Why You Don't Want to Be Microsoft CEO

The job hasn’t been posted—at least not yet. But the opening has been public knowledge since Aug. 23, and for some reason no candidate has stepped up to grab what would appear to be a dream gig: chief executive officer of Microsoft. In fact, much of the news around the position so far is the long list of people who’ve decided they’d rather fulfill their dreams elsewhere.

Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm’s No. 2 executive, was a serious candidate until he opted to take a promotion to CEO at the semiconductor company. EBay CEO John Donahoe and former VMware CEO Paul Maritz both took a pass on the Microsoft job, say five people with knowledge of the talks who aren’t authorized to speak on the record. And there was so much chatter about Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally being on the list that he publicly announced he was staying at the carmaker. Through spokesmen, the others declined to comment. For its part, Microsoft says things are proceeding as expected. “It is not uncommon for CEO searches of this magnitude to require four to six months,” says spokesman Pete Wootton. The company is expected to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks, according to a person familiar with the board’s schedule.