Economics

Steve Ballmer’s Plan to Make America Great Involves Excel Spreadsheets

The ex-Microsoft CEO is working on a project that aims to make government data more accessible.

Professor Ballmer on his New Class at Stanford University

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Steve Ballmer is pretty bummed out about the election. A self-proclaimed "numbers guy," Ballmer said the truth is getting lost in the political rhetoric, and he wants to arm citizens with data to defend against lies by the campaigns. "Nobody seems to care about the facts," he said.

When not jumping around on the sidelines of Los Angeles Clippers games, the former Microsoft Corp. chief executive officer has been spending his retirement on the inside of an Excel spreadsheet. Ballmer and a team of about 25 data geeks have been poring over more than three decades of government documents to create a comprehensive accounting of U.S. spending. The goal is to treat the nation like a company and create what Ballmer describes as a "10-K for the government," like the one publicly traded businesses are required to file with regulators each year.