Skip to main content

After investing in Twitter, Steve Ballmer gave up investing (TWTR)

By

steve ballmer

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California — When Steve Ballmer retired from the CEO job at Microsoft in 2014, he set his sights on becoming a tech investor and soon made a big bet on Twitter, acquiring a 4% stake.

That bet has not turned out very well so far, and now the former Microsoft head honcho admits he's lost his taste for investing. 

At the Code Conference taking place near Los Angeles this week, Ballmer discussed his short-lived stint as a tech investor and his decision to move on to other pursuits.

"I'm out of that phase, for those of you who might be looking for money. I'm not in that phase at all anymore," he said. "I'm out of that investment thing."

He's focused on owning his NBA basketball team, the LA Clippers; running his philanthropic organization with his wife, The Ballmer Group; and playing golf, he told Business Insider on the sidelines of the conference.

Back around the time he bought stock in Twitter it was trading at well above $25 per share. The stock is currently well below $20, as the internet company's stagnant user growth and internal turmoil have tarnished its image on Wall Street.

Ballmer didn't blame Twitter's poor stock performance for souring him on investing, but he laughed about it, saying it was part of a "magical decision" he made at that time to try out a new career.

While he wouldn't say if he's sold off much of his Twitter stake, Ballmer confirmed that he still has a sizeable stake.

A believer and a critic

These days, Ballmer doesn't even tune into the quarterly conference calls, though he says he still believes in the company, its role in sharing information real-time and its ability to let people talk directly to each other.

"I still have a lot of money into the concept that says there is an opportunity to make it into a real business," he said, although he also added he doesn't see "exactly" how the company would immediately do that.

Jack DorseyBallmer continues to be vocal in his criticism of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is doing double duty as CEO of online payment company Square.

"Being a CEO is a hard job, right? I can speak to that. Being a CEO of two things, I can't even imagine," he said. "You can't do that if you are really going to do the right thing for your shareholders."

Interestingly, Ballmer acknowledged that he's never really gotten into tweeting much himself, feeling like his tweets were sort of boring or repetitive. 

"I just felt like, how many times could I tweet, 'Ho! Great game today!'" he laughed. "I don't want to be that guy. I want to have something interesting to say."

SEE ALSO: Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer wants his wealth to help families here at home in the US

SEE ALSO: New York Times editor: There are 2 reasons the Trump administration has so many leaks

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Trump accidentally tweeted 'covfefe' — and Twitter immediately turned it into a huge meme



from Tech Insider http://ift.tt/2rqNleO
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Nintendo Switch has been the US’s bestselling console for 23 straight months

By
Photo by James Bareham / The Verge It’s been a good two years for the Nintendo Switch. According to Nintendo, the gaming tablet has been the bestselling console in the US for 23 straight months. And according to data from the NPD Group, it just had its best October ever, moving 735,926 units of both the Switch and Switch Lite in the US. The company says that represents a 136 percent increase compared to last year. To date, the Switch has sold 22.5 million units in the US, and last week Nintendo revealed that more than 68 million units have been sold globally . “We’re excited about our momentum,” says Nick Chavez, Nintendo of America’s SVP of sales and marketing. Chavez puts the company’s big October down to two main factors. One is a better supply of stock; this year in particular, it’s often been hard to find a Switch on store shelves. This has only been exacerbated by increased demand due to a combination of the pandemic and the breakout success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons . ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Instagram accidentally reinstated Pornhub’s banned account

By
After years of on-and-off temporary suspensions, Instagram permanently banned Pornhub’s account in September. Then, for a short period of time this weekend, the account was reinstated. By Tuesday, it was permanently banned again. “This was done in error,” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. “As we’ve said previously, we permanently disabled this Instagram account for repeatedly violating our policies.” Instagram’s content guidelines prohibit  nudity and sexual solicitation . A Pornhub spokesperson told TechCrunch, though, that they believe the adult streaming platform’s account did not violate any guidelines. Instagram has not commented on the exact reasoning for the ban, or which policies the account violated. It’s worrying from a moderation perspective if a permanently banned Instagram account can accidentally get switched back on. Pornhub told TechCrunch that its account even received a notice from Instagram, stating that its ban had been a mistake (that message itse...
Post a Comment
Read more

MVP versus EVP: Is it time to introduce ethics into the agile startup model?

By
Anand Rao Contributor Share on Twitter Anand Rao is global head of AI at PwC . The rocket ship trajectory of a startup is well known: Get an idea, build a team and slap together a minimum viable product (MVP) that you can get in front of users. However, today’s startups need to reconsider the MVP model as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) become ubiquitous in tech products and the market grows increasingly conscious of the ethical implications of AI augmenting or replacing humans in the decision-making process. An MVP allows you to collect critical feedback from your target market that then informs the minimum development required to launch a product — creating a powerful feedback loop that drives today’s customer-led business. This lean, agile model has been extremely successful over the past two decades — launching thousands of successful startups, some of which have grown into billion-dollar companies. However, building high-performing product...
Post a Comment
Read more