Outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer developed a reputation over the years for his exuberant personality and enthusiastic keynote addresses, many of which have become firm favourites on YouTube.

He was also prone to gaffes, including his ridiculing of Apple’s iPhone at the time of its launch, saying it was a US$500 phone no business user would buy because it didn’t have a physical keyboard.

Ballmer even appeared in hilarious early television advertisements for the Windows operating system that were styled to look like used car ads.

But undoubtedly the best-known video of Ballmer stems from a Microsoft conference in 2000 where he repeatedly chanted the word “developers” while bounding around the stage perspiring profusely. It earned him the “Monkey Boy” nickname.

In 2008, he echoed his (in)famous “developers” chant during an interview with Guy Kawasaki when a member of the public asked him to repeat his chant, this time as “Web developers”.

Love him or loathe him, Ballmer certainly knew how to avoid taking himself too seriously.

Here are a selection of TechCentral’s favourite moments.

“Developers, developers, developers”: