Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Now Runs Microsoft

This is a behind-the-scenes look at Bill Gates's right hand man - the bombastic and charismatic Steve Ballmer who was recently named Microsoft's CEO.

The book tells the real story of one of the most talked about figures in Silicon Valley. Ballmer is known for his ruthless negotiating tactics and for a management style that has earned him the nickname "The Em-balmer". In a software company that boasts around 400 million users, Ballmer, the grandson of a Russian Czarist soldier and the son of a Swiss immigrant father, rode along Gates' coattails to become the president and presently the CEO of Bill Gates' brainchild, Microsoft.

The book provides fresh insights into the longstanding relationship between this odd couple and into the life of the only American to become, by age 40, a decabillionaire while also working for somebody else. It will tell of a man so shamelessly arrogant that he told reporters "to heck with Janet Reno", so intense and aggressive that he ripped his vocal cords by talking too loud, and so incredibly lucky that after dropping out of Stanford Business School at Bill Gates' pleading, he became the Microsoft wizard's main man.