Steve Ballmer surprised the world when he resigned from Microsoft, and everyone wondered what he would exercise next. Well, he surprised everyone once more when announcing his impending $two billion purchase of the LA Clippers. Smash! What a manner to get a 2d at-bat.

Editor's Note:
Jeffrey Yuwono is CEO and co-founder of Feecha, a hyperlocal news app for neighbourhoods. A Stanford MBA and Duke undergrad, Jeff writes insightful observations almost technology once a twenty-four hours on his web log The Cornerplay and now on this weekly column on TechSpot.

For those of you living in the figurative sports cave, the LA Clippers were for sale because its previous owner, Donald Sterling, said some pretty bad racist stuff. That resulted in Sterling getting banned from the NBA for life and a forced sale of the team. It's a big story.

That's how Ballmer came to acquire the team. Anyway, I'm non writing about the LA Clippers or about racism. I'm writing to share a Steve Ballmer story.

I'1000 not buddies with Ballmer or anything. I've spoken with him just a couple of times, and attended a handful of his talks and speeches.

The big thing most people misunderstand about Ballmer is that he's unbelievably smart. They come across him going crazy on the stage and assume the man is a joke.

I can assure you he'due south anything but. Ballmer is razor sharp. Every questionable decision you recollect he made, he will have insights and considerations yous never thought of that explain it. The homo grew Microsoft from $eight million to $78 billion in annual acquirement, from 30 people to virtually 100,000. That is an incredible feat; you don't do that by existence a joke.

What you see on the surface is a ton of passion for Microsoft. Underneath that is a fearsome amount of intellect. When information technology comes to the business of technology, he is simply more well informed than y'all. He is one of the smartest people I've ever had the honor to shake easily with.

I promise all the above illustrates how much I respect the man.

But I will share a story that also demonstrates his flaw as a leader of what was at one time technology'south most influential visitor.

This was in 2006 and Windows Mobile was growing quickly and endmost the gap with Blackberry. He was giving an internal talk at Microsoft which I was privileged to nourish. He spoke of how well Windows Mobile was doing, simply too added that its hundred-plus million acquirement was "practically rounding error" to Microsoft'due south bottom line. How much attention can they really give information technology? They needed billions of dollars to move the needle, and mobile did not movement the needle.

Yikes. I bet he wished he could take that back.

That's the drawback of a concern guy at the helm of a applied science visitor in a flow of rapid change; no matter how freaking smart he may be. Without a vision for the future, of how applied science will change lives, it'due south difficult to know where to allocate resource. Should Ballmer invest big dollars in this small business concern called mobile; or should he invest big dollars in a proven, billion dollar business like search?

Ballmer ended upwards choosing the latter, and today Windows Mobile is dead. Information technology'south replacement, Windows Telephone, has under 4% global share while Android is the new Windows of the mobile world. Rival Apple, who Microsoft handily defeated in PCs, is the world's well-nigh valuable tech company thanks largely to mobile.

How would things have turned out if Windows Phone arrived a yr or ii earlier?

Of course, it's really easy to say, "then give control to a product guy." Microsoft had product guys: J Allard, Ray Ozzie, Steven Sinofsky, among others. Sinofsky is an especially interesting example because Ballmer basically gave Sinofsky control over Microsoft's then most valuable product: Windows.

The result? Windows 8, a vision Sinofsky pushed despite internal opposition and despite negative feedback from testing.

Ballmer was stuck in a catch 22. He was not a product visionary and that toll him in mobile. And then they were on the verge of losing in tablets, too. Then let the proven production guy do his thing, right, and get out of the way? Trust Sinofsky to realize his vision for Windows 8 despite negative feedback, because not bad things aren't fabricated by request what customers think they want, only past what visionaries know is best? Apple-manner?

Except, not every visionary volition have the correct vision.

Business guys are more than reliable in delivering consistent returns; simply they are unlikely to produce the "moonshot" that tin can provide 10x returns.

Product guys are college beta. They may take the vision that can become you to the moon; only that same vision can too kick you to the ditch.

Unfortunately, Sinofsky made the incorrect phone call on too many things. And that's probably why he'due south no longer at Microsoft. Ballmer made the wrong call on Sinofsky, and that's also probably why he's no longer at Microsoft.

Being CEO of Microsoft is a tough job. I don't know if I can practise better, though I could've probably done Windows 8 better. :) Maybe.