Yes, there was a time when Apple was financially vulnerable and needed Microsoft as a partner. But, for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and his company represented a sort of nemesis, the rival to beat, the embodiment of evil.. That enemy who, as the saying goes, stays even closer than your own friends. Many cross statements have flowed from this relationship, some were mere poison darts, messages, others were genuine accusations, insults and threats.
Steve Jobs, despite our regrets, was the main instigator of this guerrilla warfare. He did not mince his words. Bill Gates has always maintained a more restrained profileHe knew how to play his cards with the usual courtesy. Although he was not far either, as we will see later.
From Steve Jobs to Bill Gates
Partners and rivals, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs grew up together. But the tech industry has been ripping them apart for good in their own ways. And Steve Jobs was not going to be intimidated.
The first distance is marked by the breasts where they were raised: Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant and a professor of biology, Joanne Schieble. Given up for adoption to a family of California workers, her story has not been easy. He was in the right place at the right time, but he never swam in the bills. Bill Gates, for his part, was the youngest of the house, the third to inherit the noble name of the dynasty William Henry Gates. Washington’s upper class was much more conservative, educated; it was also less risky in its commercial endeavors.
This could be one of the triggers for this fierce enmity. In ‘Make Something Wonderful’, the biographical book written by Walter Isaacson, some aggressive statements such as the following are collected:
Bill has no imagination and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable doing philanthropy than technology. […]. He simply stole other people’s ideas.
The following is a story duly documented by Andy Hertzfeld on the Folklore site. It was the most aggressive conflict we can trace, when Jobs hired Microsoft to be the first developer of third-party application software for the Macintosh. A top secret project that ended regularly: Gates stuck to the Xerox API to develop its own GUI before its rival. it was windows.
When Steve found out, he spat “get Gates here immediately.” And it was quite literal. Gates was surrounded by several Apple employees and when Jobs arrived he began with his harangue: “You are stealing from us! I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!”, to which Gates replied, “I rather think we’re both up against this wealthy neighbor named Xerox, and we broke into his house to steal his television. , then we see that you already have it. you already stole it. Well, they say whoever robs a thief…
The feuds lasted a lifetime: when Microsoft floundered under Steve Ballmer, Jobs was happy to retaliate by recalling that they had fallen out. “rendered almost useless”. Years later, he would come to condemn him with something of which, curiously, Tim Cook is also accused: “(Bill Gates) is a businessman, not a product man. Bill likes to portray himself as the man for his product, but he’s not. He is a businessman. Making a profit was more important than making good products.”
A rivalry that has dragged on until the end of its days, suggesting that Microsoft’s heritage is somewhat outdated: “The only problem with Microsoft is that they just don’t have any taste. They put no passion. And I don’t mean anything in particular, but in general, in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t include culture in their products.
From Bill Gates to Steve Jobs
But watch out because Gates wasn’t far either. One of the most common jokes revolved around Steve Jobs’ inability to carry out his own plans, not having a formal education, or just being a top notch con man. “He never knew much about technology, but he had excellent instincts about what worked”in reference to this lack of knowledge about programming that Jobs suffered from.
Gates spent years exchanging internal emails where he showed genuine admiration for his nemesis, but there was a time when love was out of the question. Regarding the purchase of NeXT, we found ourselves in one of the most tense moments of the two races. These are the words he will dedicate to her, also collected in his book and documented by Fortune, “Steve acted in mode Pied Piper of Hamelin, proclaiming how the Mac will change the world and overload people with more and more work, with incredible tensions and complex personal relationships. In fact, Gates had to bite the dust. He wanted to get NeXT but in the end Apple bought it.
the final reconciliation
However, behind this mask of mutual contempt, perhaps spurred on by successes and defeats, by mad industrial competitiveness and their corporate roles, there was room for admiration. Bill Gates was aware that Steve Jobs was different, someone with a keen eye and “his way of doing things is just different, magical“.
After Jobs died, his widow, Laurene Powell, phoned Bill Gates to clarify some of the harsh statements in the official biography. She said, “Look, This biography does not reflect the reality of the mutual respect you felt“.
In fact, Jobs kept next to his bed the last letter he received from Windows’ father. Asked about the past, Gates ignored him, confessing that “we always liked to talk to each other. He was throwing things at me, you know, hard things. In this rivalry, they found the necessary strength and encouragement to flourish: they were better at being rivals than just friends.
As it was, Steve Jobs’ Worst Words Have Been Saved For Google, Another Direct Competitor. As noted in the biography itself, Jobs considered Larry Page’s company dedicated to stealing them: “Google is a fucking copy of the iPhone.” His anger and aim to destroy Android didn’t pay off, as expected; however, iOS health is stronger than ever.
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