The story
Coined by American cartoonist, author and engineer Randall Munroe in 2007 in his webcomic xkcd, after Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000–2014.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Ballmer Peak
Today it means: A fictional level of drunkenness (originally stated to correspond with a BAC of 0.129–0.138%) said to confer one with superhuman programming ability. Full definition →