Ballmer was kinda the best Microsoft CEO for Windows, IMO. He didn't get the Justice department's attention in either the states or Europe, and he started building alternate revenue streams (XBOX, Windows Phone) without destroying the core product. Sure, MetroUI had no place in Server2012, but that was less egregious than the AI-everything and multiple settings menus

Nadella is a marvelous Microsoft CEO for Linux though. Credit where it's due

It's a bit like Bush. Sure, what happened back then was indeed stupid, but we didn't know how bad it was going to get.

If you haven't seen it before, I'd recommend Dan Luu's blog post about Ballmer:

https://danluu.com/ballmer/

Ballmer's biggest mistake was staying on during the worst financial crisis and also fumbling the phone business. I know some of the bad decisions can all be traced back to start of Win8 design language which happened under him.

I miss the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs days. At least there were positive improvements to Windows and Mac in those days.

I miss him as well in regards to Windows development tooling and roadmap.

wel, I was fired (after multiple rounds of downsizing our team from ~200 people to 20 people) by the new guy Satya back in the day, so yeah, I prefer Ballmer's approach as well

Eh, I am pretty sure that if Ballmer was at the wheel today we would see AI literally everywhere in Windows.

What we’re seeing today with Windows is more representative of the times we’re living in rather than because of who’s the CEO.

I don’t doubt for a second Ballmer would also be jumping onto the AI hype train if he was still running the show.