Bill has some characteristics that hurt being a CEO but he had many that helped, Ballmer lacked most of those. Bill was confident in his authority so he was comfortable with people challenging him, and was willing to give his ego a rest in order to see the bigger picture or make the right decision for the company. Things that Ballmer couldn't do. Ballmer purged the top tier of MS of talented leadership because he saw it as a threat. Ballmer chased after companies in completely different industries (google, apple) because he couldn't stand Microsoft not being top dog in every tech niche, and nearly tanked the company doing so.
