Making friends and dating as the son of billionaire Steve Ballmer

This as told essay is based on a transcribed conversation with a 29-year-old Piet Balmer, a stand-up comedian living in San Francisco and one of the sons of billionaire and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I meet people, they usually don’t know that my father is Steve Ballmer.

It’s funny: my dad has a really interesting level of celebrity, where some people immediately make the connection, while most people have no idea. I have some friends who took a long time – like many months – to realize the connection.

Some kids were actively mean about who my dad was

I don’t think there was a precise moment when I realized how rich we were, but at some point, as a child, I went from knowing we were rich to realizing it was something people brought up when they told me met and knew approximately in advance.

There were a few kids who were mean to me about who my dad was. One time I was on a field trip and my mother packed my lunch in a to-go bag from an Italian restaurant. And this guy said, “Do you have Pallino Pastaria for lunch?” I replied, “No, it’s just a sandwich. It’s just in the bag.” It’s not even a particularly fancy restaurant, but he wanted to make me sad. Some kids tried to “catch” me doing things like that, like, “Oh, you’re so spoiled.”

I noticed that people treated me differently at university

When I was a kid, no one was nicer to me because of who my father was. But in college I noticed that some people were definitely nicer; they focused more intently on me when I talked, and there was just this vibe of people treating me like we were better friends than we actually were.

Sometimes it was explicit; I remember this guy in my dorm (whom I didn’t know very well) saying to me, “It’s pretty cool – I’m telling my family back home that I get to party at school with Steve Ballmer’s son.” I thought, what’s the point of telling me this? The interaction made me uncomfortable and felt weird.

I didn’t like how people would know about my family and how much money we had before they met me, or bring it up to me in a way that made my own identity seem secondary to how they saw me: a child from a rich family.

During Family Weekend my freshman year, my three suitemates and I had our dads come in and play beer pong with us and some of our other friends. Stanford used to have an unofficial “open door policy,” which allowed students to drink freely as long as we left our doors open. So we set up a beer pong table in our dorm room and had a father-son game.

I was just having fun, but then I noticed people in the dorm coming up one by one, just to peek in and watch my dad play beer pong. That was kind of annoying, but I understand: it’s a spectacle, whatever.

To some people I am only seen as an asset or connection

I notice that some people just see me as an asset, someone it would be good to keep in touch with.

A few people text me about the Clippers, which my dad owns, and those are the only texts I get from them. Those aren’t the kind of people I want to be friends with at all.

There was a man I used to be friends with who went out of his way to talk to me. I liked him at first and was hesitant to accept anything too quickly, but over time his actions showed that he clearly only saw me as an asset.

I’ve made an active effort to get rid of him a bit, even though he still texts me sometimes. He’s a sucker for venture capital – for lack of a better description – so I know he’s thinking about how to leverage his relationship with me because he wants to be close to tech money. He wants me on display so his friends can see that I’m a connection of his, and that sucks.

Of course, it feels strange to assume someone has impure motives. But I feel like there have been plenty of times now where it’s a sixth sense. I don’t actively avoid people, but I am careful to distance those who I think have an ulterior motive for being connected to me.

My father’s identity fades into the background among my real friends

I think having good friendships is important, and I rely on the people I’ve met and become close to – I feel extremely lucky with my friends in general. I have a close group here in San Francisco and we have a lot of fun together. I am also fortunate to have a close group of college friends and close friends from high school. My comedy friends are great too, and my newest group of friends, my girlfriend’s friends, are really cool.

You see articles about how people have fewer friends than they used to and that friendships are on the decline, but that hasn’t been my experience at all (although I’m generally quite sociable and easy-going, which helps when you’re trying to make friends!).

Over the course of my closest friendships, my father’s identity faded into the background. It’s not something to talk about on a daily basis, just like most people don’t talk about their parents much with their friends.

I’ve never had anyone date me for my money

Everyone thinks that my family background would have a huge impact on my dating life, but that really wasn’t the case. From an anonymity perspective, dating apps were honestly pretty good, as profiles only included a first name and sometimes a last initial.

I didn’t talk about my father or my financial situation during my dates, but at one point it felt like I was lying by omission if I didn’t bring it up.

I wouldn’t have the conversation until I felt like I had a sense of the person and a good idea that I wanted to spend more time with him or her – usually on the second or third date. At that point, I felt like I knew they already liked me, so I wouldn’t see a complete change in the way they approached me.

I’ve never actually had the experience of anyone trying to date me for my money or anything like that. I feel like it’s kind of a two-way street. If someone wants to date someone who has a lot of money, they are probably looking for someone who will spend a lot of money on it. Since I’m not a big spender, I don’t think anyone looked at me and thought, “I can probably get a lot of money out of him.”

For me, I never focused on the other person’s job or financial background. I had the privilege of not having to think about anyone’s financial situation in any direction because I knew I would be fine, and I don’t think anyone’s work defines them.

My main concern was how I felt interacting with this person: Do I feel comfortable? Am I having fun? Do I enjoy talking to them?

My girlfriend and I have a very similar approach to money

I think the way a person approaches money is a byproduct of their overall philosophy of life. If you meet someone who is very pragmatic, reasonable, grounded and down-to-earth, it is unlikely that they will randomly have a very different approach to money than how they approach everything else.

So that’s what I was looking for: someone with a life philosophy that matched mine and usually extended to finances. That was certainly the case for my girlfriend. We’ve been together for almost two years and I’m fortunate that we’re on the same page in our approach to money.

We live together in an apartment that is perfect for our purposes. It’s a twin-bed, one-bathroom – no bigger than it needs to be. We’re both pretty hands-on: We make the occasional late-night UberEats order even when we have food in the house, but neither of us spends excessively.

I wouldn’t like it if the bills weren’t evenly distributed

My friend has worked hard in her career – she has a good job in technology – and has worked hard to be responsible with money and wants to be financially independent.

Although we are confident that we will remain together indefinitely, neither of us wants to merge financially just yet. But one day my money will become our shared money.

For the time being, we approach our finances quite independently; house expenses, groceries, and anything else we share are split evenly. We have never considered splitting bills and expenses proportionately. If I dated someone who suggested proportionate spending, I would feel a little miffed and feel like they might see part of the deal with me as a benefit to their lifestyle.

I have learned that my family background does not define me

As much as I am aware that some people want something from me over the years, that is a very small percentage of my experiences.

I’m still quite open when I meet new people. I always feared that once I left school, I would encounter less empathy or grace because of all the (rightly) negative rhetoric surrounding rich kids. I understand why some people are angry that people like me exist in this economic system, and I agree that there is a tragedy in that.

But while some people have questions, I’ve found that the vast majority of people don’t seem to treat me any differently than anyone else.

When you interact with people, your assumptions fade into the background pretty quickly, and instead you just experience what it feels like to spend time with them.

I have learned that my identity does not define me. I thought I would have to overcome more prejudices against the type of person I am or people’s assumptions about me to earn their favor, but at the end of the day, most people just want to hang out with other people.