“Not since Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously interviewed Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as a possible suitor during the ‘Macintosh Dating Game’ back in 1984 have the two men appeared in a joint bill. [Now] the two will share a stage tonight for the first time in more than 20 years for what promises to be a historic discussion,” AllThingsD reports.
AllThingsD’s live coverage includes:
• Walt Mosssberg: What have each of you contributed to the computer industry? Jobs: Bill built the first software company in the industry, and that was huge. Bill was really focused on software. There are a lot of other things you could say, but that’s the highest bit. Gates: First, I’d like to clarify, I am not Fake Steve Jobs. Apple really pursued the dream of building products that we want to use ourselves. He always seems to figure out where the next industry movement will be. The industry has benefited tremendously from his work.
Engadget covers the exchange thusly:
• Bill: Steve said once, we build the products we want to use ourselves, and he’s done that with incredible taste and elegance. Apple literally was failing before Steve went back. Steve: We’ve also both been incredibly lucky to have great partners that we started the companies with. Great people, he says.
MacWorld offers a fuller report of Jobs’ and Gates’ opening comments:
• “Bill built the first software company in the industry. And I think he build the first software company before anyone in our industry knew what a software company was, and that was huge. And the business model they ended up pursuing ended up working really well,” said Jobs. “Bill was focused on software before anyone else had a clue. There’s a lot more you can say, but that’s the high-order bit.” “First I want to clarify, I’m not Fake Steve Jobs,” said Gates, to peals of laughter from the audience.
“What Steve’s done is phenomenal,” Gates continued. “Back in 1977, the Apple II, the idea that it would be a mass market machine and an incredibly empowering phenomenon. And the Macintosh, that was so risky. Apple really bet the company, Lisa hadn’t done that well, but the team that Steve built within the company to pursue that, some days it felt a little ahead of its time, remember the Twiggy disk drive and…”
Jobs interjected, “128K!”
“In a certain sense we build the products we want to use ourselves. He’s really pursued that with an incredible taste and elegance and had a huge impact on the industry. Apple literally was failing when Steve went back and reinfused innovation and risk-taking that have been phenomenal. So the industry has benefitted immensely from his work. I’d say he’s contributed as much as anyone,” said Gates.
We’ll add to this in a few moments, but, first, here are the links to each of the reports mentioned above. We recommend reading all three to get the full picture until AllThingsD posts the video:
• AllThingsD
• Engadget
• Macworld
UPDATE: 11:24pm EDT: From the Macworld’s coverage, “The big secret about Apple is that Apple views itself as a software company. And there aren’t very many software companies left. And Microsoft is a software company,” said Jobs. “We look at what they do, and some is really great, and some is competitive, and some of it’s not.” Apple’s goal is much more modest than world domination, said Jobs. “We don’t think we’re going to have 80 percent of the market,” he said, doubtlessly disappointing legions of Mac enthusiasts. “We’re happy when our market share goes up a point.”
UPDATE: 11:34pm EDT:Asked by Kara Swisher to define the greatest misunderstanding in their relationship, Jobs joked, “We’ve kept our marriage secret for over a decade now.”
UPDATE: 11:38pm EDT: From the Engadget’s coverage, “Q about standards and convergence devices. Steve: Bill and I can agree we can get it down to two! Bill: The marketplace is great at allowing diversity when it should, and allowing it to go away when it should. Steve: And allowing it back sometimes! Harrrrr. Laughs.”
UPDATE: 11:42pm EDT: “Q about their legacies. Applause for Bills charity work… Does Steve envy Bill’s second act? Steve: Bill’s goal isn’t to be the richest guy in the cemetary. … I look at us as two of the luckiest guys on the planet… we’ve found what we loved to do at the right place at the right time. Your family and that, what more can you ask for?”
UPDATE: 11:49pm EDT: From the AllThingsD’s coverage, “Q: What do you wish you’d learned from each other early on? Gates: I admire Steve’s taste. And that’s not a joke. Jobs: If Apple could have had a bit of Microsoft’s knack for partnerships early on we would have been better for it.” From Macworld, “[Jobs] said that he wished he and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak learned earlier how to partner with others, as Microsoft had. ‘If Apple had more of that in its DNA, it would have served it really well. And it didn’t learn that until a couple decades later.'”
Engadget’s Ryan Block reports his impression as the event wraps up, “Steve, very guarded, playing his hands very close to the chest. Bill, very friendly, very open, surprisingly accessible. These two guys are one in a million, and it’s totally clear they’ve never respected anyone quite like each other.”
Watch the videos to find out if you agree with Block’s assessment of the event. How different people can interpret the same event so differently never fails to amaze or to show one’s true colors.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates highlight reel:
The complete Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interview videos via AllThingsD:
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Prologue
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 1
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 2
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 3
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 4
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 5
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 6
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Part 7
• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Highlight Reel (seen above)
MacDailyNews Take: Those “Get a Mac” ads are so far under Bill’s skin, even liposuction couldn’t remove them. Look just beneath the lovefest veneer to see the adversarial relationship that’s not quite hidden by the PR-induced mutual admiration stuff. If you watch all of the videos, looking at facial expressions, body language, pauses, moments of silence, etc. it comes across loud and clear. Text reports don’t and can’t do it justice. Bottom line: they had to be “nice” to each other in order to not look small, petty, negative, etc. You see the same act played out often in initial political debates. It’s a tactic. Make no mistake, there is no love lost between the two, and Jobs, at least, intends to win. Gates is no longer running Microsoft. Having Gates moving out of day-to-day Microsoft operations must be to Jobs something like Borg’s retirement was to McEnroe. But, that’s okay; it goes beyond the men themselves. It’s about changing the world by making things better with the side benefit of claiming what’s rightfully yours.
Interesting.
Even though users of the respective platforms may make the Mac vs. PC debate more dramatic than it should be, it’s nice to see that Jobs and Gates seem to have a mutual respect and admiration for each other’s accomplishments.
Gates is such a choad.
Bill Gates might not be “Fake Steve Jobs” but his software sure is fake Apple OS.
Why is this supposed to be interesting
These guys are geekin’ out on the same stage…and seem to be having fun. Cool.
Eric, it’s “chode”
what a piece of work.
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My whole reason for existence is shattered if Steve doesn’t hate Bill.
I’m going to have to rethink things!!!!!
Johann Gutenberg
James Watt
Thomas Edison
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are businessmen. Not leaders of religous hordes. Of course they see the world differently than the sheep that flock to these respective banners. Free you mind, quit being tools.
Twas refreshing to see Steve & Bill interact together with Walt live together on stage. Walt’s probably the only guy that could have set this up. Interesting to see these computer pioneers fawning over each other. Perhaps what we all see here more accurately demonstates their own (not their respective companies’) relationship.
webbyswim: fact checker first, then the insult
http://wiki.ursine.ca/Choad
other definitions
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000531http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=choad
that was weird, the MW for my previous post was research.
@ MDN Webmaster..
Sure hope you’ll let us know when the video is posted
TIA
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MW = “together” … All together now …. “A-w-w-w-w !”
crap; messed up the links. it’s late
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=choad
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000531
This is a classic example of opposites that make things work and drive enthusiasm and rivalries and fuel an industry or event. Reminds me of the classic tennis with Borg and MacEnroe and how their opposite personalities created excitement and drove tennis. You see the same in business, sports or even politics. Great stuff, fun to watch and be part of. This is exciting times and we should enjoy it because some day we won’t have these personalities, good vs. evil, cool vs. boring, the light side vs. the dark side……. I love it, I make money off it, and it will never be this way again.
I feel so left out.
/mw: married
Choad, Chode, who the fsck cares about the spelling. The man made his point about Gates. He’s right about one thing – he’s not “Fake Steve Jobs” simply because you cannot mention Gates and Jobs in the same sentence. You can’t even compare the two. Jobs is a genius. Gates is a copycat. Jobs is an innovator, Gates is a follower. Gates did a better job of partnering way back when – that’s the only reason MS is where it is today. But things change in this sector day to day, and so is the MS empire – slowly crumbling. Today, Apple’s market cap exceeded $100 billion and was added to the S&P 100. Almost double that of Dell. So in the end, Bill, you are indeed a choad, chode, choade, etc.
Interesting that Steve gave a little tip of the cap to MS for its knack for partnerships. Seems he himself took a page from MS’ playbook. Witness today’s fruitful partnership with Intel, and the ones that will bear fruit very soon, beginning within a few weeks, Google and AT&T.
The way Bill was sitting, he looked like Stephen Hawking. Was Bill nervous, uncomfortable or something???
Nice work from MDN pulling in information for various sources.
Thanks.
I, for one, am happy Apple doesn’t have Microsoft’s knack for partnerships because Microsoft’s way of partnerships is to cheat, to blackmail, to steal and to backstab their partners.
“Even though users of the respective platforms may make the Mac vs. PC debate more dramatic than it should be, it’s nice to see that Jobs and Gates seem to have a mutual respect and admiration for each other’s accomplishments.”
Up to a point, I’m sure. But, in a situation like that, the sensible thing for one’s own image is to offer fulsome praise to a fellow-guest. You look mean-spirited if you don’t, and no-one smart is going to walk into that one.
I don’t suppose Steve has forgotten that Gates’s company did a lot of damage to Apple and NeXT (and to others like Netscape, Sun, IBM, Lotus, Novell, and a host of smaller fish). Just recently MS, having got other companies to “partner” with it in PlaysForSure devices, turned around and stabbed its “partners” in the back with the Zune. Microsoft has stuck its dirty hands in the political process in an attempt to stop various US States using an open format–Open Document–rather than its own Office formats. And for OEMs–and the public–there’s the ongoing problem of the “Microsoft Tax”:
“Microsoft’s entire pricing, contract, and licensing structure is designed with the primary aim of preventing any other operating-system vendor from getting a foothold on the desktop. They achieve this by making the opportunity cost of pre-installing a non-Windows operating system prohibitively high for any vendor who also needs to ship Windows. … Microsoft will literally put an OEM out of business before it lets them help a competitor. This is why big OEMs like Dell keep introducing Linux support and then pulling it again when Microsoft flexes its muscles.”
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html#msoft
Gates is not a nice man and his company has not behaved well–or even legally.
“In the Microsoft monopoly trial, Apple’s Avie Tevanian, Phil Schiller and Tim Schaaff all testified that Microsoft had approached them repeatedly, offering to allow Apple to keep QuickTime authoring if the company agreed to pull out of the media player market.”
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/5F0C866C-6DDF-4A9A-9515-531B0CA0C29C.html
I wouldn’t assume that because Jobs understands the PR value of offering big compliments to a rival in a forum like that he “respects” and “admires” Gates all that much. Even Gates, who has been silly enough to be surly, whining, and aggressive in some recent interviews, understood what was best to say at D5.
Finally, even if Jobs has forgiven everything, he personally has not been the only victim of Gates’s and the company that takes its business and ethical attitudes from him. And there’s no reason why the rest of us should take a sentimental attitude instead of keeping a very wary eye on MS.
You cannot mention Gates and Jobs in the same sentence.
opps … sorry.
Stefano Jobso…
Thats a very pesemistic view you have there.
I for one think these ‘rivals’ do have genuine respect for each other, even though their companies act in very different ways.
And anwyay, Gates isn’t evil, he’s just a good business man. You don’t get over 80% of the market from being an idiot and selling useless software. There was a time when windows was better than mac os remember. (Although those times were a couple decades ago).
Just my 2pence.
I got the feeling from reading a couple of Bill comments above that they were backhanded slights on Steve’s achievments.
Like:
“Steve said once, “we build the products we want to use ourselves”, and he’s done that with incredible taste and elegance” …meaning? They’re not the products business’ wanted or need, just what Steve wanted.
And <i>”And the Macintosh, that was so risky… but the team that Steve built within the company to pursue that, some days it felt a little ahead of its time…” …meaning? All credit to the guys in the team, they did the immovative, important work. Steve just managed them…