Billionaire Steve Ballmer asked if he could show off the toilets when 60 Minutes visited the Clippers’ new Intuit Dome.

There are more than 1,000 toilets in the Clippers’ new arena, and they’re all part of Ballmer’s plan to change the way fans experience basketball. He doesn’t want people waiting in line for a bathroom when they should be watching the game. It’s one of the many details he considered while spending more than $2 billion building a venue for the Clippers, which did not have a home of its own when Ballmer bought the team in 2014. 

More energy, more points

Ballmer is famous for his wild enthusiasm courtside. 

“[It] tells [the players] , ‘Hey, he will support us. When it’s show time, he’ll be there to help support us.’ And I think that is important,” Ballmer said. “I’m sure players have that like, ‘God, this guy seems a little bit nuts.’ That’s OK.”

He wants fans to be loud too and has designed his arena to encourage Ballmer-level enthusiasm. He’s convinced that the more energy the crowd can create, the more points the Clippers will put up.

“We have sensors around the building that can tell, down to the individual-seat level, how loud you are,” Ballmer said. “Now, we’re not listening to your conversation. But let’s say we say, ‘OK, for this game, the person who produces the most decibels the most consistently will get a free hamburger the next game.'”

There are no cash registers at Intuit Dome. Everything is contactless. Even the suites are barebones. Ballmer comes to watch basketball, not to schmooze (or wait in long lines), and he believes fans should, too.

How a former Microsoft CEO runs the Clippers

Ballmer, who has loved basketball since childhood, entered the NBA in 2014 after a run as Microsoft’s CEO. He bought the struggling Clippers for a whopping $2 billion after the previous owner, Donald Sterling, was caught on tape in a racist tirade. 

Ballmer has pumped money into upgrading the Clippers’ roster, signing stars like James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. Since Ballmer took over, the LA franchise’s value has more than doubled and the Clippers haven’t had a losing season. 

Former Microsoft CEO and LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest billionaires. 

Despite his vast fortune, friends say Ballmer is still the kind of guy who complains about the cost of a hotel minibar. The billionaire has no superyacht, no fancy wardrobe and still lives in the four-bedroom house where he and his wife raised their three sons. Still, there’s no doubt that having a net worth north of $120 billion-plus has impacted Ballmer. 

“I am fundamentally changed. I know I am,” Ballmer said. 

Ballmer’s beginnings 

Growing up in suburban Detroit, Ballmer was a shy, anxious kid. His father, a Swiss immigrant, worked a mid-level job at Ford. Ballmer went to Harvard, where he managed the football team and struck up a close friendship with another Harvard student: Bill Gates. 

Gates dropped out to start a software company, while Ballmer went in a different direction: sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble, selling Duncan Hines brownie mix, blueberry muffin mix and Moist ‘n’ Easy snack cake mix. But baked goods, he found, were not his calling, so Ballmer went to Stanford Business School. He was midway through his first year when he got a call from Gates, who wanted to recruit Ballmer for his chaotic software startup. 

“But software for microcomputers, it was not a thing at the time in any way, shape or form,” Ballmer said. 

Nevertheless, Gates was convincing, and Ballmer left school to join his friend.

Ballmer’s salary? $40,000 plus a 9% stake in Gate’s company. 

Ballmer’s legacy at Microsoft 

Together, Gates and Ballmer came to personify Microsoft. Enthusiasm became Ballmer’s trademark, and a meme after a video of a sweat-soaked Ballmer chanting “developers, developers, developers” went viral. 

“That’s a guy who really wanted to fire people up. To say, ‘Hey, we love you. We want you to write software for Windows,'” Ballmer said.

Looking back on it now, Ballmer admits he feels a little embarrassed about it.

But “I personally feed off energy,” he said. “And it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, by the way. I mean, you know, some people are quieter. But it’s me.” 

Ballmer took over as Microsoft CEO in 2000 and his tenure was marked by wins and losses. He famously failed to take the challenge of Apple’s iPhone seriously when it launched, laughing at the idea in 2007. 

“Gosh darn it. You know, the phone. Man, the phone. We should’ve been in the phone. We should’ve been the leader,” he said. 

And yet during Ballmer’s tenure as CEO, Microsoft’s revenue more than tripled. He hung on to most of his stock and has seen his personal fortune soar. 

From computers to basketball

Ballmer left Microsoft in 2014, the same year he bought the LA Clippers. People have asked if he always wanted to own a basketball team.

“Of course not,” Ballmer said. “Who the heck ever thinks you’re going to get enough money to own a basketball team?”

It’s different from running Microsoft, a company with revenues that are 20 times higher than those of the NBA. But Ballmer says he’s having more fun in this job, in part because it’s much easier to measure performance.

“People ask me ‘What’s the difference between business and basketball?’-  Well, if you have a bad quarter you can say, ‘I’ll get him next time’ or ‘You don’t know what we got going on in the labs but it’s going to be great,'” Ballmer said. “Here, every 24 seconds you get a scorecard. ‘Did we score? Did we stop them from scoring?’ Every 24 seconds. At the end of the game if you lose it, you can never change it.”

This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Jon Wertheim profiled Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Ballmer is consistently ranked among the world’s top billionaires but doesn’t lead the high-flying life of some of his peers. 

He bought a basketball team, which he admits is an extravagance, but he has no superyacht, no new wardrobe, and no new spouse. And Ballmer is giving away billions of dollars through a philanthropy he runs with his wife, Connie, called the Ballmer Group.

In an interview at their home in Washington, Steve and Connie Ballmer shared their vision for that philanthropy.

Steve Ballmer, who held on to most of his Microsoft stock after stepping down as CEO in 2014, has seen his net worth soar past $120 billion. 

Connie Ballmer felt strongly that responsibility came with all that good fortune. 

She first pitched the idea of a philanthropy to her husband 10 years ago, but Steve, by his own admission, was skeptical. 

In essence, he felt that the government could handle the distribution of resources in the U.S. He felt the private sector couldn’t match the effectiveness of government and could not change people’s lives on a national scale. He said that, over time, Connie changed his thinking. 

“Government does supply almost all the money to help people. [But] philanthropy has a role in helping to do proof points, prove where things are going, and step in where government won’t go,” Steve told Wertheim. 

In 2015, the couple co-founded the Ballmer Group after Steve retired from Microsoft. 

The Group’s mission is to improve economic mobility, particularly for kids and families in disadvantaged communities. 

“We were both incredibly fortunate to be born in this country at this time and have so much privilege,” Connie told Wertheim. “Children have no voice. And they don’t get to vote on where they’re born and where they live.” 

Her husband agrees. “Every kid deserves a shot,” said Steve. “Not every kid’s going to be successful. But if you’re born with parents who are less affluent, you should still have an opportunity to pursue your dreams.”

So far, the Ballmers have given away about $7.4 billion in grants.

They’ve taken a “cradle-to-career” approach, investing in a wide variety of causes: from early childhood and K-12 education to college access and readiness, career, workforce, and housing initiatives.

In 2022, the Ballmer Group gave $175 million to a nonprofit called StriveTogether that connects local communities to a nationwide network. The two organizations can share data and find resources to improve education and career outcomes for young people. 

The Ballmers say they’re especially connected to the communities that they have personal links to, like Los Angeles County, home of the Clippers; Washington state, where they live; southeast Michigan, where Steve was born and raised; and Oregon, where Connie went to college. 

Through the philanthropy, the couple has pumped $15 million into Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, and they’ve made a $24m investment in the Boys and Girls Club of America.

In 2022, Connie’s alma mater, University of Oregon, was given a $400 million grant to create the Ballmer Institute of Children’s Behavioral Health.

Wertheim asked the Ballmers what a “win” looks like and how they measure success. 

“Each area is different,” Connie said. “[But] if we have less community violence. If we have more teachers of color in schools that need them. If we have more high school graduation rates. If we have better kindergarten readiness.” 

At the end of the interview, Wertheim changed topics. Steve already owns one pro sports franchise. Could another be on the horizon? 

“I told him that he and his next wife would have a good time with that,” Connie said with a laugh. 

Steve Ballmer, in a fit of laughter, shot the idea down: “No, sir.”

“We’ve got enough sports…I can give my passion to this. I can work on the philanthropy.”

The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.