What just happened? If there's one thing former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is known for, it's his displays of on-stage passion and exuberance that often crossed the line between enthusiastic and outright terrifying. He seemed to have calmed since stepping down as boss of the Redmond firm in 2014, but judging from a recent appearance, he still loves to shout his way through press conferences.
Ballmer's energetic antics are the stuff of legend. Who could forget his turn at a Microsoft corporate event in 2000, when he arrived on stage looking like he'd injected a can of Red Bull directly into his heart. Such was the effort put into his screaming, running and jumping, Ballmer managed to injure himself in the middle of his rampage - but that wasn't going to slow him down. He finished by proclaiming in a very loud voice that "I LOVE THIS COMPANY! YEEEAAAAHH!"
In his role as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Ballmer introduced new players Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to the team earlier this week. The event brought back memories of some of Ballmer's famous moments, as he yelled, hollered, and clapped with the kind of energy we rarely see from CEOs these days, though he restrained himself from running across the stage.
"I'm PUMPED to say hello as Clippers to Paul and Kawhi," he said, asking viewers to "get up if you are as psyched as I am!"
Ballmer's other famous incident is, of course, his "developers" rant, which saw him repeat the word fourteen times while clapping and doing a little dance, like a cult leader who really loves developers.
Check out more of Ballmer in our Most Awkward Moments in Tech feature, and learn about the (mostly made up) eccentricities of other CEOs in this Drama, Drugs and Data piece.