This doesn't get said enough. Just because you are CEO should not shield you from criminal liability

To be fair it wasn’t his office that shielded him from consequences, it was his wealth. It’s not like a poor person who founded their own LLC would be coddled by the legal system.

Someone "close to the source" once told me that he would pace about meetings rotating a baseball bat like a baton. The chair doesn't seem like the biggest problem here!

Ballmer being CEO of Microsoft for 14 years (and making himself $100B in the process) should be part of business school case studies for corporate mismanagement. He had no ability for the job, no technological understanding or vision, really no reason to be at the company at all other than being friends with Bill Gates in college. Microsoft as a company (along with its stock price) was stagnant throughout his tenure, and has grown 15x since Nadella took over.

The stock market is a poor measurement of how a company is doing. During Ballmer’s tenure, revenues tripled and profits doubled.

There is no reasonable analysis that Nadella did anything to cause the present value of all future cash flows to be 15x - how stock values should be evaluated.

Revenue and profit growth are poor measures of how good a manager is.

during how much inflation, on how much new capital, and what did competitors do during the time period?

A mannequin can double revenues with enough capital.

A passive investor can double profit with enough capital.

Only a superior manager/leader can out perform peers while consuming similar or fewer resources

Which “peers” did Microsoft have during most of the Balmer area? Apple was “beleaguered” during the early years.

Azure is only successful by selling into the enterprise based on relationships built during the Balmer era.

Microsoft Office is their other cash cow that was nurtured during the Balmer area and Windows is still a money maker.

The one big accomplishment that Nadela did was “Office everywhere”. But the iOS port was already in full swing when Balmer was CEO.