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We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.

Steve Ballmer

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Steve Ballmer
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: March 24
Businessman
Computer Scientist
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Detroit
Michigan
Steven Anthony Ballmer
Steve Anthony Ballmer
World
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More quotes by Steve Ballmer

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I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.
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My wife spent a lot of time on what we do from a civic contribution giving perspective, for a number of years, I've really joined her in that. We're focused on issues in the United States, particularly issues with people who have been trapped in neighborhoods in what I might call intergenerational poverty.
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The company I invested in is probably a leader in that area. They're a company called Second Spectrum, which happens to be based in LA but was started by two USC computer-science professors. It's filled with guys who love sports, who played sports, but really look like programmers.
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I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06.
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You get some success. You run into some walls...it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.
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I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly.
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I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work.
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Throughout our history, Microsoft has won by making big, bold bets. I believe that now is not the time to scale back the scope of our ambition or the scale of our investment. While our opportunities are greater than ever, we also face new competitors, faster-moving markets and new customer demands.
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It actually turns out to be much harder to really understand government across state local and federal.
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Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.
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500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.
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Eventually the Internet will be accessed by PC, television, and wireless devices.
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There are other ways I think of myself as spoiling myself ... I ... get a massage once a week. Other people can, I didn't used to, and I can now.
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It's how tenacious you are that will determine your success.
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I'm very, very bullish about our prospects, and as I tell our board, as I tell our employees, this is the time to invest. There's so much opportunity. Let's just invest in that opportunity, and really get after it.
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Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards.
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Baseball is a set of individuals doing their thing in the same team, but it's much more individual. In basketball people are making real time decisions about who gets the ball, do we trust everybody out on the court, and the analytics certainly don't show you all those subtle dynamics, but they're very important.
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Getting the big things right that make all the money, that's long cycle, really executing in a way that allows you to do it, that's short cycle.
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