Steve Ballmer

Chief executive, MSFT

In the role: Jan 2000 – Feb 2014
Birth date: 24 March 1956 1 source
Birth time: Unknown. A reading is issued only when it holds whichever hour Steve was born.

Readings in role

15 years on record

Readings are issued for leaders in the role, one of five levels read for the calendar year from the birth date. Steve is not in the role now; the record covers the years in it.

Years in role by level

Strong: none
Firm: 4 of 4 rose
Even: 4 of 9 rose
Soft: 1 of 2 rose
Weak: none

All leaders, 1995–2025: Strong 76% of 256 · Firm 71% of 709 · Even 67% of 2,016 · Soft 59% of 310 · Weak 50% of 191.

Year by year

Every calendar year Steve led MSFT with a reading on record, and what the stock did that year. Past years are read with the rules now fixed; the return is the stock's from January to December.

MSFT rose in 9 of 15 years.

Steve Ballmer at MSFT, by year
Year	Reading	Stacked	MSFT	Result
2014	Even	0 signals, 0 drags	+27.5%	Rose
2013	Firm	1 signal, 0 drags	+44.3%	Rose
2012	Even	1 signal, 2 drags	+5.8%	Rose
2011	Soft	0 signals, 1 drag	−4.5%	Fell
2010	Even	0 signals, 0 drags	−6.6%	Fell
2009	Soft	0 signals, 1 drag	+60.5%	Rose
2008	Even	1 signal, 1 drag	−44.4%	Fell
2007	Firm	1 signal, 0 drags	+20.9%	Rose
2006	Even	0 signals, 0 drags	+15.8%	Rose
2005	Even	0 signals, 0 drags	−0.9%	Fell
2004	Firm	1 signal, 0 drags	+9.1%	Rose
2003	Firm	1 signal, 0 drags	+6.9%	Rose
2002	Even	0 signals, 1 drag	−22.0%	Fell
2001	Even	0 signals, 1 drag	+52.7%	Rose
2000	Even	0 signals, 1 drag	−62.8%	Fell

Documented sources

MSFT 2013 proxy statement — stated ageSEC filing — published 3 October 2013; states age 57Read by model, SEC proxy-age pass

No source here states the day; one SEC filing states an age consistent with it. An age fixes the year, not the day. Stock.ceo has not verified the underlying birth record.

Sources last checked: 19 September 2026

Readings: One of five levels a year, with how many signals and drags stacked, computed from the birth date over the thirteen possible birth hours and issued only where at least ten agree. Built 2026-10-16 from research export f0c9e40. The rules stay in-house.
Stock data: Calendar-year and monthly % change of adjusted close. Volatility % = annualised stdev of the 12 monthly returns. No prices are included. Adjusted close is split-adjusted, so a stock split never appears as a move in anything plotted here, and stock splits are not recorded as events.
Birth dates: 206 of the 319 people in this dataset now have at least one source recorded here, across 207 of the 325 leader-company records — six people ran two companies and are stored once for each. Of those sources — all 207 of them — 204 are a stated age read out of an SEC proxy statement, which bounds a birth year and says nothing about the day; one is an age stated in a press report; two state the day itself, one from an official gazette read by a person and one from an encyclopedia. The day is what every reading on this site is calculated from, so for all but those two birth dates no source here backs the part that is used. The 204 records the pass produced were not reviewed by a person: each source names who read it. Six findings from the same pass are deliberately not entered, because in each one the date held here falls outside the bound the filing implies, and telling an ordinary record-date lag from a real disagreement needs a person rather than arithmetic. An absent entry still means no source is recorded here yet.
Research export: Version 2, generated 2026-10-16 from research commit 7d490ef with uncommitted changes

Research and exploration only. Not investment advice. A reading describes a leader's year from their birth date, not the stock.