The C.E.O.s Who Just Won’t Quit

Ballmer’s retirement earned him the corporate equivalent of a Viking’s funeral. But most people seemed to agree that his departure, 14 years after he took over the company from his college classmate Bill Gates, should have happened years earlier. Around the time Ballmer announced his plans to go, the company’s stock price was lower than when he started the job. The media was bemoaning Microsoft’s “lost decade.” While its tech rivals had seized on new markets, Microsoft had changed fairly little. Apple dominated smartphones, Google prevailed in search and giants like Facebook — which didn’t even exist when Ballmer took the reins — stood atop a whole new sector of the economy. With the arrival of Ballmer’s successor, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s stock price soared.