Because Microsoft’s 30th employee paid attention to a small addition in his contract, he is now richer than the company’s founder, Bill Gates. He currently ranks sixth in the overall ranking of the richest people in the world.
How rich is the employee? At the age of 68, Steve Ballmer has amassed a net worth of around 145 billion euros. For comparison: Bill Gates’ fortune is currently estimated at around 144 billion euros (via Handelsblatt).
This is the first time that an employee has surpassed the fortune of the company founder himself. This means that Ballmer is the only person who has been able to amass a fortune of over 100 billion euros as an employee and not as a company founder. A remarkable achievement that was only made possible by a small addition to the contract.
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Small addition turned employee into multi-billionaire
How did he do it? In the early 1980s, Ballmer was hired as Microsoft’s 30th employee. He was to be hired as a business manager, i.e. the personal assistant to Bill Gates.
This made him the first employee who was not in a technical field. To sign Ballmer, Gates added a special clause to the contract that made Ballmer rich: In addition to his annual salary of about 46,000 euros, Ballmer would receive 10% of the company’s profit growth.
At the time, it was not yet clear what a gigantic company Microsoft would become. Had Gates known that, he probably would have given Ballmer a smaller percentage.
How does it look today? During Microsoft’s corporate restructuring, the company negotiated a deal with Ballmer because 10% was too large a share.
As a waiver of his profit-sharing agreement, Ballmer still negotiated 8% of the shares for himself, while Gates and co-founder Paul Allen kept 84% for themselves. The remaining 8% went to other employees (via Xataka).
Bill Gates showed other peculiarities when it came to his behavior towards his employees. For example, he remembered the license plates of his employees because he wanted to ensure more productivity in his company: Bill Gates remembered the license plates of his employees, did not want them to rest