Minor quibble: Gates was surrounded by suits and lawyers. The Microsoft empire was built on having a better understanding of IP law and licensing than pretty mu

Minor quibble: Gates was surrounded by suits and lawyers. The Microsoft empire was built on having a better understanding of IP law and licensing than pretty much anyone else at the time. One of Jobs's much underrated talents was (and presumably still is) supply chain negotiation -- Apple's first billion came from a combination of brilliant negotiation (getting floppy drive mechanisms at an incredible price) and engineering (Woz created a brilliantly simple and inexpensive floppy drive controller for less than a tenth of the cost of competing equivalents).