Ballmer being CEO of Microsoft for 14 years (and making himself $100B in the process) should be part of business school case studies for corporate mismanagement. He had no ability for the job, no technological understanding or vision, really no reason to be at the company at all other than being friends with Bill Gates in college. Microsoft as a company (along with its stock price) was stagnant throughout his tenure, and has grown 15x since Nadella took over.
The stock market is a poor measurement of how a company is doing. During Ballmer’s tenure, revenues tripled and profits doubled.
There is no reasonable analysis that Nadella did anything to cause the present value of all future cash flows to be 15x - how stock values should be evaluated.
