Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who stayed at the helm
of the software giant for about 13 years, said in a new
interview that he recommended and Bill Gates recommended Satya
Nadella for CEO position. Ballmer adds that he’s not surprised
Nadella is doing a great job.
“He’s the recommendation I made,” Ballmer said in a recent
interview with
Bloomberg’s David Rubinstein. “He’s the recommendation that
Bill Gates made. I thought he was a candidate to replace me,
which is why we moved him into his last job, which was running
one of the big divisions. And I was glad he got the job,
because he’s done a great job.”
“He’s done a good job of repositioning the company in
investors’ minds,” he added.
Microsoft’s market value has reached $800 billion this month
and it’s expected to improve as the Redmond-based tech giant
will announce its financial results later today. It’s
likely that the shares will be setting a new all-time high
record.
“We started this thing called Azure and Office 365, and my
successor Satya has taken the thing to very much new heights,”
Ballmer said who’s Microsoft’s biggest shareholder. “The only
change to reposition the company really came when Satya
started.”
