Ben: David, Steve gave us the signed Clippers jersey with the name Acquired on it. There’s only one jersey. What are we going to do about this?
David: Should we rock paper scissors for it? You know what? You keep it. There’s no Seattle basketball team. Keep it there up north.
Ben: All right. It’ll go in the Acquired museum north.
David: Great.
Ben: Perfect. All right, let’s do it.
David: Let’s do it.
Ben: Welcome to episode one of the Summer 2025 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I’m Ben Gilbert.
David: I’m David Rosenthal.
Ben: And we are your hosts.
Steve Ballmer is, among other things, arguably the very best investor of the last 20 years. It sounds a little funny to frame it that way, but here are the numbers. In 2014 when Steve left Microsoft, his net worth was $20 billion, almost entirely comprised of Microsoft stock. Today, 11 years later, it is a staggering $130 billion according to Forbes.
... continue reading