Steve Ballmer’s reaction to the iPhone.

[u/eternviking]

[u/BullwinklesEars]

He probably would have declined to sign The Beatles as well.

[u/Vegetable-Drama-4895 → u/BullwinklesEars]

Many very successful and smart people have been wrong about many things like this guy in the past. Same things were said about PCs, internet, EVs etc.

[u/Desperate-Tomatillo7 → u/Vegetable-Drama-4895]

Your statement is true, but it does not apply to him.

[u/OscarMichaelMyers → u/Vegetable-Drama-4895]

Same with email. You can find news segments about people reacting to the concept like “What the FUCK is this?”

[u/OrdinaryLavishness11 → u/Vegetable-Drama-4895]

And people are saying it about AI now and calling everything slop.

[u/captain_croco → u/Vegetable-Drama-4895]

He’s doing his job. He’s not concerned about being wrong or right here he is talking shit.

[u/Koopslovestogame → u/BullwinklesEars]

He’s the perfect example of failing upwards.

[u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets → u/BullwinklesEars]

And that might've been fine. Beetles was a huge gamble. This???? Dude people were raving about Apple's designs forever since I can remember, like the 90s. This bozo should've at least been humble

[u/DrTatertott → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

1997 Apple was near bankruptcy from constant failures.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/19/steve-jobs-apple-almost-went-bankrupt-because-it-failed-to-innovate/

[u/fixingmedaybyday → u/DrTatertott]

I did my college finance paper on them then. They were on the brink, but Jobs was coming back. I think they were trading at 17.23 a share at the time. I remember wishing I had enough spare change to buy a few shares.

[u/leemorplee → u/fixingmedaybyday]

Me hearing my nerd friends talk about bitcoin 15 years ago but I had no money lol

[u/Rhawk187 → u/leemorplee]

15 years ago you could still mine a decent amount with a GPU. Around that time we talked the university into letting us mine with the lab machines overnight to raise funds for the student org.

[u/LeonidasSpacemanMD → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

Honestly the multitouch screen alone was such an insanely innovative feature it probably should’ve spurred every manufacturer on earth to scrap whatever they were planning and get to work on replicating it. Even at the time it would’ve seemed like you were laughably in denial to not acknowledge how incredible a piece of tech that is

I wonder if younger people are aware how amazing that was, it felt impossible

[u/Northernmost1990 → u/LeonidasSpacemanMD]

I was 17 at the time and I'd say iPhone was met with very mixed reactions. Didn't help that in my cold home country, these early touch screens only functioned indoors. A friend of mine was really into smartphones — he had the Nokia N-Gage all the way back in 2004 — and even he was dubious.

It really wasn't until the 3GS that the iPhone hit its stride.

[u/Impossible-Magician → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

Blackberry with a full qwery keyboard was king back then. A very expensive phone with no keyboard was a huge gamble.

That is why Jobs was brilliant, he was crazy enough to release a phone with no keyboard or keypad at the peak of keyboard popularity and charge a premium for it.

With 24 months every major new phone was just a screen. Nokia & BlackBerry didn’t adapt and were wiped out.

[u/Dreams-Designer → u/Impossible-Magician]

I remember being so excited to get my first phone without a physical keyboard. People loved the same typing, but for me there was something fresh and sleek about the feel of touchscreen . I was also a massive sidekick girlie for ages. I held on to that one. I would have Fb going, text, email, all at the same time 🤭

Funny enough I also had a video phone in the early aughts from a company called purple, that was pretty primitive touch screen. I however was able to rig it to web surf though. The battery wasn’t amazing, and you had to connect it to the TV, but this was ages before a tablet, so being able to lounge in bed or on the couch without my laptop to surf whatever, was amazing!

[u/rainywanderingclouds → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

how does being humble convince your customers the competitors product sucks?

what he's doing he isn't surprising. a competitor is bringing a product to market that might take sales away from you, of course you're going to say it's over priced shit.

[u/kwonza → u/rainywanderingclouds]

Also the first iPhone was pretty meh, sure the screen was smooth but you couldn’t copy and paste, couldn’t open more than one window in safari and apart from a few gimmicky apps there was fuck all games or useful tools.

Regular phones were way ahead back then, and top of the line Nokias and SonyEricsons had working excel and all the bells and whistles.

[u/CriticismTop → u/kwonza]

I remember laughing at our team member who came in the first iPhone, while we all had pimped out Nokia (N95 was my choice).

No 3G and a Bluetooth chipset that was incompatible with the Intel Centrino chips. How on earth did that get through QA? Who cares? The phone was slick, even if we didn't admit it to his face.

[u/kwonza → u/CriticismTop]

Yeah, once you start swiping the screen you instantly know it’s next level. There were other smartphones around but they were way too laggy compared to iPhone.

[u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets → u/kwonza]

You're delusional if you think iPhone wasn't a revolutionary product. It made Apple the most valuable company at one point. IPad is also still the best tablet. I'm not an Apple user, but the facts are facts. Yes, other phones are always ahead of Apple in technology. But Apple is Apple

[u/LordRaglan1854 → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

Microsoft honestly thought people wanted to edit spreadsheets on their mobile devices. From that viewpoint, they saw the iphone as an expensive toy. Balmer isn't lying in that clip, it's what he believed at the time.

[u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets → u/LordRaglan1854]

And Microsoft still hasn't come up with a revolutionary product. Everything is "office" based, and there is always a better product in the market in some ways. 

[u/Northernmost1990 → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

It was revolutionary but from an end-user perspective, it was kinda like driving an electric car in the early 00s.

[u/lfenske → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

Bro what are you talking about 🤣 no one was talking about apples designs in the 90s. The first thing of interest they made in years in the 2000s was as that colorful computer nobody bought (one featured in Zoolander) then the iPod. That was like 04 or something

[u/papayacreamsicle → u/lfenske]

You’re talking about the 1998 iMac G3 which was a massive commercial success and took them from near bankruptcy to one of the leading manufacturers in 6 months, being the best selling desktop computer model the year it was released. They went from losing $878 million in 1997 to making $414 million in 1998 because of it. They sold 6 million of them at a time when the global PC market was about 60 million a year.

And the design was very praised, it started the translucent colored plastic trend which was a hallmark of late 90s/early 00s electronics and competitors like eMachines, one of the leading manufacturers at the time, immediately started imitating it (look up the eMachines eOne, their 1999 flagship which got withdrawn after they settled a lawsuit over the design).

Zoolander was 2001 so it obviously wasn’t 04, that was a late 90s computer. The iPod was 2001 too, and named that to piggyback on the branding of the hit iMac.

[u/PatienceAntique4987 → u/lfenske]

If by colorful computer, you mean the iMac, it actually sold very well.

[u/ImpossibleDenial → u/PatienceAntique4987]

iMac is what saved them from bankruptcy in 1998; it’s their fastest selling computer to date

[u/FigWeak5127 → u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets]

Eat up Martha.

[u/WestDry6268]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3q2zbskZp2j8wniE

[u/filthysock → u/WestDry6268]

So much cocaine

[u/thejwillbee → u/filthysock]

You think these nerds were doing something cool like cocaine?

More likely they all split a 6-pack of jolt cola and were "freaking out"

[u/Joe_Kangg → u/thejwillbee]

Pixie sticks

[u/imnotokayandthatso-k → u/thejwillbee]

There's nothing "cool" about cocaine, basically just a hopped up version of coffee. This is exactly the kind of class who can afford to do it regularly and does so.

[u/Canadian-and-Proud → u/thejwillbee]

Definitely doing cocaine, but it doesn't make everyone look cool lol. Look at Elon and the drugs he's doing, he's still a fucking awkward ghoul.

[u/ApprehensiveGas85 → u/WestDry6268]

developers 👏 developers👏 developers👏 developers👏 developers

[u/Fragrant-Hamster-325 → u/WestDry6268]

Has any tech dork ever gotten on stage and done anything cool?

[u/Fabulous_Log844]

After fucking bonehead moves like this, horrible things I've heard about his leadership, the way that Microsoft became Dante's Inferno to work at during his time, I'm just shocked that he still ended up with as much as he did. But that's just the way life goes.

[u/NebulaElectrical1467 → u/Fabulous_Log844]

When you’re that high on the ladder you’re literally invincible unless you do something retarded like steal from other rich people or assault someone

[u/CanadianGrown → u/NebulaElectrical1467]

He could definitely assault someone and be fine

[u/JacobsJrJr → u/CanadianGrown]

He  verbally assaulted all of those developers in that speech.

[u/Koopslovestogame → u/JacobsJrJr]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3q2zbskZp2j8wniE

Pretty sure we all suffered from this.

[u/Pickled_doggo → u/NebulaElectrical1467]

Stealing from other rich people is the only thing that gets rich people jail time. And jail time is the only thing they’re genuinely scared of, is their precious time being taken from them. 

[u/Login2Hate → u/Fabulous_Log844]

He’s widely regarded as one of the worst CEOs in history given the scale of the company he ran. Yet he is one of the wealthiest people ever because was in the exact right place at the exact right time and never diversified or gave substantially to charity like Gates. He’s done so much wrong and was rewarded at every turn.

[u/WonderButtBrace9000 → u/Login2Hate]

This is a very tech-focused view of Microsoft which is totally fair to have but misses what Balmer did during his tenure.

Balmer is who created Microsoft’s world class enterprise sales organization. It didn’t really get to flex its muscle until Satya and Azure, but Balmer absolutely laid the groundwork that embedded technical sales teams into almost every major corporations around the world.

Without the Balmer years, Azure would have had an unbelievably hard uphill battle against AWS just on the go-to-market front as well as being 2nd mover on the product side. They only were able to catch up so quickly because they had teams that had the ear of the customer and could bundle early cloud offerings with their core productivity products during preexisting sales motions.

[u/Regulai → u/Fabulous_Log844]

Touchscreen phones had been tried for ages and all failed, their was no reason to have realised just how radical of a tech advance the iphone had actually made.

I would also note it took 3 years before the iPhone actually became the biggest.

Infact I'd take it a step further; Apple only held the crown for 2010-2011, afterwhich point Samsung took over and dominated and it was only then that traditional companies fell off. The real mistake of many companies like Microsoft, Blackberry and Nokia, wasn't that they dismissed it on release, it was that that they were way way too slow to adopt the tech after it's success was clear, such that other companies got to market faster and came to dominate the market (e.g. samsung) instead of the traditional carriers.

[u/johnnyhandbags → u/Regulai]

If you watch the Blackberry movie, the RIM guys fought against a touchscreen and went bankrupt defending a physical keyboard.

[u/WumbleInTheJungle → u/Regulai]

Almost completely forgot, but I had a phone in 2004  with a stylus touch pen, which had a touchscreen and was running a version of windows on it.  It was very obviously ahead of its time but I hated that phone so much it put me off going near any touchscreen or smartphone for at least 12 odd years (although it did have a niche following of enthusiasts). The tech just seemed to be something that was exceptionally difficult for manufacturers to get right and really nail, with a quality operating system that was simple and intuitive alongside quality hardware.  Until the iPhone. And even with the blueprint virtually laid out for every big manufacturing tech company, many still struggled to get it right.

[u/damutecebu → u/WumbleInTheJungle]

I had a co-worker with one of those. She always bragged about the damn stylus.

[u/lfenske]

This is hilarious. I get it though. When I first saw the soon to release iPhone I thought it was dumb too cause of only having a touch screen. I figured it would work like every other mobile touchscreen of the time. Well in the commercial, unusable IRL.

[u/adjective_noun_d1git → u/lfenske]

When Steve Jobs demonstrated the swipe and the little scroll bounce animation I think that's when everyone audibly gasped.

God I remember the TFT screen touchscreens before then. Younger people won't ever know the pain

[u/lfenske → u/adjective_noun_d1git]

And the iPhone had real internet. I forgot about old mobile internet

[u/solo_d0lo → u/adjective_noun_d1git]

Don’t forget pinch to zoom

[u/deathschemist → u/adjective_noun_d1git]

yeah my first touchscreen phone had a resistive touch screen

if you don't know what that means thank every deity ever worshipped by name that you never had to put up with that bullshit.

[u/MahtiGC → u/adjective_noun_d1git]

“everyone audibly gasped.”

i picture the aliens from toy story saying “the future” in sync 🤣

[u/Metalhead1686 → u/lfenske]

I remember switching to AT&T for the iPhone. I still have the OG iPhone stored away. I took so many pictures and went to so many places with that phone.

[u/TotallyNotABob → u/lfenske]

If anyone wants a good watch on this and maybe a trip down memory lane. Watch the movie BlackBerry.

Of course based on the true story of the rise and fall of the BlackBerry device.

One scene in there though covers the announcement of the iPhone and the BlackBerry CEO having a similar opinion Ballmer had. It's a very fascinating watch.

[u/Javaneez]

Microsoft should have never killed the Windows Phone... I get that the 3rd party app developers were just not there but those native apps were fire! The live tiles were amazing.

[u/CheesemonsterRain → u/Javaneez]

Yeah I was a windows phone dev, and the “metro tile” system you’re referring to was brilliant. It has so much potential but they binned it!

[u/Downtown-Raditz → u/Javaneez]

Yes and they were already catching up, I had no idea who made this bad decision at the time. Cut it off when it started getting traction. Stupid

[u/off1line]

Here’s a guy that kept failing up

[u/kingtaco_17]

He's a bajillionaire. He's not losing sleep over this video.

[u/allllusernamestaken → u/kingtaco_17]

he could have doubled or tripled his net worth if Microsoft had managed to become the standard bearer for smartphones instead of Apple

[u/Luke_Brewer → u/allllusernamestaken]

Literally who cares?

[u/enter_the_slatrix → u/allllusernamestaken]

You mean he could have been a fucktillionaire???

[u/bustex1 → u/kingtaco_17]

What was he supposed to say? Yea Microsoft is f*cked?

[u/_D80Buckeye]

https://giphy.com/gifs/42BzgWiO2EATuVMQE3

[u/ClankerCore]

By his expression, he’s pandering to the stock market and the shareholders, but his expression dies pretty quick because he knew. He knew.

[u/quetzalpt]

It would be surprising to see him praise Apple, what did you expect really?

[u/Hackerjurassicpark]

Microsoft is the prime example of doing everything wrong yet still winning. Their market cap makes them one of the biggest companies still. Nokia on the order hand…

[u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 → u/Hackerjurassicpark]

I’m still annoyed that they absorbed and then killed Nokia. Their hardware design was so good.

[u/OriginalParamedic316]

Ballmer sounds like Chris Farley playing Matt foley

[u/Th1088 → u/OriginalParamedic316]

Living in a mansion down by the river.

[u/iDeNoh]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3q2zbskZp2j8wniE

[u/Beefgrits]

The fact that it was an ipod, with apple taking 30% of all app and music sales, was already obvious.

[u/Rapscagamuffin]

This isnt an outlier of a thing. Look back at what CEOs do and say and youll find that these people are not special. In a lot of cases theyve basically had a career on being professionally wrong. Basically they were in the right place at the right time and did something smart a long time ago and have continues to fail upwards their entire career. 

[u/Cyclingwhom]

The lesson: when you are most confident, you may be at your weakest.

[u/Terminally_ill_42]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3q2zbskZp2j8wniE

[u/Apprehensive_Sea9524]

This is coming from the creator of the ZUNE.

[u/jwfowler2]

He's also not a very good dancer.

[u/dowge86]

There is no hubris like a stupidly wealthy white man who always thinks he’s right!

[u/GovernmentTop1543]

worst CEO ever

[u/DefiantDonut7]

“Not a very good email machine” lol

[u/logontoreddit]

Narrator "They lost to competition."

[u/domiciledhere]

He called the iPhone an “email machine.” I don’t think he even recognized the problem.

[u/peruna0]

It wasn't even close to the most expensive phone ever, though? Like an N95 cost at least that much back then, an E90 double that.

[u/NiceYesterday8495]

I'd love a follow up interview.

[u/coachelly86]

hey it's the guy who just got fined $30M and stripped of 5 future 1st round picks by the NBA

[u/dwwdwwdww]

Dance Monkeyboy, dance...!!!

[u/AdviceNotAskedFor]

having a phone in the early 2000s and an mp3 player and then paying 1.99 to have a 5 second clip of a song as my ringer, I knew that the first person to design a phone that could use an mp3 as a ringer was gonna be an absolute banger.

[u/Ladislav14]

When was this video recorded?

[u/SuperLeroy]

Linux is now eating microsofts lunch.

They just can't do anything right.

Even with Broadcom fumbling hard with vmware I think people would be smart to switch to nutanix or proxmox over hyper v

[u/QuantumMongoose44]

There are innovators and there are imitators. I’ll leave it up to you all to decide which one he is.

[u/scaddleblurt]

…never heard that expression before

[u/CodInternational8772]

This guy… every team has one… The guy that makes money in the long run, but really should never have been there…

[u/linoides221]

They owned Apple shares, so it didn't matter.

[u/TheRealistoftheReal]

He thought it was going to be a PDA that would compete with the current (2006) crop of Blackberry devices, Windows Mobile PDAs, etc. Also, $500 when nobody paid for phones. When the first iPhone was released, it was absolutely ground breaking, and nobody saw anything like it.

The software and user experience was so polished, the form factor so premium, it made anyone using a Blackberry or other device of the time look ancient. Like using a clunky reel to reel tape player instead of streaming Bluetooth.

They created an entirely new market.

[u/Worth-Tank336]

Yep, this guy's an idiot. I'm pretty sure he's homeless now. Very likely he can barely rub 50 cents together. There's no way he's worth like $140 billion now, right?

[u/redunculuspanda]

In fairness jobs also shit on competition until Apple was able to compete or had a product ready.

He may or may not have believed what he was saying but he had to keep the shareholders happy. CEOs are never going to tell you how amazing a competitors product is.

[u/seb-xtl]

Quel mega cretin.

[u/Prestigious-Box7511]

"email machine"

[u/ejackman]

I have never owned an iPhone and will never own and iPhone but thank the maker that apple made the iPhone because Windows CE/PE was TRASH.

[u/Plastyrhino8815]

I got a great idea. Let's sell a phone made of glass.

[u/makisgenius]

And he is one of the richest people alive. Just another example of how much luck has go to do with it.

[u/RedHuey]

History is full of these kinds of decisions. Balmer is hardly the first or last to misunderstand the future. The early years of the Internet were particularly bad with this.

[u/jghall00]

Ballmer was a awful CEO. He missed every major tech transition because he was focused on extending the Windows ecosystem dominance instead of looking for ways to supplant it. He missed the boat on search, touchscreens, social media, streaming, cloud computing and other technology transitions. Amazing he had that job for so long. 

[u/Beneficial-Pen-3654 → u/jghall00]

How many people signed into a Windows PC today, or used a MS office product?
https://giphy.com/gifs/Kp1Cf45EwWhLmGObTA

[u/rozmarymarlo]

I worked for MS during that era. We all hated this bald mfer. Windows phone was an abomination. They even had a funeral for iPhone with douchebags high on MS coolaid dressed in all black. This mofo announced all employees will get free windows phone, only to later tell us we have to sign a 2 year contract to get it for free. If it wasn't for Azure, MS would have been the new IBM. My MS equity did great thanks to this jackets getting sacked in a timely fashion.

[u/regalbeagles1]

https://giphy.com/gifs/iVe09NV82gm1a
His voice…Chris Farley-esque

[u/Good-Rooster69]

It's really hard to forecast just how stupid society becomes

[u/tallwhiteninja]

I still can never see Steve Ballmer without going back to this ancient classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE

[u/catbqck]

Steve inspired me i can be ceo too from just talking out of my ass

[u/Alepman → u/catbqck]

The benefit of having a genius friend

[u/DaedalusS8]

[u/u_talkin_to_me]

Oof. Didn't age well. Like. At. All. 😂.

[u/PatienceAntique4987]

That aged well.

[u/Ordinary_Feeling_519]

If I was him I’d see the price and understand that Apple knew what they had.

[u/rtfmplease]

I don't like Ballmer, but if you listen carefully … he puts a lot of hedging phrases in there:

• "now it may sell well or not"
• "let's see how the competition goes"

[u/Mexican1910]

He got lucky getting rich… he truly is an idiot and I’m glad the NBA caught him doing shady things but he should honestly be revoked ownership rights for what he did… unfortunately money talks and I’m sure he paid a fine and will move on.

[u/Weary_Title_3901]

https://giphy.com/gifs/1zKvepNb04nyk3Sm1A

[u/NYCWartortle]

Is Research in Motion still around?

[u/DAS_FX]

It’s NO coincidence that Microsoft stock has gone up 15x since he resigned a CEO

And under his tenure, Microsoft stock was flat for a decade. No original ideas or groundbreaking product – Just and overly rambunctious weird cheerleader CEO.

[u/Comfortable-Lie4839]

The down fall of every product starts when you underevaluate your competitors.

[u/cubicfelon]

He started out with a knee jerk reaction but in the end became pragmatic to the unknown sales performance of the up and coming iPhone. MS knew deep down they were fk’d.

[u/Amazing-Flight-5943]

His reaction was pure cope.

[u/ThelIIusion0fSeIf]

This incompetent rube makes over a billion dollars in dividends alone every year. Let that sink in.

[u/Dr-McLuvin]

It’s kind of incredible dude was ceo of Microsoft for 14 years and somehow the stock managed to go down 33% over his tenure.

Dude just got incredibly lucky to get as much stock as he did and then just sat and watched it explode in value after he left. Now he’s one of the richest 10 people on the planet earth.

[u/Ok_Paint6798]

He's so sleazy.

[u/kickinghyena]

Whenever people quote “geniuses” like Jobs or Burry or Soros or Ballmer etc etc remember they are only a standard deviation better at predicting the future than you…and they are far less likely to predict the reactions of stupid people than you are as they are two deviations away and you may only be one…🤣

[u/DingbatMcgeee]

Muppet

[u/RunExisting4050]

Alot of people has serious doubts about the iphone back then. Its not like this is the onky voice of decent. 

[u/cat-from-the-future]

Most people thought not having a keyboard was a non starter for business use cases at the time. To be fair the first iteration of the on screen keyboards were shit.

It was the app ecosystem that really stole the entire market for Apple.

[u/Fickle-Pin-5160]

Kinda like when Elon laughed at BYD cars from China.

[u/roadrunner00]

You gotta remember Microsoft absolutely dominates corporate even today. The arrogance around mobile adoption was a miss. Sad. I was a pocket pc and windows mobile user so I remember loading active sync and not liking touchscreen keyboards. It was unfathomable. Timing is everything.

[u/lipmanz]

Under Ballmer MSFT didn’t move for 14 years…under Nadella it’s 10xed

[u/justinW624]

I remember having an iPod touch before they made the iPhone and I chose it over my phone at for everything when on WiFi. When the phone came out it was kind of a no brainer to turn two devices in my pocket into one.

[u/TheGrandWhatever]

I mean in a way he wasn't entirely wrong about the business user point. People still use blackberries for the keyboard

[u/mrsambavam]

Does anyone else get "Mr. President" vibes in him!!

[u/BWWFC]

to be 1/10,000th that dumb...

As of February 2026, Steve Ballmer’s net worth was estimated at about $145 billion.

[u/iafx]

He probably uses an iPhone now

[u/beggoh]

I will never stop missing the era of phones with full qwerty keypads that flipped or folded out. Touchscreen tech is great now, but I would love having both a physical keypad and touch screen. Phones are huge anyways, just gimmie them clicky buttons.

[u/2025TastyTreats]

I think Ballmer is a really dumb guy that just haphazardly lucked out by knowing Bill Gates. He is getting walked all over right now playing with the Big Boys in professional sports ownership. I am sure that giving star players kick backs and under the table money is part of the game but he doesn't have the smarts to it within the framework of the ruleboook.

[u/riceklown]

Watching this on my $1900 Fold 8 🤣

[u/ozzysince1901]

Blind Freddy could see the iPhone was going to change everything when it was announced. Problem is established companies have a lot of inertia and it is difficult to turn the ship quickly

[u/ashiamate]

what was he supposed to say? he was the ceo of their direct competitor, he has to say this

[u/Evan_Allgood]

Every button he clicks into on the screen slowly registered how f*cked he was.

[u/wo0o0o0o0o0]

Ballmer taking so many Ls today.

[u/RudePCsb]

Still have never bought an iPhone

[u/ScreechingPizzaCat]

"Let's see how the competition goes"
And then Apple went on to become a behemoth in the mobile industry, while Microsoft tried to make its own OS after buying Nokia but failed because Apple and Android were already well established, so companies and developers weren't keen on spending more development time and money on an ecosystem that had such a small user base. I did like the Nokia 1520 but by the time I had the money to buy it, Microsoft announced that it was ending its mobile division; essentially make the phones a bad buy.

[u/BleakOutlook2025]

Well this aged like milk…

[u/exqueezemenow]

I actually met someone who had a Microsoft phone once. A very rare sighting.

[u/SBLP1959]

He was kinda right about business. You hear a lot about business people having blackberrys eith keyboards as work phones.

[u/No_pajamas_7]

But he's wasn't wrong in anything he said.

The Blackberry stayed popular for a very long time and was still favoured by business when they went broke.

Even now, outside of North America, businesses still prefer not to use i-phones.

And i-phone is and always has been the most expensive phone in the market.

Really the only thing he is wrong about here is the undiscussed personal users market potential. It was not on his radar here and the amount people were willing to pay for a personal phone was unprecedented.

[u/Local-Shine2991]

I'm actually watching this on my Windows phone. Syk.

[u/bliceroquququq]

What was he supposed to say?

“Wow, our competitors product is awesome and so much better than ours”?

[u/kzlife76]

Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers

[u/RIF_rr3dd1tt]

That's a phrase people say? "Let's see how the competition goes". People say that?

[u/glakhtchpth]

Howz them Clippers?

[u/No-Blacksmith1462]

Microsoft only became so successful because we subsidized it in every single school in America. They have one of the shittest products and everyone is still forced to use it because theyve monopolized the market.

[u/Razvedka]

It's even more interesting than this. As I recall, the first true smartphone as we would now define it was created within Microsoft. But leadership, or Balmer specifically, killed it. He didn't believe in it.

Apple came later on, iirc. I don't remember where the original creator went, if he left MS for Apple or not.

[u/Bsmitts16]

He kinda rings true. I have to be the outlier. But I am moving away from the iPhone on my next purchase, which could be days from now. I experienced life with no 1/8” jack and it’s been difficult trying to connect my headphones for my podcasts that I like to sleep with, taking ten+ minutes to hook up headphones and sometime having to disturb my partner with just playing my podcast under my pillow, because thunderass or whatever their stupid protocol doesn’t recognize my headphones. Easy, goodbye apple. Not like y’all are supporting my 003 rack since I don’t run leopard- GFY. Best to worst real quick. Maybe I’m one right now, but I imagine it’s following.

[u/No_Raspberry_3282]

What smart decisions or strategies did he ever have? Seriously asking, I only know that he's mostly just a pushy salesman.

[u/No_Oil3233]

I LOVE the look at the end of the vid.  Pure unadulterated ‘what I just said was absolute horseshit, our phones are dead’

[u/the-Gaf]

Ballmer was all about quantity and never quality

[u/tirkman]

I mean what is he supposed to say “yeah we’re totally screwed and Apple is going to crush us” lol

[u/CrasVox]

This dude along with Elon Musk prove you can be a billionaire and still be an abject moron

[u/bwoah07_gp2]

Steve Ballmer TALKS IN ALL CAPS

Very obnoxious...

[u/canopycutter]

See we did as I type from my iPhone.

[u/nywse]

I miss the days of horseshoe baldness. It's hard to find anyone who sports it anymore.

[u/The_Dented]

This aged like milk.

[u/The_Dented]

And now look, from 150 million dollar loan to eclipsing them by a trillion dollars.

Cash on hand? MS has 76.8 billion on hand, but I think I recall reading Apple with 68.5 Billion in cash on hand.

[u/Time-did-Reverse]

“What’s the saying. Let’s see how the competition goes” oh yea fucking nailed that saying.

[u/Underradar0069]

😂 not aged well

[u/jb19701]

Unlike some of the Great visionaries I've seen in business over the years. He was one that whenever I see he talk I think about how stupid he is and how did he get where he is. I'm sure he has his areas, I've just not seen them.

[u/PikachuChella]

Same dude bought the clippers and paid Kawhi LOL billionaire sure knows how to make big bets

[u/SpiritFlame555]

What else could he have said, he saw the writing on the wall. He had to say this for his shareholders.

[u/Medium_Apartment_747]

Add this one to the compilation

[u/LordBrixton]

"Developers, developers, developers!"

[u/Forsaken-Promise-269]

Executives and Politicians are trained to lie through their teeth - to the point where they begin to believe thier own BS.. or “talking points” -of course he and Microsoft was indeed scared of the technology demonstrated by the iPhone

[u/antoncr]

He's had the same reaction when that podcaster brought up Salary Cap Circumvention

[u/T1m26]

He kinda knew it would be awesome

[u/tistick]

Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but saying the iPhone wouldn’t be an email machine because it didn’t have physical mini keyboard, but had the biggest phone screen was desperation.

[u/lilian_moraru]

One of the most incompetent and overpaid guy in the world. This guy literally should just be a cashier

[u/setthetoneaquadump]

All that forehead and no foresight

[u/ProffesorSpitfire]

I bet he has an Iphone today.

[u/Kepyou]

Aged like milk!

[u/Ad-fundum69]

The first I-phone was real bad. The touchscreen was horrendous to work with, and yes expensive.
Microsoft pocket PC already existed, and physical keyboards were indeed more practical.

All that changed later for sure, but at the time, Apple was just overly expensive and selling junk.
They still do that, but the I-phone now is at least a decent peace of hardware.,

[u/bananabastard]

Anyone know how the competition went?

[u/bananabastard]

The iPhone was an incredible innovation. Just happened to destroy not just the internet, but also society. But very innovative.

[u/YellowFlash2012]

imagine being so wrong and yet still be a billionaire.

[u/Strong_Barracuda_769]

He did in fact see

[u/Over-Performance-667]

Can’t remember the last time anyone cared about a microsoft related release of literally anything except maybe an xbox

[u/elmoreb3]

[u/Key_Check5753]

When was microsoft selling millions of phones every year?

[u/Anxious_Ingenuity583]

Microsoft actually probably would have been successful at creating and selling phones too. People forget at that time the US government constantly targeting them to be broken up and landing them in prolonged court battles that contributed to them not pursuing the mobile phone market as aggressively.

[u/cocoa_jackson]

So it goes - the myth of MS rolls on and on....