After leaving the CEO office earlier this year, Steve Ballmer is stepping down from Microsoft's board of directors. Ballmer was one of the company's first employees and took over the chief executive position from founder Bill Gates last decade.
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Ballmer is known for his playful/erratic behavior, as well as leading Microsoft to sluggish sales and botched attempts to win any major market share from eternal foe Apple.
Since Ballmer was replaced by current CEO Satya Nadella last year, he was recently in the news for buying the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team from a reluctant and racist Donald Sterling.
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Ballmer is now focused on basketball, according to his resignation letter.
"In the six months since leaving," he wrote to Nadella, "I have become very busy. I see a combination of the Clippers, civic contribution, teaching and study taking a lot of time."
Ballmer whiffed while Cupertino scooped up the mobile market for both smartphones and tablets, but he's apparently proud of where the company is headed.
"I have confidence in our approach of mobile-first, cloud-first, and in our primary innovation emphasis on platforms and productivity and the building of capability in devices and services as core business drivers," he continued.
Ballmer, who spent 34 years at the company and "bleeds Microsoft," joins thousands of other employees in leaving. They, however, were scheduled for layoffs earlier by Nadella earlier this year in one of the biggest mass lay-offs in American history.
