Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

I got to ask Steve a question this morning. Not everyday you get to speak to the CEO of Microsoft. In fairness I was one of many in a room in a posh hotel in London who paid to hear him speak. But still. His theme seemed to me to boil down to 'every thing's about innovation and hard work.' He implied that the 'automation of the everyday' was less that five years away and that it wouldn't be long before we would be designing a cars on massive touch screens that understood our needs and made the whole interface with technology transparent.

My question was how did he split himself between this sort of ambassadorial role and the day to day management of the corporation. He said he was only about 5% ambassador and that hands on work took up most of his time. I have to say I thought that figure might be a little low and may have been the answer his employees in the room wanted to hear. In fact I'd be quite disappointed if it were true. Surely the role of a modern CEO is to be out there most of the time, leaving a competent crew at home to innovate and work at the business, bringing back useful nuggets and thoughts as appropriate. Steve gave everyone his personal email so I might challenge him on his answer away from public gaze.