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Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

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Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#11

Post by Grombobulous »

hoKayDo wrote: post #6
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And mostly correct.

Given his similar life experience Jobs could smell his own. Woz and an endless stream of actual engineers developed Apple hardware. Steve just focused on minutiae and details he cared about. He could not engineer his way out of a wet paper sack he would be too stuck on the color of the sack. Always the bike shedder, never the painter.

Microsoft could use someone like that, though.

You don’t need an engineer to be the CEO of the company. The company has hundreds or thousands of engineers already.

The CEO’s job isn’t to make things, it’s to make decisions - and often it’s helpful for that person to have a strong sense of taste.

I’m reminded of this interview with Rick Rubin: https://blockbuster.thoughtleader.school/p/rick-rubin-i-have...

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#12

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

lorecore wrote: post #2

Steve Jobs on Bill Gates: “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

And yet the unimaginative had to bail out the design genius and best salesperson on the planet.

Plus I really don't think the whole Design thing was ever true to begin with tbh.

Apple has never beat Microsoft in a clear head 2 head design battle , Microsoft was either not interested in what Apple was doing or had to simply ignore it in order to avoid being broken up by the Government.

On the other hand Microsoft mopped the floor with Apple on the GUI design battlefield

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#13

Post by argee »

moscoe wrote: post #7
hoKayDo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given his similar life experience Jobs could smell his own. Woz and an endless stream of actual engineers developed Apple hardware. Steve just focused on minutiae and details he cared about. He could not engineer his way out of a wet paper sack he would be too stuck on the color of the sack. Always the bike shedder, never the painter.

And the engineers likely had no taste or vision. Takes both types to make something great. Steve could synergize and extract greatness from teams of individuals. On their own, they would have just tooled around and not produced anything substantial.

I feel like at least some of Steve’s later personality has to have been influenced by interactions such as the one with Bill Atkinson, where he was told rounded corners were "incredibly difficult" to program, only to come up with an implementation a mere 24 hours later. A lifetime of such interactions, such as the one with Larry Kenyon, might have taught him that people aren’t going to do anything (unless he really really insists) and consistently lie to him.

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#14

Post by jleyank »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #12
lorecore wrote: post #2

Steve Jobs on Bill Gates: “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

And yet the unimaginative had to bail out the design genius and best salesperson on the planet. Plus I really don't think the whole Design thing was ever true to begin with tbh. Apple has never beat Microsoft in a clear head 2 head design battle , Microsoft was either not interested in what Apple was doing or had to simply ignore it in order to avoid being broken up by the Government. On the other hand Microsoft mopp…

Erm, what's the good/great GUI aspects that MS delivered? Apple extended/stole from Xerox - who did MS steal from other than Apple?

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#15

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

jleyank wrote: post #14
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the unimaginative had to bail out the design genius and best salesperson on the planet. Plus I really don't think the whole Design thing was ever true to begin with tbh. Apple has never beat Microsoft in a clear head 2 head design battle , Microsoft was either not interested in what Apple was doing or had to simply ignore it in order to avoid being broken up by the Government. On the other hand Microsoft mopp…

Erm, what's the good/great GUI aspects that MS delivered? Apple extended/stole from Xerox - who did MS steal from other than Apple?

Windows 95 has changed everything and it was a Microsoft product, not Apple's.

He said, she said about stealing ideas etc I don't care about it.

The first rule in this game that forcefully push into 14 year old wanna be entrepreneurs is that ideas aren't worth anything.

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#17

Post by altmanaltman »

moscoe wrote: post #7
hoKayDo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given his similar life experience Jobs could smell his own. Woz and an endless stream of actual engineers developed Apple hardware. Steve just focused on minutiae and details he cared about. He could not engineer his way out of a wet paper sack he would be too stuck on the color of the sack. Always the bike shedder, never the painter.

And the engineers likely had no taste or vision. Takes both types to make something great. Steve could synergize and extract greatness from teams of individuals. On their own, they would have just tooled around and not produced anything substantial.

What is the basis of assuming "they would have just tooled around and not produced anything substanial"? Seems like something Jobs would like you to think but come on, Apple has been a massive company for every long, there is an army of people working on "vision" not Jobs just connecting to the cosmos and figuring out everything like an oracle. There is the man and then there is the hype, and i think most fall for the hype over the man.

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#18

Post by thomassmith65 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #10

What Bill Gates misses here is that Jobs was one of the best salespeople on the planet. Go back and watch basically any keynotes or, my favorite, his prerecorded demo of the NeXT operating system. Jobs was also a huge music lover and had strong opinions for how he wanted to listen to music. I could imagine him in a meeting with music executives convincing them of his vision quite easily. As I recall he also was the d…

That's true, but the 'high-order bit' in the music industry deals, back when Gates wrote this message, was that Apple had a comparatively dinky user base.

So for a record company to ink a deal with Apple was lower risk than with Microsoft.

Sometimes American fast food chains roll out a trial product in an isolated region, like a Canadian province. In 2003, offering music downloads to Apple users was a bit like testing a 'Baconator' burger with residents of Quebec.

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#19

Post by dilyevsky »

hoKayDo wrote: post #6
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And mostly correct.

Given his similar life experience Jobs could smell his own. Woz and an endless stream of actual engineers developed Apple hardware. Steve just focused on minutiae and details he cared about. He could not engineer his way out of a wet paper sack he would be too stuck on the color of the sack. Always the bike shedder, never the painter.

Why didn’t those amazing engineers develop great hardware before or after jobs?

Re: Bill Gates on Steve Jobs

#20

Post by peebee67 »

bel8 wrote: post #3
lorecore wrote: post #2

Steve Jobs on Bill Gates: “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

Classic Steve Jobs. Ungrateful and rude.

Yes. They actually made similar observations about each other, in that Bill is observing that Steve has a genius for marketing and picking clever people, as opposed to any particular knack for innovation or inventiveness of his own. But Bill is so much more gracious about how he says it and doesn't take anything away from Steve. He's genuinely impressed at how Steve has managed to somehow wrangle a seemingly impossible licensing deal from a famously obstinate cartel of rent-seekers.
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