Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
Being a CEO these days is hard: Pressures include satisfying shareholders, managing rising costs and solving ongoing supply-chain issues, and creating great workplaces. But for many executives, being an ex-CEO presents its own set of challenges. Some struggle to cope with the loss of the perks and status that come with the job, while others feel obliged to follow the well-trodden path to private equity or corporate boards.
“Each year, thousands of executives retire from long and successful corporate careers. But few are prepared for the journey they are about to embark on,” former Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter declared earlier this year in a Harvard Business Review essay, penned with career coach Rick Smith and headhunter Dennis Carey.
Life beyond Microsoft
One former corporate chieftain who seems to have found his footing is former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion in 2014 and just unveiled the team’s new home, the Intuit Dome. (Fast Company calls it “Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion playground for LA Clippers fans.”)
The team and arena have given Ballmer a sense of purpose that has, in some ways, eclipsed his experiences at the tech giant. “I’ve worked on a lot of products over the course of my career at Microsoft, and I’ve loved them all,” Ballmer told me during an interview this month at Intuit Dome in front of an audience that included members of the Young Presidents’ Organization as well as construction workers who helped build the facility and their families. “But . . . in the development of this building, I probably had a clearer view of what I wanted to do, and I have the most satisfaction, not just because it turned out well, but [because] it’s an investment in the community, too.”
Intuit Dome has very much been a passion project for Ballmer, who sought to ensure that all fans have a premium experience. Every seat is designed with easy access to concessions and bathrooms, phone-charging capabilities, and ample leg room, regardless of ticket price.
Ballmer’s considerable investments are paying off. The Clippers won 51 games in the 2023-2024 season, and finished fourth in the NBA Western Conference. (The Dallas Mavericks eliminated the team from the playoffs.) And Ballmer routinely ranks as one of the top NBA owners in fan polls.
He is an unlikely role model for post-CEO life. His retirement from Microsoft in 2014 after 34 years at the company and 13 years as CEO was emotional and fraught. Though profits nearly tripled during his tenure, the stock essentially stagnated, and the company missed the opportunity to become a player in mobile devices and internet services. Under pressure from the company’s board, Ballmer sought to revamp the company before ultimately deciding he was not the best person to move Microsoft forward. A reporter who chronicled his departure from Microsoft described him as “very sad to leave the company.”
CEO, reinvented
Part of what makes Ballmer a second-act success story is that he didn’t try to re-create his corporate life. Rather, he seized an opportunity to acquire the Clippers after previous co-owner Donald Sterling was banned from running the team or associating with the NBA. “Having too many choices can lead to decision fatigue, reverting to default options, or even avoiding making a decision altogether,” Wilderotter and her coauthors say, advising ex-CEOs to instead redefine their purpose or identity. (Ballmer is also founder of USAFacts, a nonpartisan data company.)
Bill George, the former Medtronic CEO who recast himself as a leadership guru after retirement, has said that the former CEOs who thrive are the ones who find ways “to create or nurture things that will outlast them.”
During our interview at the arena, Ballmer echoed this sentiment. “Somebody told me once, ‘Nobody ever really owns a basketball team. You take care of it. You shepherd it, and you bring it along,’” he says. “Intuit Dome can be a little bit of what I do to shepherd this team along. Because it’s owned by the fans at the end of the day, and we just take care of it.”
Are you a one-time CEO in a second act?
Are you a former CEO who has found purpose in your second act? How did you go about finding your new identity? Send your insights and anecdotes to me at [email protected]. I’ll share the most compelling examples in a future newsletter.
Read and watch more: second acts
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