While Steve Ballmer has been relatively sedate in his most recent press appearances, the now retiring CEO of Microsoft has been known in the past to, well, get just a tad excited in front of a camera or on stage.
Thanks to YouTube, we can see just how much Ballmer would get fired up in various situations. Here's an early TV ad, in 1986 with "Crazy Eddie" Ballmer trying to sell you Windows 1.0, complete with a Miami Vice reference. Oh, but you can't order it in Nebraska. Darn.
Here another clip, this time as Ballmer gives us the low down on Windows XP. He's interrupted halfway through by another Microsoft exec Brian Valentine (who now works at Amazon) who is actually acting crazier than Ballmer in the ad, and that's saying something.
In this clip, taken at an early Microsoft event (the date and location are not mentioned), Ballmer clearly wants to show his support for "developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers" and a few more "developers" thrown in before he gets a tad tired.
However, the clip of Ballmer that has gotten the most attention over the years is the infamous "Monkey Boy" video from Microsoft's 25th anniversary event in 2000. If you have never seen this video, you might want to find something to hang onto beforehand, because Ballmer's entrance on stage, just to give a keynote speech, may be one of the most memorable public appearances made by a major executive of a company ever. We heard that when Donald Trump saw this video, he said, "That's way over the top." (OK, he didn't really say that, but we would like to think he did).
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