What does it take to become a billionaire? According to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, some factors are in our control and some aren’t.
Ballmer hopped on “Podcast P with Paul George,” the podcast of one of the players of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, which Ballmer owns, and shared his four keys to success that have helped him garner a net worth of $101.3 billion based on Forbes’ data.
And the first key he shared was something that he knows isn't given to everyone.
"I was blessed," Ballmer said. "I'm good with numbers and concepts."
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Ballmer, who received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University, also said that developing a "work ethic" was important to his success as well. He shared that teachers even in second grade were already giving him "pats on the back" because he was the hardest worker in school.
But Ballmer shared that his third key to success is was finding motivation, and it started from a humbling experience at a young age that drove him to prove someone wrong.
"I got my ass kicked early," Ballmer said. "I had a teacher in second grade say that I wasn't very smart, I wasn't good at math, and I'd struggle in the third grade."
He said that he took it upon himself to prove his teacher wrong the next year.
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But Ballmer said that those three keys are not enough because working harder and being smarter than the field doesn't guarantee success. There are outside forces that need to go your way.
"You gotta get lucky," Ballmer said. "I hate it when people say, 'Oh, I worked harder than everybody else, and I'm smarter than everybody else.' You need a little luck."
And Ballmer did get a very lucky. In his sophomore year at Harvard, Ballmer met Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who eventually recruited him to join Microsoft years later.
It was also through Gates that he met Paul Allen in college. Ballmer shared in the podcast that Allen, who was the owner of the Portland Trailblazers before he passed in 2018, was one of the initial influences that pushed him to purchase an NBA team.
Ballmer purchased the Clippers in 2014 for a then-record $2 billion.
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