Steve Ballmer quotes:

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

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.

Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards.

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.

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,

I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have.

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.

We've grown from 18% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry to 23% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry over the last five years. Profits are up over 70%, where the industry profit is up about 35%. Pretty good.

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.

I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.

Accessible design is good design.

Certainly, we continue to bring in new people. We'll hire, net new, over 4,000 people this year, and attract great people into the company. I'm very bullish about the employee base and what it can accomplish.

So, I think the output of our innovation is great. We have a culture of self-improvement. I know we can continue to improve. There is no issue. But at the same time, our absolute level of output is fantastic.

Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

Not only because the product wasn't a great product, but remember it took us five or six years to ship it. Then we had to sort of fix it. That was what I might call Windows 7.

Great companies with the way they work, first start with great leaders.

At Microsoft, we're investing heavily in security because we want customers to be able to trust their computing experiences, so they can realize the full benefits of the interconnected world we live in.

The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen.'

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.

I don't know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me.

What we've gone through in the last several years has caused some people to question 'Can we trust Microsoft?' .

We're going to try to do more to communicate the value of activation to customers in addition to making the process simpler and more consistent.

Our company has to be a company that enables its people.

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.

I'd rather use Windows and Internet Explorer in Hell than I'd use Linux and Mozilla Firefox in Heaven!

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

I don't think anyone has done a [tablet] product that I see customers wanting.

I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.

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.

We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference.

We will make our products work out of the box.

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there.

"Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...."

"There's no CEO for the government." But if you were CEO for a day at the government, would you have tools and reports and wherewithal to look at government the way a business would look at its lines of business, its spending, its revenue? I've actually been working, first by myself and then with a group of people, on then on and off, and now much more on, almost since the I time left Microsoft.

[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. ... If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.

[At Microsoft] I had many years of experience and history and seeing connections. With my direct reports, the job at Microsoft was to delegate and then be able to properly review, but not to micromanage. To have a way of connecting and integrating without getting in the way.

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.

A plane is a guilty pleasure. I have one. It's a great luxury. I appreciate it. I couldn't do what I do. It's not something you can write down as anything other than, "Wow, I can't believe I have this and I'm absolutely spoiled and entitled." On the other hand, I have one and I use it.

Accessible design is good design - it benefits people who don't have disabilities as well as people who do. Accessibility is all about removing barriers and providing the benefits of technology for everyone.

Analytics only goes so far. Basketball, more than baseball, for example, is really a team sport.

Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.

As a global company, our future growth and success requires that we constantly look at ways to improve our ability to serve customers worldwide.

As a shareholder I have expressed my frustration with not getting more information about revenue and margins from the cloud.

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.

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.

Developers, developers, developers, developers.

Eventually the Internet will be accessed by PC, television, and wireless devices.

Every NBA arena has six cameras in the ceiling. The question is what does the software do with video feeds? How to surface that in a set of analytics? There are some "playbooks," but in most sports these days what you really want to share out with coaches and players is a set of video that lets you visualize what's going on and what's the best way to do things.

Everyone likes to differentiate between business and consumers but I don't see the difference really. Most people are people. I get personal and business mail and I have one set of contacts from my life. I don't want to manage two sets. I want one view of my world.

Ford shared this vision. We are inviting more players to join in.

From a client perspective, I really think the work Microsoft's doing with Surface, with HoloLens, with Xbox, that stuff's absolutely essential to the company's future. Because innovation in the future will either be from the cloud out to all devices, or from devices as supported by software in the cloud. I think it's important for Microsoft to participate both ways.

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.

I can tell you first-hand from my experiences with Sacramento, the league does try to honor the fan bases it has, and encourage teams to stay in their home markets.

I didn't leave business school to go bankrupt.

I don't have a lot of experience running basketball teams.I'm just trying to get smart enough even to understand everything going on. As much of a fan as I am, I haven't played the game since ninth-grade. If you told me when I bought the team that there were 12 kinds of pick and rolls, I would've told you I have no frickin' clue about that.

I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.

I don't think there is one size that fits all [] I've been to too many meetings with journalists who spent the first 10 minutes of the meeting setting up iPad to look like a laptop.

I have four words for you: I love this company, yeah!

I like to tell people that all of our products and business will go through three phases. There's vision, patience, and execution.

I love the fact that Satya Nadella's checked the checkbox for cross-platform for a number of our services. I still think it's very important to do the right kind of innovative integration across Windows and our hardware platforms with our cloud services. I think the company's doing a lot of good stuff. Real competition in AWS. Real competition in terms of the clients, particularly from a hardware perspective, there's also [competition] from Chrome. But all in all pretty good.

I loved every minute of my time at Microsoft, but I had always envisioned having another phase of life just because I thought that would be interesting. It had never been my plan to work until I literally didn't want to do anything and then hang it up.

I meet with Satya [Nadella] what probably amounts to four or five times a year - either to brainstorm something or just as a shareholder, we'll sit down and chat. That's always quite helpful for me and hopefully him in terms of thinking things through. I still have a number of friends and colleagues who occasionally want to brainstorm or chat about something, and that's always fun.

I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly.

I think PCs are going to continue to shift in form factor. The real question is: What's a PC?

I think the biggest mistake most people make when they pick their first job is they don't worry enough about whether they'll love the work, and they worry more about whether it's good experience

I think there are lots of opportunities to improve the product. When you read the press, people say, "Oh, the product needs improvement." I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product. That leaves more upside from an innovation and revenue potential than you're gonna find in [a] lot of places. So you could say that's a downside, I see that as an opportunity.

I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs,and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.

I want people to understand the amazing, positive way our software can make leisure time more enjoyable, and work and businesses more successful.

I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.

I would love to see all open-source innovation happen on top of Windows.

I'd like to own Microsoft shares until I either give something to charity or I die.

If the CEO doesn't see the playing field, nobody else can. The team may need to see it too, but the CEO really needs to be able to see the entire competitive space.

If you look at companies with upside potential, Twitter's right there. They've established a brand in a world where it's extremely difficult to establish a brand. It's a global brand, people recognize it, people want to let you know what their Twitter handles are, etc.

I'm a shareholder in Microsoft Corp. of some size, and while I don't work for the place anymore, I think a lot about that investment, how - as an outsider - might I add value or not add value? Do I believe that things are headed in a good direction? So I wouldn't say I spend the majority of my time on that, but I spend some time on that as well.

I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google.

I'm going to f---ing kill Google.

I'm not an insider. I'm not on the board. I'm an outsider. That implies a certain kind of separation ... because the company can't, without an appropriate nondisclosure and trading rules, share confidential data with me that it would not share with any other shareholder. You could say that implies a certain kind of separation.

I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.

In a sense technology is a tool of sort of individual choice, individual creativity, individual empowerment, individual access. My kids will never understand that it used to be kind of hard to access and find things, and know what the world knows and see what the world sees. Yet it becomes easier and easier every day.

In general, I'm pretty busy with the other things I charted ... I bought a piece of a sports-tech company. We do a lot of work with at the Clippers. I think that'll be great. We're really looking at the possibility of extending and building a real over-the-top distribution channel with value-added services for the Clippers, that could lead to other partnerships and investments. But most of the stuff I'm looking at isn't because I say, "Hey, I want to invest." It sort of comes around from the work we're doing with the Clippers.

In many ways I think the company's doing quite a good job. If you look at the transition to Office 365 we started when I was there, I'm excited about that and I think the company's doing a great job on that.

In terms of the public positioning of the company, Satya's [Nadella] done a very good job. He sort of pivoted in a way that I don't think would have been possible for me to do even if I'd seen it that way, to really talk about this mobile-first, cloud-first world.

It actually turns out to be much harder to really understand government across state local and federal.

It's always great when you get a lot of people pushing themselves to do better, be better, invent better, better serve, better lead customers in new directions.

It's hard to invent a new thing, and it's just as hard to invent another new thing.

It's how tenacious you are that will determine your success.

It's the luxury of time that lets me in some ways now spoil myself. I get my workout in every day. I get a good, long sleep every day. I won't say they're guilty pleasures. When I first left Microsoft, I would say I spent the better part of a year saying, "OK, how do I get as busy and crazy and manic as I was at Microsoft?" Since then I said, "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity."

I've been doing lot of work, and hopefully will bring it to fruition in a way people can see it, really understanding - this is going to sound funny, but what does government really do, how is it really funded, and what measures exist to evaluate how it does at what it does? No forecast, no policy, no prediction, just a realistic perspective on what is. Call it like a "10k for government" we've been working on with a website, with additional data.

I've found three or four things that are quite interesting to me that I'm focused on. That's been fun.The Clippers is obviously one of them.

Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications - they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.

Make hiring a top priority.

Maybe I'm an emblem of an old era, and I have to move on.

Most people still steal music.

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.

No. 1 thing is that life is just not as interrupt-driven as when you're running a company.

Only our company and a handful of others are poised to write the future.

Our goal in making these changes is to enable Microsoft to achieve greater agility in managing the incredible growth ahead and executing our software-based services strategy.

Our industry is going through quite a wave of innovation and it's being powered by a phenomenon which is referred to as the cloud.

Since I'm not a seller of the stock, I don't really care what it is today.

The company [Microsoft] really has to chart a direction in mobile devices. Because if you're going to be mobile-first, cloud-first you really do need to have a sense of what you're doing in mobile devices. I had put the company on a path. The board as I was leaving took the company on a path by buying Nokia, they kind of went ahead with that after I told them I was going to go. The company, between me and the board, had taken that sort of view. Satya, he's certainly changed that. He needs to have a clear path forward. But I'm sure he'll get there.

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.

The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone

The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There's nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn't think they could do the day before.

The one thing that I think separates Microsoft from a lot of other people is we make bold bets. We're persistent about them, but we make them. A lot of people won't make a bold bet. A bold bet doesn't assure you of winning, but if you make no bold bets you can't continue to succeed. Our industry doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels forever. I mean, you can milk any great idea. Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.

The stock market has always had its own meter. Sometimes it's ahead of itself, sometimes it's behind itself. A broken watch is right twice a day.

The way I do things I usually always prefer to have a very clear strategy and be very focused. At the same time to be very rock solid, and crisp in execution.

The world is changing, but so is Microsoft.

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.

There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category. It is bad for the long-term worth of the economy.

There's a huge crowd out there that basically will go nuts recommending to every coach on the planet, "Hey, coach, I've been playing with the analytics. I think you should do X, Y, and Z."

There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete, we're going to compete very, very hard.

This is a great opportunity for Don, and I wish him success. I am incredibly proud of the work and vision culminating in Xbox One. I'm particularly excited about how Xbox pushes forward our devices and services transformation by bringing together the best of Microsoft.

This is all about having great leaders who can drive agile innovation and agile decision-making.

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.