Just took a look at MSFT. I was surprised to see that the stock has been climbing basically linearly for a solid 5 years now. I wanted to revisit the CEO/stock price graph now that we've seen a bit of Nadella's performance:
I was expect to see a nice perfect correlation of Ballmer = flat stock price, but it actually looks like the upturn began during his tenure. Speaks well for him, although overall it's not a pretty picture of his tenure.
In the nerd community in particular, there is so much wishful thinking that Microsoft will fail that some people actually believe Microsoft is and has been failing. It's fairly amusing given the reality.
You might also want to consider the long period between (August 2013) where it was announced that Ballmer will leave v/s when he eventually left (February 2014).
http://i.imgur.com/lr9j2KS.png
I was expect to see a nice perfect correlation of Ballmer = flat stock price, but it actually looks like the upturn began during his tenure. Speaks well for him, although overall it's not a pretty picture of his tenure.