Steve Ballmer is a man whose reputation exceeds him. Barrel-chested and bombastic, he's always been the quintessential, larger-than-life, rah-rah leader, and the perfect foil for his geeky and erudite best buddy, Bill Gates. Stories abound of his over-the-top antics rallying Microsoft's troops at corporate events: There was the infamous Monkey-Boy dance he performed at a sales meeting a few years ago, which prompted dozens of incredulous Microsoft bashers to post choppy videoclips of his cavortings on the web; or the surgery he endured to repair blown-out vocal cords resulting from a bout of unrestrained cheerleading; or the outlandish hula-girl and used-car-salesman costumes he gleefully donned to get a laugh and make a point. On the Microsoft campus, you can always tell he's approaching by his sharp, punctuating claps as he barks orders to a subordinate trailing behind. And he's the first to admit that in his case, "table pounder" is literally apt.
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