Ballmer says a tearful goodbye at his last Microsoft company-wide meeting

Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer would not have missed the chance to make his last company-wide meeting memorable: he stormed the stage to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s ‘Can’t Hold Us’, Reuters says, and left as Michael Jackson’s ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ played (it was played at Microsoft’s first employee meeting in 1983), followed by Dirty Dancing’s ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’.

At the employee meeting, he didn’t let up a chance to criticize Microsoft’s rivals, saying Apple is about being “fashionable,” Amazon is about being “cheap,” Google is about “knowing more,” but Microsoft is about “doing more.”

At the end of the meeting, he choked up slightly while telling employees: “I believe in you, I believe in the mission… We’ve been a great company for years. We will be a great company for many more years.”

➤ Ballmer goes out punching at last Microsoft employee meeting [Reuters]

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Headline image via Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images