Tuesday, 9 July 2024

From Employee to Billionaire: Steve Ballmer Surpasses Bill Gates in Wealth; 6th Richest on the Earth! My Conversation with Ballmer in 2009! Read this story on the important question raised!

Dear Friends and Students,

On Monday, July 2, 2024, for the first time, the former chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp. became wealthier than the company’s co-founder. Steve Ballmer surpassed Bill Gates to become the sixth-richest person in the world. Ballmer's net worth reached $157.2 billion. He is now richer than many well-known tech entrepreneurs, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. Steve Ballmer didn’t get a single company share when he joined Microsoft.

I was fortunate to meet Steve Ballmer in 2009 at a Microsoft meeting. I thank Wipro for nominating me for this prestigious event. More than that, I am extremely fortunate and thank Microsoft for giving me the chance to ask a question to Steve Ballmer, which was aired on YouTube. Please watch this before reading this story (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUoGKtZwxsI).

My question to Ballmer was, “Being a successful leader and also running a successful company, in your view, do organizations with socially meaningful missions build leaders or do leaders build successful missions?” Ballmer gave an excellent response and quoted examples of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Please watch this video to understand the true meaning. He says both but with caution. Even a great leader can take up a bad mission and still succeed in business. However, that is not the kind of business we need. Great leaders should have great ideas and build successful missions. Every leader and every business should check their overall missions and apply Pareto principles to reinstate them in case they are off track.

Often, while people apply the 80/20 principle (Pareto Principle) to their businesses, productivity, or health, the best application of the 80/20 rule is in happiness. For those who do not know the Pareto Principle, roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. This means that a small fraction of our efforts often yields the majority of our results.

Many students put in 14/15 hours to get a rank, sacrificing health, relationships with God, parents, and genuine friends and relatives, and understanding the true meaning of life. Once achieving the results, they again spend hours to earn a six-figure package, sacrificing many important learnings as bachelors. Upon reaching this, the routine continues. On the other hand, if we fail in the process, it leads to depression and devastation. Both extremes are not good in life.

One of my friends says, “20% of new habits will change your life the most, 20% of friends/relatives result in 80% of the toxicity in life, 20% of the food you eat causes the most damage to your health, 20% of your tasks will make 80% of your day productive—do them first, and 20% of new things that you do will create 80% of happiness!”

Having said that, if you ask me whether I practiced this in my life, the answer is “Yes and No.” While easy to preach, I am still struggling to practice it. However, I met and saw a few who implemented and succeeded in their lives. This is more of an art than a science!

Aligning leadership with meaningful missions and harnessing the Pareto Principle can transform success and happiness.

Best Wishes and Good Luck!

Ravi Saripalle

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