“Steve Jobs’ official biography, authored by Walter Isaacson, details some of his feelings on Microsoft and Bill Gates. Jobs mocked Microsoft’s lack of humanity and claimed that Microsoft ‘just didn’t get’ the original Mac enough to copy it properly,” Tom Warren reports for WinRumors. “Jobs also thought Bill Gates was ‘unimaginative and has never invented anything’ …[and] claimed that Gates ‘just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”
“Gates responded to Jobs’ criticisms during an interview with ABC News on Sunday. Asked about Jobs’ comments, Gates praised Jobs. ‘Steve Jobs did a fantastic job,” Gates told ABC News during a video taped interview,” Warren reports. “During the interview, see below, Gates described his relationship with Jobs over their 30 year history: ‘When you think about why is the world better today, the Internet, the personal computer, the phone, the way you can deal with information is just so phenomenal. Over the course of the 30 years we worked together, you know, he said a lot of very nice things about me and he said a lot of tough things. I, you know, respect Steve, we got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.'”
Warren reports, “Gates also [said], ‘He faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace. So the fact that we were succeeding with high volume products, you know, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies, it’s tough.’ Gates added that Jobs’ feelings were reasonable. ‘And so the fact that … at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable. [I respect Steve. We got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.]'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: At least the old thief is smart enough to not speak ill of the dead. It most certainly is understandable why Jobs felt that Apple were the good guys and Microsoft were the bad guys; truth is funny like that.
Related articles:
Biographer Isaacson describes what Steve Jobs didn’t like about Bill Gates and Microsoft (with video) – October 25, 2011
Steve Jobs on Bill Gates: ‘Unimaginative; he just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas’ – October 24, 2011
There are always business men who take an idea and dumb it down for the mass market. M$ did that, so did Compaq and Dull. Ford also did it for the car.
It’s business and unless you are protected by a patent then it will happen.
No, it’s not just business. The Mac was designed for the masses. Apple did that. It was protected by copyright. Microsoft stole it– that’s thievery, which is the opposite of business. Business is consensually selling non-stolen goods. The only reason Microsoft got away with it is that they had the effective political clout to bend the government run courts in their direction.
Much the same way it looks like Android is going to have enough clout– because they’ve sold enough stolen devices– to get the courts to not uphold Apple’s patents.
Too big to fail theory redux? If you must steal, steal big. And propagate fast – flood the market before the law catches up on you. It’s like flying the Millennium Falcon at light speed (tech years) vs. an Imperial Tie Fighter moving at snail’s pace (law courts).
Hey you leave star wars out of this, i’m still getting over the phantom menace..
I heard Apple’s new spaceship can make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.
The reason Microsoft “got away with it” is because there was this idiot sugar water visionless CEO who had no idea of the crown jewels he was giving away to Bill Gates, who couldn’t believe his good fortune that John Sculley didn’t even try to make it a hard bargain to allow them copy the Mac GUI. Sculley basically sold Apple down the river letting Gates build his crap GUI P-OS.
Speaking from the “dumbing down” perspective, the Ford analogy is off base. Prior to Ford’s mass produced vehicles, cars were expensive playthings made for and sold to those wealthy enough to afford them.
Ford didn’t “dumb down” the automobile… he made them affordable for the everyday citizen.
You forgot the part where Henry Ford blew up railroad tracks so people would have to buy cars. 😀
I like Apple but I tought they also feed on HP?
That’s easy for You to say!…
Explain, please, how Ford ‘dumbed down’ the car. Ford produced the first mass-produced car, the Model T, that allowed ordinary people to be able to afford a car. They also produced the Mustang, the iconic performance saloon, as driven by Steve McQueen, and the GT40, which beat Porche at their own game and won LeMans quite a few times. I suppose you’re some sort of elitist who only accepts a car if built by Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Cadillac, Ferrari, etc.
Henry Ford’s innovative mass production techniques did indeed make cars affordable to the masses.
Steve McQueen drove a cool Mustang in “Bullitt” but it was a 1970 Porsche he had delivered to the set of “Le Mans”. It sold at the RM Auction last August in Monterey for $1.25 million. I was there.
The Ford GT40 was aimed at the heart of Ferrari and was hugely successful.
Actually, the GT40 was known as ‘The Ferarri Slayer.’
Speaking I’ll of Jobs now could have ghostly results.
I’m starting to have more respect towards microsoft…f**k google at least they are trying new ideas a respect a man that shows respect…
… perfectly acceptable answer to the charge that Microsoft stole the original idea for Windows from Apple – and did it badly. He said they didn’t! Steal it from Apple. While Apple got permission to “take” the idea from Xerox. MS, seeing it at Apple, then went to Xerox, where they studied it and stole it. From Xerox. Not Apple.
Which explains why so many minor, but annoying, differences. Well … it could. Or, perhaps, they just didn’t understand the allure? The simplicity? The genius?
Microsoft’s modus operandi is to stack ’em up high and sell ’em cheap. Nothing particularly wrong in that. It just attracts the lowest common denominator user, one who cares about utility more than style.
And then there are users who care more about substance and style over the absolute utilitarian value of a product; that would be Mac users. I think the world is slowly coming round to the view that taste and beauty matter a lot to their computing experience. Which explains why the Mac user base has been growing at a strong clip for the last 16 quarters whereas PC growth has slowed to a crawl. People just don’t want to put up with a suck ass Windows user experience any more.
of the dead, say nothing but good.
That rule does not work well with the overthrown tyrants of the world.
As much of a bastard as Gates was, I respect the man for taking the criticisms on the chin. At least he has a modicum of class and the insight to realise that without Steve, the desktop and PC industries would not exist as we know it. Microsofts era has passed; thankfully Jobs was still around to witness this. Now the battleground shifts to new pastures with Google as the new enemy. It’s up to Cook and his stewards now…
Probably only because Steve Jobs recently passed away.
I remember years ago, after Pirates of Silicon Valley came out, Gates said it wasn’t accurate and had other criticisms of it, despite it putting Gates in a better light than he deserved.
Jobs’ reaction? Privately he disliked it, but he invited the actor who played him, Noah Wyle, to reprise the role briefly to open the Macworld 1999 keynote, and had nothing but praise for Wyle.
Steve Jobs: ‘good artists copy, great artists steal’.
So, whiners, Jobs thought Gates was a ‘great artist’.
no, only fairly good, he copied but not very well, he just didn’t get it, as SJ stated
Perfect example of the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
My respect to Mr Gates. He is indeed gentlemanly in this comment & I do believe his friendship with Mr Jobs, despite the media blasts over the years, was something deeper than anyone of us could grasp. I am no fan of MS but I do stand by what Mr Jobs said once: “It doesn’t mean that for Apple to win, MS must lose.” IMHO, Apple has already won back what was lost during the “Windows stole from Mac” era and more. I feel that the best way to win isn’t working towards running your competitors bankrupt but to innovate & keep so far ahead that the competitors can’t catch up. This, I’m proud to say as an Apple fanboy, is the legacy that Mr Jobs left behind – we are running far ahead now… Though I really wish Google & Samsung do go bankrupt, I see the most effective way for Apple to win is to continue to innovate & run further ahead.
Sidetrack: I only know recently that Steve came up with the name Apple partly due to his fruit diet at that point, but I had always thought that the idea of Apple came from the apple that dropped on Sir Isaac Newton’s head which led him to discover gravity. Thus, apple is a symbol of discovery & innovation… Who do you guys think?
The original Apple logo would seem to back up your theory. It shows a picture of Newton sitting against an apple tree with an apple dangling over his head, framed by the words “Newton… A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.”
The name probably came from all the time Steve spent at Robert Friedland’s apple farm commune. Ron Wayne’s original Apple logo depicted Newton under an Apple tree, but that was after the name was adopted.
Rare indeed. Makes you wonder who ,in the end, is the better human being? Not who developed better “things” and has a fanboy following but who loved and treated everyone respectfully? If the tables were reversed would he say kind things about Gates?
Bill Gates has been very successful, and has contributed much to the spread of a tech savvy world. He has heard a lot of criticism in his time, and the comments from Steve were certainly not the worst. He might even take some of Steve’s comments with a certain amount of pride, given his huge successes in spite of certain limitations. Steve had his weaknesses as well, and was still an undeniable force in forging the path of tech into the future…
One of the biggest challenges the world faces today, IMNSHO, is radical devisiveness, and the radical us vs. them destructive behavior many of us are inclined toward….
Yep, I think SJ & Gates probably were good friends. Oh to have been a fly on the wall when they met for three hours in May. But it’s funny how all these (so called good) friends keep taking SJ for a ride. First Bill gates then Schmidt. In exactly the same way.
But Steve and Apple were and still are the good guys, and Gates/Ballmer/etc are still the bad guys.
This is not simple partisanship of my side versus their side, but rather the clear-cut behavior of each.
Agree with Dude. I think they are old friends and Steve just says things that would insult some but Bill knows Steve well enough to understand .
“I’m just glad I’m not a lawyer, a thief, or a banker.”
— Jimmy Buffet
Spawn of a lawyer and a banker = William (Bill) Gates III
It is left to the reader to determine what Bill is.
I totally agree with you about the Gates/Jobs friendship.
I thought MDN’s take was a needlessly harsh on Gates the man. I hate MS, but there is more to Gates than MS.
He evolved, but while at MS, he was a tasteless bastard.
Judge Jackson during the Msft vs U.S lawsuit in the 90s: ” (msft) proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. … Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect”
people saying Jobs was harsh have forgotten what Bill Gates and Msft WAS in the past and coloring their judgement with Gates behaviour in charity etc TODAY.
Every time Apple/Jobs changed the landscape, Gates dismissed them as being toys or of no consequence, because he was incapable of understanding them:
GUI OS (Mac)
Object oriented OS (NeXT)
first iMac
iPod
iPhone
iPad
The great copy-thief was incapable of making a go of it even when presented with detailed plans and finished products.