JOBS VS GATES

It is often said that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The relationship between Jobs and Bill Gates, the legendary co-founder of Microsoft, was a constantly fascinating one. Both beginning their careers in the mid-1970s, they were fierce commercial rivals and had contrasting personalities. Jobs in particular was prone to making fierce attacks, both on Microsoft as a company and Gates personally. Yet a friendship, albeit a frequently grudging one, burgeoned over time, rooted in a respect for what the other did.

In truth, the two men approached their work from vastly different positions. While Jobs viewed computers as a means to emancipate individuality, Gates saw them as a tool for doing business and as a driver of commerce. Yet both realized that they could be stronger with the other’s co-operation. In 1982, for instance, Jobs persuaded Microsoft – who had produced the operating system for IBM’s PC – to create a spreadsheet, database and graphics program for the Mac.

However, by the following year the two were at serious odds. As Gates heralded the imminent arrival of Windows, Jobs accused him of ripping off the Mac’s graphical interface. Gates is said to have responded by observing: ‘I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.’

Their relationship did not become any easier as Microsoft surged ahead in terms of commercial success. It must also have been particularly galling for Jobs that Apple seemed to need Microsoft and its pivotal software, such as Word and Excel, more than Microsoft needed Apple. The two companies spent years making lawyers rich as they wrangled over patent disputes.

Jobs resorted to some fairly crude personal attacks against Gates, once declaring that he would have been a ‘broader’ guy ‘if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger’, and on another occasion telling a reporter: ‘They [Microsoft] just have no taste. I don’t mean that in a small way. I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their products.’

But Gates would have an important role in turning Apple around after Jobs returned to his spiritual home in 1997. With much of the industry of the opinion that the company had had its day, Microsoft bought some $150 million of Apple stock and agreed to keep producing for Macs. Jobs publicly showed his appreciation, saying: ‘I think the world’s a better place for it.’ Yet when a giant image of Gates was beamed into that year’s Macworld Convention, Apple’s avid fans began an impromptu round of booing. A case of biting the hand that feeds – and indicative of the animosity that Jobs especially had stoked between them over the years.

But as time went on, both of them became able to take a broader view of their achievements (which in Gates’ case includes becoming one of the world’s foremost philanthropists – something that may yet prove a more important achievement than any of his work as a software designer). Theirs was, in the final reckoning, a battle with no losers. Each is considered integral to the technological revolution that has swept the world since the 1970s. Each made epic amounts of money. Each made a significant dent in the universe.

In 2007 the two sat on the same stage at the Wall Street Journal’s ‘D: All Things Digital’ conference and were notably gracious about one another. Gates said of Jobs: ‘The way he goes about things is just different, and I think it’s magical.’ And when Jobs was nearing the end of his life, Gates visited him at his home, where they chatted for several hours about their ideas and reminisced about their careers with all their ups and downs.

After Jobs died, Gates said: ‘Steve and I first met nearly thirty years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.’

Their rivalry no doubt drove Jobs and Gates on to new heights – and it was the wider world that felt the benefit.