"The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action."
-- Tolstoy, War and Peace
After 13 years as the CEO of Microsoft (NASDAQ MSFT), Steve Ballmer will retire in the next 12 months once his successor has been chosen. But will it make any difference? Microsoft has close to 100,000 employees, 1 billion customers, and $78 billion in revenue. The company's direction is pretty much set and its momentum can only be termed historic.
When Balmer joined Microsoft, the company had 30 people and its revenue were $7.5 million. It is conceivable the personality and will of a single individual could have a significant impact on the fortunes of a company of that size, but how can one person have that much influence on one hundred thousand employees, much less a billion customers? Microsoft is not the dominate company it once was not because of one individual but because of deeper historic trends. As Tolstoy points out in his novel War and Peace:
"We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us."
Why did Windows 8 fail? Was it because customers had all the features they needed in earlier versions, because tablets and smart phones are becoming the preferred platforms over desk tops and lap tops, or because Balmer made some bad calls? No one today can really say, but Tolstoy provides some perspective:
"In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history."
Like Napoleon on Elba Island, in his retirement, Ballmer will no doubt ponder his role at Microsoft. If he reaches any conclusions we would be happy to publish them here.
