A Quote by Steve Ballmer

No. 1 thing is that life is just not as interrupt-driven as when you're running a company. — © Steve Ballmer
No. 1 thing is that life is just not as interrupt-driven as when you're running a company.
When you're running a company, you have employees - lots of them - that can interrupt your schedule. You have customers that can interrupt your schedule. You have a certain obligation to wave the flag because people expect to get out and wave the flag. The number of ways that others can command your time is high.
The hardest thing about starting a company and running a company is, there's just so many expectations on you, and there are so many people who have things that they want you to do. It's a lot like life about that.
Kanye's the best listener I've ever worked with. If I interrupt Kanye, every single time, he'll wait for me to finish before speaking. It's a running joke - sometimes I interrupt him just to see. And he always goes, 'No, no, finish. I want to hear what you have to say.'
We've become more and more interrupt-driven. If you have six tasks to do in an hour, you can't just take 60 minutes and divide and have 10 minutes per task. You have 10 minutes per task minus the time required for context-shifting. That will be the next big challenge: figuring out how to fight the distraction-driven mode we're in and stay focused on one thing long enough to get it done.
When you're running a company, creating jobs is the last thing you want to. When you're running a company you want to employ as few people as possible, and yet you inadvertently create jobs.
When you're running a company, you have employees - lots of them - that can interrupt your schedule. You have customers that can interrupt your schedule. You have a certain obligation to wave the flag because people expect to get out and wave the flag. The number of ways that others can command your time is high. At this stage, I get to pick and choose a little more. Not that there aren't some things that have to be done, but I get a little more control over my time.
The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company.
Strangely, from a life-change standpoint, I sold the company I was running and got divorced in the same month. And so there I was, at home, and I'm not the CEO. I took a few months thinking about what I wanted to do. When the first call came in about running a company owned by Deutsche Telekom, I thought it was laughable and really not something I'd do. I took the meeting mainly because the headhunter I knew. At first I thought I was just helping her fill out the roster, but then I dug into it.
You know, I'm behind my company. My company has been a big part of my life. And it's not that I been buying a company or that my father bought a company and tried to do something out of it. You know, it's not the same thing. It's my name, it's my company, it's my signature.
That just seems like a tough thing to do... just work in the middle of a company for your entire life. You just do the same thing out of college until you're 60, and then you retire
That just seems like a tough thing to do... just work in the middle of a company for your entire life. You just do the same thing out of college until you're 60, and then you retire.
If you're running an engineering or finance company, all companies depend on ideas and ingenuity. I think the principles of creative leadership apply everywhere, whether it's an advertising company or whether you're running a hospital.
Being a successful CEO, where I've driven a bottom line, assembled teams, driven results, that's a critical benefit to running the state government.
I learned that focus is key. Not just in your running a company, but in your personal life as well.
Interestingly, many Indian companies where there's a father-and-son combination are being run as joint CEO organizations because the father has not given up running the company and the son is actively involved in running the company, and there is division of responsibilities.
I love doing action scenes, there's that great thing when you sort of stop acting because if you're running, you're not acting like you're running, you are just actually running.
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