These 5 executive assistants were the powerhouses behind some of tech's most influential people. Here's where they are now.

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and nailed his role as the assistant of cofounder Bill Gates at the time, so much so that he went on to become the company's president himself in 2000.

In the beginning, he served more as a business manager than a personal assistant and went on to become one of Gates' must trusted advisors. He retired in 2014 with 333 million shares, a 4% stake in the company, which has put him on track to collect $1 billion in dividends from Microsoft in 2024.

Ballmer has gone on to become one of the world's richest people, with a net worth of around $127 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. This makes him the world's fifth richest person, just one place behind Gates.

He's spending his happy retirement as the owner of the the Los Angeles Clippers, a professional basketball team, and watching his wealth multiply from the years of hard work at Microsoft.

Ann Hiatt is a seasoned executive assistant and had an illustrious career as the right-hand woman to some of tech's most powerful people throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

She was first hired as an executive assistant to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2002 and worked with him until 2005. She described working for Bezos as "unforgiving" and "relentless" and spent her days doing everything from organizing his schedule to booking helicopter flights.

She then joined Google in 2006 and worked as an assistant to vice president Marissa Mayer who went to become the CEO of Yahoo. Hiatt was also assistant to Google CEO Eric Schmidt until 2018.

Hiatt has since established her own consulting company where she provides coaching for CEOs. She also wrote a book published in 2021 called "Bet on Yourself" about how she levelled up in her career, which features a foreword by Schmidt.

Naz Beheshti had a stint as executive assistant for Apple cofounder Steve Jobs from 1999 to 2000 after graduating from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Beheshti told CNBC Make It in 2021 that it's a misconception that Jobs was a "workaholic" or that he was really tough to work with. Instead he worked to "prioritize his wellbeing," which gave him the "energy and the clarity and the vision to sustain his success and build Apple."

Beheshti went on to work as an executive assistant for BlueArc Corporation, then as a senior account executive at Yahoo, and then as a pharmaceutical sales specialist at AstraZeneca.

She credits Jobs' focus on wellness as her inspiration to launch a corporate wellness solutions company called Prananaz in 2011.

She is also the author of "Pause. Breathe. Choose: Become the CEO of Your Well-Being," published in 2021.

Anikka Fragodt is considered a bit of a legend amongst PAs and served as executive assistant to Mark Zuckerberg from 2006 till 2012 and has been described as everything from the "most influential women at Facebook" to Zuckerberg's most "trusted personal assistant."

Her role included managing Zuckerberg's schedule, screening calls and meetings, organizing his travel arrangements, and communicating with customers, vendors, partners and more on a daily basis.

She even planned a toga party for 350 people with 48 hour's notice and Zuckerberg's secret wedding to Priscilla Chan in 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal. She earned $135,000 in her final year at Facebook.

Zuckerberg even said: "Anikka helped me become a better CEO."

Fragodt's career since leaving Facebook hasn't been well documented, but she does appear to have a profile on Speakerpedia and spoke at the Behind Every Leader conference in Newark in 2013.

Debbie Gross was the chief executive assistant to former Cisco CEO John Chambers. Gross joined Cisco in 1991 when Chambers was a senior vice president and stayed in her position until 2017, just two years after Chambers stepped down as CEO.

Gross was 35 when she joined, and earned a $36,000 salary at the company, CNBC reported.

One of Gross' many responsibilities was making sure Chambers was prepared for every meeting, conference, event or sales pitch by providing him with all the details needed.

"You'd be nauseated to see what we put together for him," Gross told CNBC. "He doesn't really know what he's doing until he goes on the plane. Our teams are constantly putting together materials for him to review."

Chambers said about Gross in an email to CNBC: "Debbie has always been and continues to be a true business partner; she makes it a point to know the business, what my priorities are and she has the ability to represent me as well as Cisco in the absolute best professional manner."

Since leaving Cisco, she's worked as a corporate trainer and a coach for people working in administration, according to her website. She also wrote "The Office Rockstar," a guide to success for administrative professionals, published in 2019.