A decade ago when Bill Gates was still in charge of Microsoft, I never thought much of the man. He always came across as overly aggressive and somewhat unpleasant to deal with. To some degree, those are probably necessary traits to be an entrepreneur and build a big successful company. However, in the years since he stepped away from the company to focus on his foundation, he seems to have aged gracefully and has developed into a more sensitive human being that actually cares about the world.
While I still don't get the ill-fated commercials he did with Jerry Seinfeld a few years ago, he did show a self-effacing side that we never saw from Steve Jobs.
Jobs on the other hand continued to lead the creation of cool new products right up until his final days.
On the other hand, based on what I'm reading from the new Walter Isaacson biography, indicates that Jobs remained an asshole throughout his life especially when it comes to his attitude toward competitors like Google and Samsung.
Very different men and it will be fascinating to see how we view the two of them 10, 20, 30 years down the road.
Reshared post from +Dave Girouard
Bill Gates is a classy guy. I really respect his maturity in responding to SJ. He deserved more respect.
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I think you're right about the personalities, but as a stockholder I see a different side: Microsoft returned approximately zero % over the last decade, whereas Apple returned something like 3,000% over the last decade. Anyone delivering me a 3,000% return over a decade can be the biggest asshole in the world, in my opinion, compared to the nicest guy in the world who delivered me 0%. The biggest love you can bestow on your shareholders is money, and Steve Jobs delivered it in spades. Steve Jobs was all about the profit. Bill Gates, on the other hand, failed this critical mission over the last decade, talking a big game and trying to be nice, giving away his money to all sorts of charitable causes, but unfortunately he also gave away what an investor could have made by investing in Apple instead. I don't think Steve Jobs gave away a penny in charity — he focused like a laser on enriching us the stockholders. For this reason alone, Steve Jobs is a hero, whereas Bill Gates was a failure after 1999. Of course, Bill Gates was a huge hero before 1999 🙂