Because the 30th employee of Microsoft paid attention to a small addition in his contract, he is now richer than the company founder Bill Gates. In the overall ranking of the richest people in the world, he currently holds the sixth place.
How rich is the employee? Steve Ballmer has amassed a net worth of around 145 billion euros at the age of 68. By comparison, Bill Gates’ wealth is currently estimated at around 144 billion euros (via Handelsblatt).
Thus, the employee surpasses the wealth of the company founder for the first time. Ballmer is said to be the only person who, as an employee and not as a company founder, has amassed a fortune of over 100 billion euros. A remarkable achievement that came about due to a small addition in the contract.
Small addition made employee a multi-billionaire
How did he manage that? In the early 1980s, Ballmer was hired as the 30th employee of Microsoft. He was to be hired as a business manager, that is, the personal assistant of Bill Gates.
This made him the first employee not to work in a technical field. To hire Ballmer, Gates added the special provision in the contract that made Ballmer rich: in addition to his annual salary of about 46,000 euros, Ballmer was to receive 10% of the company’s profit growth.
At that time, it was not clear what a gigantic company Microsoft would become. Had Gates known this, he would probably have granted Ballmer a lower percentage.
What does it look like today? During Microsoft’s corporate restructuring, the company negotiated a deal with Ballmer, as the 10% was too large a share.
As a waiver of his profit-sharing agreement, Ballmer still managed to secure 8% of the shares for himself, while Gates and co-founder Paul Allen retained 84% for themselves. The remaining 8% went to other employees (via Xataka).
Bill Gates displayed other peculiarities when it came to his behavior towards his employees. For example, he memorized the license plates of his employees because he wanted to ensure greater productivity in his company: Bill Gates memorized the license plates of his employees, did not want them to rest
