But Tim Cook had tons of bad press. Back when the stock was falling in late 2012-2013, there was a cottage industry of people calling for him to resign.
I wonder if Ballmer really got bad press outside of geeky circles until relatively late in his career, when hindsight showed that Microsoft was missing out on a lot of new products.
He got plenty of bad press, but you're right in that it was countered by (valid) good press about his success in strengthening Microsoft's enterprise business.
