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Fortune
Fortune
Preston Fore

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer publicly dismissed Chrome as a 'rounding error'—but Google’s CEO says he used the jab as fuel to win the browser-wars

Steve Ballmer (Credit: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

Before Google CEO Sundar Pichai became the leader of the now-$4.5 trillion tech giant, he had to prove his worth as a leader—starting with a browser almost no one believed in.

When Chrome launched in 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the industry dominator, with roughly 60% of global browser usage thanks to being the default on Windows computers.

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