Steve Ballmer served as chief executive of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014 and became known for highly energetic stage appearances. During a Microsoft developer conference in 2000 he walked the stage chanting developers repeatedly while sweating through his shirt, and footage of the moment circulated widely online in the early meme era. Clips were remixed, parodied in tech media and shared on forums long before short form video, helping the chant survive as a shorthand for intense developer evangelism and early internet corporate humour.