Bill Gates revisits rivalry with Steve Jobs
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Photos: Jeff Chistensen/Getty Images (Gates); Michael L Abramson/Getty Images (Jobs)
Bill Gates' new memoir "Source Code" only stretches through the early days of the computer industry, but even from their first encounters, Steve Jobs stands out as a singular figure.
What he's saying: "He should have been an actor," Gates told Axios as part of a wide-ranging interview. "He really ran the reality distortion field like no one else."
- Gates says he was always immune to Jobs' powers. "I always said to Steve, 'Look, I'm a minor wizard. You're a major wizard. You can cast spells I can't cast, but because I'm a minor wizard, your spells don't work on me. I see the bullshit, that you're just mesmerizing these people.'"
- After Steve Jobs unveiled the NeXT computer, Gates says he derided the machine to Jobs: "This thing is a slow, expensive computer with an overpriced black case," Gates recalls telling him.
Between the lines: Gates says Jobs had "messianic" skills when it comes to marketing and leadership, but couldn't resist getting in a few digs at the late Apple co-founder's lack of technical skills.
- "Steve's achievements are all the more impressive when you know that he couldn't look at a piece of code and know what it was."
- "He was never an engineer," Gates said. "Woz was a real engineer — I mean, a hardcore engineer."
Despite their very different talents and approaches, Gates said he and Jobs shared a knack for getting the best out of the people who worked for them.
- "Clearly, he had so many skills that I didn't, but we were both a little bit pied pipers in terms of getting people to work ridiculous hours," Gates said.
Zoom in: In 1997, Microsoft becomes Apple's savior, investing in the company and pledging support at a time when it was close to bankruptcy.
- Gates says he doesn't regret rescuing Apple. "It was good that Apple recovered and made incredible contributions," Gates said. "Once you get to the mobile thing, then Apple becomes every bit as important as Microsoft. It wasn't up until then. They were more of a niche."
Yes, but: Gates acknowledges it would have been nice if Microsoft had held on to the Apple stock it got as part of the deal.
- "I wish we'd maintained that 5% ownership," Gates said with a laugh. "It was foolish, foolish to sell it, but when we're worrying about all sorts of antitrust things, we sold it for what now looks like nothing. And we owned part of Facebook for a while, too."
Go deeper: Bill Gates says coding matters, even in an AI world
