Steve Ballmer is set to make $1B a year for doing nothing | Hacker News Reader

Steve Ballmer is set to make $1B a year for doing nothing

cnn.com

15 pointsElement_13 comments

It’s an interesting story HOW he got such a large stake in Microsoft when he wasn’t a founder.

It boils down to Bill Gates organizing for Microsoft to lend Ballmer $50,000,000 to buy Microsoft shares and then Ballmer making clever further purchases when the share price was down for unimportant reasons.

*Steve Ballmer is set to make $1B a year for owning a shit-ton of Microsoft stock

That's basically the definition of investing, and that's basically how most wealthy people accrue their money, it just so happens that his investment was on something that turned out to be very big.

Nothing? Then anyone could do it. No, he first made billions, and is investing it (enabling the company's operations to do something) with risk of losing a billion to make it. It's not physical labour, but it's certainly something. I don't think this is the most effective way of distributing capital, but wouldn't call it nothing.

A very important and often neglected decision is that he decided NOT to sell when the price was lower (although still high).

For main street retail investors , that's the most difficult thing to do.

It’s more that he did something and now doesn’t have to.

It’s false that there’s a morality to wealth and that those who have gained it have inherently added value in line with the wealth they’ve gained. There’s usually a correlation but even then not always.

>I don't think this is the most effective way of distributing capital, but wouldn't call it nothing.

I think this is the scary part. Ballmer has billions, ok. This extreme gilded age we're living in doesn't end when Ballmer, Musk, Bezos, etc... die though. Their great grand children are guaranteed to wield far more power than anyone you are related to or know and that doesn't sit right with me.

The kernel of truth here is that it is, in fact, absolutely remarkable for a single individual to earn over a billion dollars in cold hard cash dividends from a single stock in one year. I don't think that has ever occured before.

When Ballmer was CEO, he has to be involved personally in every deal $10M+. No one doubts he excelled at being a great cheerleader but a CEO needs to lead and have an achievable vision that shapes the future.

What a silly article

Silly article. Lots of talk about big numbers. Keep in mind a billion doesn't necessarily buy you the same as it did when Microsoft started. So large part of these numbers is just due to inflation. Also taxes will take a huge chunk. And what would happen to MS stock if he actually started to dump a bunch of it? It would tank and he'd never realize all those gains.

Yes, I'm jealous.

It's a billion in dividends, not just portfolio growth. So it's a check for a billion bucks, with a special 20% tax rate. I couldn't care less about how much money somebody else has, but the inequity in tax rates is quite irritating.

An online source says that Microsoft has an effective 19% tax rate on its earnings, and dividends are paid from post-tax earnings. The argument for a lower rate on dividends is the avoidance of double taxation.

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