Post#1 » by mkwest » Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:46 pm
“You’ve got to decide whether you need to do Version 2.1, or do you need to just blow it up and do a whole renamed product or a Version 3,” Ballmer says of the Clippers. “I think the basic theory is that we’re close.” He’s already decided to spend as much as a few million on equipment and technology for the team, and he knows what he expects from the players: “We have to work with blood and guts and hard-core commitment and good character on and off the court. You have to be all in.” Ballmer plans to live by the same ethos and to follow the advice of Mark Cuban, a fellow tech billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks: “He told me, ‘Don’t feel like you have to be muted. Just be yourself.’ ”
Ballmer has already brought one of his favorite Microsoft management tools to the team: mission statements. He and Rivers have come up with something called the Clipper Credo. It’s a one-page document full of corporate-inspirational language about teamwork and integrity. “It doesn’t say we’re going to win,” Ballmer says. “At the end it says, ‘We will not disappoint.’ ” In typical Microsoft fashion, the Clippers polled 1,000 people in Los Angeles about the Credo, which may get released at some point. “It polled well, as authentic and important with the audience,” Ballmer says. “We’ve got to walk that walk. We’ve got to walk it on the court. We’ve got to walk it off the court. We’ve got to walk it in community.”
“There’s no more perfect owner than Steve,” says Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, who grew up with Ballmer in Detroit and battled him for years in the tech industry. “He’ll do moneyball. He’ll do rah-rah. He’ll do investment. He’ll be the most passionate owner. He will live and die with the fans.”
Ashlee Vance,
Bloomberg Businessweek
