer has done far better than Sears (to which it is unfavorably compared in the article), Yahoo, RIM, etc. But, it is a sign that Wall Street is starting to pile on Ballmer?
- delinka 14y ago
  I don't understand how anyone could have thought Ballmer was anything other than Gates choosing his friend to fill the job. He's always been completely out of touch with technology. He's completely a Suit and not a Geek, to put the stereotypes to work. What's worse is he's an egotistical suit that thinks he can just will the technology industry to follow his (Microsoft's) lead. He doesn't even want to understand technology or the end users' needs. He rode Gates' and Allen's coattails and he's comfortable in his riches. He has no motivation to attempt innovation and he's stuck in his comfort zone. Billions in residual revenue from Windows and Office upgrades? Good enough for him apparently. They need a CEO with a strong openness principle and willing to listen two great advisors: a designer with strong UI/UX experience, and an engineer who knows how to implement those designs. Summary: Drop Ballmer, get some Apple design sense, and keep shit open. That is how you'll move the industry forward with Microsoft leading the way.
loverobots 14y ago
Not exactly Forbes but a "motivational speaker" and a blogger. No doubt he has the experience of running a company the size of MSFT and crippled by anti-trust settlements on both sides of the Atlantic By the way, Microsoft is still growing all while investing in xBox, Bing and Microsoft Research (PE of around 11 and valued north of $250 Billion.) They have returned tens of billions to shareholders via dividends and still have almost $50 Billion in reserve. This blogger should send his resume and ideas to the board of top companies if he can do better as CEO. Microsoft is about to make a cool and predictable $25 Billion in profit this year. 25,000,000,000.00 in just one year. Not sure what will happen 5-10 years from now (no one really does) but it's a great achievement for a "dead" company.
jeffdechambeau 14y ago
It's also important to note that this isn't Forbes. This is the Forbes blogging network, which is just a giant Huffington Post style link-bait operation. The OP may want to learn the difference.
brudgers 14y ago
>"Microsoft is PC company, nothing more, as demand for PCs shifts to mobile." I doubt Forbes serves its website from an iPhone. B2C is a small portion of Microsoft's business (though massive on an absolute scale). From the days of their agreement with IBM, Microsoft has always been grounded in B2B relationships. The fact that the author can mention Dell, Nokia, and HP indicates a strength that companies to which they are often compared such as Google and Apple, lack - Michael Dell's B2B relationship with Microsoft helped make him a billionaire. Under Balmer's tenure, Microsoft has become a stable mature company which has consistently realizes massive profits through established long term relationships with their customers. Microsoft started paying dividends a long time ago. It's not a growth stock. Balmer remains CEO because he is not beholden to Wall Street. He's second only to Gates as a shareholder. They can look long term in a way that other companies cannot and direct Microsoft accordingly - because Balmer's job isn't at risk based on some two bit analyst's opinions.
- roc 14y ago
  I'll agree there's a strange blind-spot in much tech reporting on Microsoft. It consistently misses Microsoft's stable, mature and solidly profitable B2B business. Even if worse came to worst, they could sail off into that land IBM pioneered, remaining happily profitable for decades to come. But at the same time, Ballmer has made some horrible blunders. The XBox was nearly strangled by their obsession with beating Sony out of the gate with the 360. The Zune was a disaster. The years of utter denial regarding WinCE vs the iPhone and Android. Groove. Danger. Skype. The complete lack of a functional ecosystem between their own first-party products. [1] The critically successful Windows Phone being artificially hobbled by bureaucratic concerns [2]. Mismanaging the entire tablet sector for years, only to show up three years late with a confusing compromise... In short, nothing but their B2B business (and you can lump much of their Windows licensing money in as part of that) has been run well. [1] XBox Live vs Games for Windows Live, XBox Media Functions vs Windows Media Center, Zune vs XBox Marketplace (and don't get me started on the mess that they created when they tried to finally centralize media under the "Zune" service brand...) [2] The name is absurd. Why not "Metro"? Why didn't they just put it on a tablet and call it a day? Why are they finally delivering a Metro-ish tablet, but under a different architecture and name and with some obtuse desktop metaphor lurking under the covers?
joelrunyon 14y ago
1 page article here --> http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/12/oops-5-ceos-that-should-have-already-been-fired-cisco-ge-walmart-sears-microsoft/print/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/12/oops-5-ce...
- joering2 14y ago
  thanks for that. I couldnt get passed ridiculous "capital one" advertise that took over my screen. I gave up looking for X to close it down.
Ryan_Shmotkin 14y ago
How can anyone can seriously consider this article where the reporter constantly compares shares prices now to.. the height of the tech bubble of 2000 ? How about comparing profits ? Oh wait.. didn't Balmer double that..
- TDL 14y ago
  Well said. I am no fan of Balmer, but using stock prices to my comparisons from one period to another is usually foolish. It's one thing to say that the price of a stock has plummeted in a short period (SHLD being a good example from the article) is indicative of poor leadership; it's another thing entirely to compare stock prices where they currently stand to when they were priced for perfection.
Tycho 14y ago
Xbox has been brilliant though.
rdl 14y ago
What happened to Cisco? Aside from crazy acquisitions, and their long-time strategy of having employees leave, build a company, sell to Cisco for a high price, work for earn out, then do it again, and again, what did Cisco do to fall from where it was to where it is now?
dragonbonheur 14y ago
I don't agree that Steve Ballmer should be in that list. Historically he has been responsible for Microsoft's massive expansion while Gates wanted to keep his company 'lean and mean', so in a way Ballmer is responsible for MS doing so much R&D, although he doesn't have the same ability as Gates to make his researchers focus on successful future products. OTOH the one CEO that I would put at the #1 spot is Stephen Elop, of Nokia. Nokia had a great OS, API and developer ecosystem and Elop gave all that away. Despite what the media is happy to report the Symbian OS is a perfect fit for mobile technology, touchscreen or not; a RTOS kernel (just like any kernel, as the Mach Kernel used in iOS) only needs the adequate drivers to handle multi-touch screens. There was no valid reason for giving all that to Accenture. Nokia is making a great range of devices, but now all developers will be coding for Android, thanks to Mr Elop.
slantyyz 14y ago
I'm surprised the CEO of Groupon wasn't on the list.
_rj 14y ago
Its kind of disturbing to see speculative articles like these make a quick huge wave and creates some kind of impact. Most of the logic behind picking these 5 are based on the stock price, on the other hand if some well known wall st person makes a stock pick, price shoots up. I think this article is little over the limit.
tzaman 14y ago
What a load of crap. All these CEOs are guilty for low stock values? I doubt. Cisco, for example makes top notch networking gear, and it's only so much they can achieve there - I've had my Linksys routers for years now and I doubt I'll have to change them anytime soon. I don't think they can revolutionize the market any further. And that is not CEO's fault - they merely stick to what they are good in. Why is that wrong?
adventureful 14y ago
There's little doubt that Ballmer has been a mediocre CEO in terms of innovating or at least properly catching the latest technology waves. However, the Forbes articles ignores several important issues. 1) Ballmer has tripled the sales, and doubled the profits in the last ten years at Microsoft, while paying out $100 billion in dividends (and MSFT still has $60b in cash). This with a company that was already the most profitable tech company (2002). That is not a terrible performance, specifically because... 2) Had Microsoft gone with someone else, it's just as possible they could have ended up like HP, Dell or Yahoo. Microsoft is not in that boat however, and Ballmer has not destroyed the company. The article mentions Windows, but ignores server + tools, which has grown tremendously and is very profitable. Consumer Windows is not their lead profit machine any longer. It's far more likely that someone would implode a company that is on top of the mountain, than that they would figure out how to create the first trillion dollar company. It's worth keeping that in mind: the only way Ballmer could have apparently succeeded by the article's qualification, is by creating a trillion dollar company out of a price per share ($60) that was derived from the greatest stock market bubble in world history. There is a limit to how much money you can make at any given time in the global business eco-system. Microsoft had nowhere to go stock market wise, sideways from a stock market bubble price would have been a helluva accomplishment (just ask Intel or Cisco). Everybody touts Apple today, but the most likely best-case outcome for their company is sideways (5% annual growth) for the next decade. Once you hit the top of the mountain, it becomes nearly impossible to keep soaring.
protomyth 14y ago
On the sidebar is a couple of Warren Buffet stories and if his next 3 years are like his last three[1], he might make the list. Microsoft doesn't look so bad compared to his fund. [1] http://www.investorplace.com/2012/05/where-did-warren-buffett-go-wrong-berkshire-hathaway-brka-brkb/ http://www.investorplace.com/2012/05/where-did-warren-buffet... Technically, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe purchase might yield well given the pipeline was killed.
mhartl 14y ago
As a thought experiment, imagine the change in Microsoft's market cap if tomorrow they announced that Steve Ballmer was stepping down and Bill Gates was returning as CEO. The result, at least in my mental model, doesn't reflect well on Steve.

97 points by asto 14y ago

"Oops! Five CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired (Cisco, GE, WalMart, Sears, Microsoft)" Surprised not to see Steven Elop of Nokia in the list.

untog 14y ago
He hasn't failed yet. He has pursued a risky plan to reinvent Nokia, one that might yet work out.
- r00fus 14y ago
  How many new CEOs get more than 1-2 quarters before they're judged? Why is Elop treated differently? Over 4 quarters of disastrous results after an equally disastrous abandonment of his suppliers customers and products. Elop can legitimately be described as a disastrous CEO and should have been dismissed as soon as he uttered "burning platform". Even the similarly disastrous Apotheker who manned HP got less than a year and wasn't as bad by the numbers or employee sentiment.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

Killswitch 14y ago

Ouch, that's kind of a kick to the ego. I do kind of agree with the article... Ballmer is washed up and making Microsoft hurt for it.

hobin 14y ago
I think that's nonsense. I don't like Ballmer, either, but nowhere have I seen any evidence that he's hurting Microsoft because of it. Look at NASDAG:MSFT, and you'll see that Microsoft is actually an incredibly stable company. This is very likely to change in the future, of course, but this has little to do with Ballmer, per se, and more with the fact that its flagship (i.e. Windows) is becoming less necessary for a lot of people. http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1337112000000&chddm=993531&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:MSFT&ntsp=0 http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...

asto 14y ago

Windows 7 is pretty good in my opinion. I only run a linux box right now, but when I need Office/Photoshop/Games, I'm much more likely to go with Windows than Mac. What's wrong with windows as of Windows 7? As far as I can see, not very much. It seemed quite stable for the limited time I used it. It's good to look at. It gets the job done. What more do I need? I'm sure Windows 8 will be a decent move up from here. A better choice for worst CEO would have been the former RIM CEO or the current Nokia one. I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DITCHED MEEGO IN FAVOUR OF WINDOWS PHONE!!! AARRGGGG!

beedogs 14y ago
> I'm sure Windows 8 will be a decent move up from here. I've used it. It isn't. It's well and truly a horrorshow. And I like Windows 7.
- asto 14y ago
  I've tried out the consumer preview as well. Can't say anything about how it performs because I tried it on VM but it had some obvious flaws that affected usability. I don't think we should judge them before the final release though. (or maybe we should wait till SP1 :D)
- freehunter 14y ago
  And there are people still using XP because they say 7 is a horrorshow. I've worked (in the last year!) with some salesmen at my company who still ask to be moved back to DOS because they can't figure out Windows. Opinions are a funny thing: they're not always logical.
  - pessimizer 14y ago
    People are mostly still using XP because they said Vista was a horror show, and the upgrade path from XP to 7 is either extremely difficult or impossible.
    - holychiz 14y ago

bstar77 14y ago

As much as this pains me to say it, I don't think Ballmer is the worst by far. The reality is that MS's numbers are still great despite not having the stranglehold over the PC industry that they once had. It's still a very strong company. I don't care for their products, but many people still do. Ballmer deserves the crap he's gotten for his prior arrogance, but I have not seen that behavior in a long time. I have a hard time criticizing him for his lack of clairvoyance of Apple's success, but who else had it in 2007? Only Google comes to mind. This story is just out there to get picked up by bloggers and hopefully go viral. I actually think the man deserves more respect.

knowtheory 14y ago
That's fine, but the problem is that his early mistakes means that Microsoft has been playing catchup, and will continue to play catch up. They've effectively coasted on their existing installed base without innovating. Nothing about the experience of Windows now is any different from what it was in 2000. There is nothing audacious about what Microsoft has attempted to do this century, save for the xbox & the kinect. My life isn't better because of Microsoft. That despite the fact that Microsoft has had some awesome researchers and projects. They have by and large failed to bring any those tools and products to market (the kinect again being a notable exception).
- bstar77 14y ago
  You could say the same thing about the release of OSX. MS is playing catch up in the mobile sector, a place they never dominated. They still OWN pc marketshare. Now make me stop defending these guys, I'm getting heartburn.
  - knowtheory 14y ago
    You really think that about OSX? iTunes? The app store? Redesigning touchpad interactions for OSX?
    - bstar77 14y ago

epynonymous 14y ago

this article is poorly written, microsoft is still a very profitable company with tons of cash in the bank and though ballmer hasn't innovated much over the past few years, they haven't fallen as much as the author likes to suggest (unless you're talking about stock price which is moot anyway since microsoft's a value company now). it takes different ceo's to steer a company through different times. surely you don't think companies are at the top forever do you? DEC anyone? for the record, i am not a fan of (developers developers developers) ballmer or microsoft, but this article just pure stinks. competition has heated up and this is after all the technology sector where even things like social media can lead the industry.

giis 14y ago

I hope he continues as M$ CEO :)

randomdrake 14y ago

I am disappointed that there was not more direct information regarding the links between Ballmer and the directions the mentioned technologies have taken. I can't help but think that there are other factors besides a single individual regarding Zune, Vista, CE, and so on. Can it really be true that one individual is responsible for every one of those going the wrong way? Microsoft is still a valuable company and continues to be in millions of homes, businesses and schools around the world. Keeping a foothold in that market seems like a success, to me. Losing stock value is one aspect of the measurement of successes of a company, but is it truly the reflection of a single individual?

saddino 14y ago
In corporate culture, the CEO is, fairly or not, a proxy for the company, and thus, the individual held responsible for the success or failure of the corporate entity. No different from firing the manager or head coach of a sports team (which may inherit a losing streak due to pure luck or regression to a mean from a spectacular run of winning seasons). The buck has to stop somewhere.

bluedevil2k 14y ago

I submit Robert Nardelli for the Worst CEO Hall of Fame. CEO of Home Depot, drove customer experience at the store to the ground all in the name of profits, stock price was unchanged during his tenure (and his tenure saw the biggest run up in home prices in American history). CEO of Chrysler, drove it to bankruptcy.

shelf 14y ago

Aaand we revert to the usual correlation/cause confusion that usually surrounds leadership discussion. For all you know, Microsoft could have been much worse off without Ballmer. Fate and the actions of the collective other will always have this kind of unpredictable, mountain-moving power, and foolish men will always try to attribute it to something they can measure. Nothing is this simple.

megablast 14y ago
Everybody in history could have done worse. So what? We should never judge them?

gouranga 14y ago

Granted the guy is a holy grade prick, but he's kept Microsoft together fine over the last few years. In fact they've improved as a company quite incredibly recently, bar the legal shenanigans...

alapshah 14y ago

Like others here, I think Nokia/RIM ceo's are worse. I liked this article about tech CEO's in general: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-tech-ceos-seem-so-dumb http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-tech-ceos-seem-so-dumb

jroseattle 14y ago

This article is actually phenomenally ignorant of what it means to run an entity such as Microsoft. Ballmer is no gem, but the author suggests he failed because he didn't re-invent an inherited, gigantic behemoth constructed in the eyes of Gates, who hung around for years in a non-official capacity. Oh, and he lost to Apple. Could he have done better? I guess. Could he have done worse? I'm sure.

andrewljohnson 14y ago
The buck has got to stop somewhere. Getting beat by Apple is not an "oops." If he can't do it, they should get someone else who can. MSoft is becoming increasingly less relevant to my life, and I don't think I'm alone.
Tloewald 14y ago
Indeed, Microsoft under Ballmer has done far better than Sears (to which it is unfavorably compared in the article), Yahoo, RIM, etc. But, it is a sign that Wall Street is starting to pile on Ballmer?
delinka 14y ago
I don't understand how anyone could have thought Ballmer was anything other than Gates choosing his friend to fill the job. He's always been completely out of touch with technology. He's completely a Suit and not a Geek, to put the stereotypes to work. What's worse is he's an egotistical suit that thinks he can just will the technology industry to follow his (Microsoft's) lead. He doesn't even want to understand technology or the end users' needs. He rode Gates' and Allen's coattails and he's comfortable in his riches. He has no motivation to attempt innovation and he's stuck in his comfort zone. Billions in residual revenue from Windows and Office upgrades? Good enough for him apparently. They need a CEO with a strong openness principle and willing to listen two great advisors: a designer with strong UI/UX experience, and an engineer who knows how to implement those designs. Summary: Drop Ballmer, get some Apple design sense, and keep shit open. That is how you'll move the industry forward with Microsoft leading the way.

loverobots 14y ago

Not exactly Forbes but a "motivational speaker" and a blogger. No doubt he has the experience of running a company the size of MSFT and crippled by anti-trust settlements on both sides of the Atlantic By the way, Microsoft is still growing all while investing in xBox, Bing and Microsoft Research (PE of around 11 and valued north of $250 Billion.) They have returned tens of billions to shareholders via dividends and still have almost $50 Billion in reserve. This blogger should send his resume and ideas to the board of top companies if he can do better as CEO. Microsoft is about to make a cool and predictable $25 Billion in profit this year. 25,000,000,000.00 in just one year. Not sure what will happen 5-10 years from now (no one really does) but it's a great achievement for a "dead" company.

jeffdechambeau 14y ago

It's also important to note that this isn't Forbes. This is the Forbes blogging network, which is just a giant Huffington Post style link-bait operation. The OP may want to learn the difference.

brudgers 14y ago

>"Microsoft is PC company, nothing more, as demand for PCs shifts to mobile." I doubt Forbes serves its website from an iPhone. B2C is a small portion of Microsoft's business (though massive on an absolute scale). From the days of their agreement with IBM, Microsoft has always been grounded in B2B relationships. The fact that the author can mention Dell, Nokia, and HP indicates a strength that companies to which they are often compared such as Google and Apple, lack - Michael Dell's B2B relationship with Microsoft helped make him a billionaire. Under Balmer's tenure, Microsoft has become a stable mature company which has consistently realizes massive profits through established long term relationships with their customers. Microsoft started paying dividends a long time ago. It's not a growth stock. Balmer remains CEO because he is not beholden to Wall Street. He's second only to Gates as a shareholder. They can look long term in a way that other companies cannot and direct Microsoft accordingly - because Balmer's job isn't at risk based on some two bit analyst's opinions.

roc 14y ago
I'll agree there's a strange blind-spot in much tech reporting on Microsoft. It consistently misses Microsoft's stable, mature and solidly profitable B2B business. Even if worse came to worst, they could sail off into that land IBM pioneered, remaining happily profitable for decades to come. But at the same time, Ballmer has made some horrible blunders. The XBox was nearly strangled by their obsession with beating Sony out of the gate with the 360. The Zune was a disaster. The years of utter denial regarding WinCE vs the iPhone and Android. Groove. Danger. Skype. The complete lack of a functional ecosystem between their own first-party products. [1] The critically successful Windows Phone being artificially hobbled by bureaucratic concerns [2]. Mismanaging the entire tablet sector for years, only to show up three years late with a confusing compromise... In short, nothing but their B2B business (and you can lump much of their Windows licensing money in as part of that) has been run well. [1] XBox Live vs Games for Windows Live, XBox Media Functions vs Windows Media Center, Zune vs XBox Marketplace (and don't get me started on the mess that they created when they tried to finally centralize media under the "Zune" service brand...) [2] The name is absurd. Why not "Metro"? Why didn't they just put it on a tablet and call it a day? Why are they finally delivering a Metro-ish tablet, but under a different architecture and name and with some obtuse desktop metaphor lurking under the covers?

joelrunyon 14y ago

1 page article here --> http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/12/oops-5-ceos-that-should-have-already-been-fired-cisco-ge-walmart-sears-microsoft/print/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/12/oops-5-ce...

joering2 14y ago
thanks for that. I couldnt get passed ridiculous "capital one" advertise that took over my screen. I gave up looking for X to close it down.

Ryan_Shmotkin 14y ago

How can anyone can seriously consider this article where the reporter constantly compares shares prices now to.. the height of the tech bubble of 2000 ? How about comparing profits ? Oh wait.. didn't Balmer double that..

TDL 14y ago
Well said. I am no fan of Balmer, but using stock prices to my comparisons from one period to another is usually foolish. It's one thing to say that the price of a stock has plummeted in a short period (SHLD being a good example from the article) is indicative of poor leadership; it's another thing entirely to compare stock prices where they currently stand to when they were priced for perfection.

Tycho 14y ago

Xbox has been brilliant though.

rdl 14y ago

What happened to Cisco? Aside from crazy acquisitions, and their long-time strategy of having employees leave, build a company, sell to Cisco for a high price, work for earn out, then do it again, and again, what did Cisco do to fall from where it was to where it is now?

dragonbonheur 14y ago

I don't agree that Steve Ballmer should be in that list. Historically he has been responsible for Microsoft's massive expansion while Gates wanted to keep his company 'lean and mean', so in a way Ballmer is responsible for MS doing so much R&D, although he doesn't have the same ability as Gates to make his researchers focus on successful future products. OTOH the one CEO that I would put at the #1 spot is Stephen Elop, of Nokia. Nokia had a great OS, API and developer ecosystem and Elop gave all that away. Despite what the media is happy to report the Symbian OS is a perfect fit for mobile technology, touchscreen or not; a RTOS kernel (just like any kernel, as the Mach Kernel used in iOS) only needs the adequate drivers to handle multi-touch screens. There was no valid reason for giving all that to Accenture. Nokia is making a great range of devices, but now all developers will be coding for Android, thanks to Mr Elop.

slantyyz 14y ago

I'm surprised the CEO of Groupon wasn't on the list.

_rj 14y ago

Its kind of disturbing to see speculative articles like these make a quick huge wave and creates some kind of impact. Most of the logic behind picking these 5 are based on the stock price, on the other hand if some well known wall st person makes a stock pick, price shoots up. I think this article is little over the limit.

tzaman 14y ago

What a load of crap. All these CEOs are guilty for low stock values? I doubt. Cisco, for example makes top notch networking gear, and it's only so much they can achieve there - I've had my Linksys routers for years now and I doubt I'll have to change them anytime soon. I don't think they can revolutionize the market any further. And that is not CEO's fault - they merely stick to what they are good in. Why is that wrong?

adventureful 14y ago

There's little doubt that Ballmer has been a mediocre CEO in terms of innovating or at least properly catching the latest technology waves. However, the Forbes articles ignores several important issues. 1) Ballmer has tripled the sales, and doubled the profits in the last ten years at Microsoft, while paying out $100 billion in dividends (and MSFT still has $60b in cash). This with a company that was already the most profitable tech company (2002). That is not a terrible performance, specifically because... 2) Had Microsoft gone with someone else, it's just as possible they could have ended up like HP, Dell or Yahoo. Microsoft is not in that boat however, and Ballmer has not destroyed the company. The article mentions Windows, but ignores server + tools, which has grown tremendously and is very profitable. Consumer Windows is not their lead profit machine any longer. It's far more likely that someone would implode a company that is on top of the mountain, than that they would figure out how to create the first trillion dollar company. It's worth keeping that in mind: the only way Ballmer could have apparently succeeded by the article's qualification, is by creating a trillion dollar company out of a price per share ($60) that was derived from the greatest stock market bubble in world history. There is a limit to how much money you can make at any given time in the global business eco-system. Microsoft had nowhere to go stock market wise, sideways from a stock market bubble price would have been a helluva accomplishment (just ask Intel or Cisco). Everybody touts Apple today, but the most likely best-case outcome for their company is sideways (5% annual growth) for the next decade. Once you hit the top of the mountain, it becomes nearly impossible to keep soaring.

protomyth 14y ago

On the sidebar is a couple of Warren Buffet stories and if his next 3 years are like his last three[1], he might make the list. Microsoft doesn't look so bad compared to his fund. [1] http://www.investorplace.com/2012/05/where-did-warren-buffett-go-wrong-berkshire-hathaway-brka-brkb/ http://www.investorplace.com/2012/05/where-did-warren-buffet... Technically, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe purchase might yield well given the pipeline was killed.

mhartl 14y ago

As a thought experiment, imagine the change in Microsoft's market cap if tomorrow they announced that Steve Ballmer was stepping down and Bill Gates was returning as CEO. The result, at least in my mental model, doesn't reflect well on Steve.