15 ms·

One guy made an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and then some expensive first-world gadgets while hanging on to his massive fortune and reputation as a

by acabal 15y ago

One guy made an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and then some expensive first-world gadgets while hanging on to his massive fortune and reputation as a jerk. The other made "PC" a household word, now runs the largest charity in history, and is working to eradicate malaria, among other things. Both were around the same age at the time of Jobs' death. I don't understand why people look up to Jobs so much when Gates seems to be the better human being by far.

danieldk 15y ago
What's wrong with admiring one for taste, and the other for (post-Microsoft) ethics? Why should we compare people to pick the 'best human'?
- rbanffy 15y ago
  Had his ethics really changed he would acknowledge what he did before, at the helm of Microsoft, was wrong and pressure his successors not to repeat his past misdeeds. I think the only thing he apologized for was the plan to seize Allen's part of MS while he was dying (luckily, he recovered). And he did so after Allen found out about it. Have you ever heard something like an apology for all the rest? Me neither.
  - shingen 15y ago
    He didn't do anything particularly offensive while running Microsoft. He shouldn't apologize. Competition on that big of a scale for that big of a prize should be very competitive, it should be painful and brutal. Gates didn't use a gun, he didn't use TNT to kill his competition, he didn't use the government to do it either. Oh no, the big company competed very much so harshly. And much like IBM before Microsoft, a new big nasty company came along and made them barely relevant. Now we have Google, Apple, Facebook, all giants that are nasty in their own ways. Who gives a shit. In another ten years, the world will be turned upside down again. You should be thanking Gates for stepping up to the plate and competing as he did. It's no different than the way Apple or Google or anybody else competes, and it's a good thing.
artursapek 15y ago
I think it's just that Jobs was much more interesting. I'm in the middle of the biography, and I hope to someday read one on Gates as well, but from what I've seen and read to date there was just more to talk about with Steve. He was charismatic and intense, yet somewhat tortured and insane. When people consider Bill Gates they definitely respect him and look up to him, but he's so laid back and humble that there's not much to talk about. He has a ton of money, he's sane, and he's pumping his cash into philanthropic goals that we won't see the effects of for years. I think people just prefer to talk about Steve because he was so vibrant (as Gates put it) and so you hear more about him, which you convert to people "looking up to him." However this video bothered me, why was the interviewer picking at Jobs' time left to live?
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >he's so laid back and humble that there's not much to talk about. He certainly is now, but that's not the impression you get from reading the various and sundry Microsoft apocrypha. Check out Spolsky's recollection: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
  - its_so_on 15y ago
    you should look up the word apocrypha some time.
    - c0riander 15y ago
      I'm not sure what you are getting at here. The word is originally Greek (ἀπόκρυφα) and means "those hidden away" - in common usage it can refer to accounts that are not part of the "official story," such as the Bible's Apocrypha. There are other meanings as well which cast doubt on the authenticity of the story (not surprising actually when you consider the Bible's Apocrypha's relationship with the Church.) Here are the 2 definition OED gives: 1. A writing or statement of doubtful authorship or authenticity; spec. those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted genuine by Jews, and which, at the Reformation, were excluded from the Sacred Canon by the Protestant party, as having no well-grounded claim to inspired authorship. 2. [As in Greek] Hidden things; secrets. rare.
philwelch 15y ago
Jobs sold a much better product in most cases; Gates used unfair and monopolistic business tactics to extract wealth and power above and beyond the actual value of his contribution.
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  Jobs did the same thing. All apple products are closed. You can't change out the hardware, software, and in the case of things like the ipod, the batteries. Jobs was a great visionary, but you can't tell me that he didn't use the exact same sort of tactics. If he had one the PC war, we not only would have closed software, but closed hardware.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    It's not physically impossible to change the hardware, software, or batteries of any Apple product, it's just not designed to accomodate that. By selling a separate OS to multiple different PC vendors, Microsoft actually employed the exact opposite tactic, and that hasn't exactly been an unvarnished success. It's counterfactual to speculate on what Apple might have done if they won the PC war. The fact remains that Microsoft abused their monopoly to undermine Netscape and Java and stole the source code to Quicktime.
beatle 15y ago
One guy inspired MILLIONS to make a difference. Another guy is making a difference to MILLIONS. I admire both of them, but I think in the long run (20+ years) the first guy will have a bigger impact.
- chollida1 15y ago
  > One guy inspired MILLIONS to make a difference. > Another guy is making a difference to MILLIONS Well there are obviously no right or wrong answers here as we are both guessing but I'd say that Bill Gates has accomplished both your first and second points.
commieneko 15y ago
Great people are not necessarily nice people. I understand that Leonardo Da Vinci was a jerk. Often doing something really difficult either requires you to be a jerk, or it could just be a jerk is more likely to have the insensitivity to do the job. I'm old enough to remember Bill Gates was like while he was running Microsoft, and I know people whose businesses Microsoft seriously, and unethically IMO, damaged. If Gates has mellowed, then cool. Once you've accomplished your goals and squashed your opponents, then you've got time to play the nice guy and work on your place in history. (Mr. Carnegie built a lot of libraries that did a lot of good; after a career in industry and development that makes anything Gates might have done pale in comparison.) Personally I think Gates got pissed when he realized he had lost the browser wars and he couldn't own that internet thingie. Jobs's goals were a bit more ambitious than simply making "all the money." To describe Jobs's work as "an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and ... some expensive first-world gadgets." strikes me as glib and disingenuous. Anyone who seriously thinks that needs to spend some time with normal people and watch how they interact with technology. And the movies are better than just cool... Even had Jobs lived a normal life span it's unlikely that he would have accomplished all the universe denting he had in mind. If Jobs was a jerk, and having met him once I can say from personal observation that he was a bit of one, he was a jerk in a hurry.
- hellweaver666 15y ago
  > he was a jerk in a hurry It's strange you should say that, in his biography it mentions that he was always sure he would have a short life, from a very young age. It's no wonder that he didn't feel he had the time to be nice when he wanted to achieve so much.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  To imply that Bill Gates' goals were "simply making 'all the money'" is at best intentionally misleading. Microsoft's unofficial mission statement from 1977 was "a computer on every desk and in every home". They aimed ridiculously high, succeeded past anyone's expectations, and fundamentally changed the world all on their own. To dismiss the tens of billions of dollars that he is ploughing into his foundation (and the tens of billions of dollars he convinced Warren Buffet to also donate) as just "play[ing] the nice guy and work[ing] on [his] place in history" is, quite frankly, ridiculous. This is a foundation working hard on some of the most fundamental problems of humanity: crippling poverty and devastating diseases. Sure, this gets them a few headlines, but what do you expect when their budget is as much as the International Red Cross and Oxfam International combined? Bill Gates: Changed the world once. Will probably do it again. Steve Jobs: "This changes everything. Again."
jc123 15y ago
If you look at the cards that Jobs was dealt with in life (upbringing, fired from his company, cancer...) and what he was able to accomplish, it is admirable and inspiring. I think Jobs and Gates both exemplify to whom much is given, much more is required.
- michaelcampbell 15y ago
  What of his upbringing was particularly challenging?
vellum 15y ago
Back in the day, Bill was kind of a dick, too. From Gates by Stephen Manes: “The Gates motivational method: You yell, you holler, you point out how stupid something is, the chastened subject goes back and redoubles his efforts to do a better job.” Actually, I’m not sure if he’s mellowed out over time. You’d have to ask someone at his foundation.
MrScruff 15y ago
People look up to Jobs because he managed to achieve the ambitions of many here without giving up his principals. I personally have no burning ambition to cure malaria, does that make me a bad person also?
- josefresco 15y ago
  I you don't have a burning ambition to help someone ... anyone .. yes IMHO that makes you a 'bad' person. Stockpiling mountains of money that you can leverage to make even bigger mountains of money is not admirable in my book unless the end goal is to then use that to help the most people that you can.
  - MrScruff 15y ago
    Now your twisting things - I didn't claim I have no ambition to help 'anyone', I said I have no ambition to devote my time to charity work. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes, I guess I'll have to learn to live with it. Also, there is no evidence that Jobs was particularly concerned with 'stockpiling mountains of money'. He was mostly concerned with making great products, which he felt was his contribution to the world. I for one am glad that he focused on what he was driven to do, rather than make some token effort to impress journalist and technology forum posters with what a fantastic man he was.
rahoulb 15y ago
Microsoft during the late 80s and 90s was famous for its ruthlessness and the way it exploited and crushed its competition. I wouldn't say "Jobs is the nasty one and Gates is the nice one"
- drumdance 15y ago
  Jobs was exactly the same way, he just happened to lose the PC battle. Bill Gates famously tried to help him license the the Mac OS to other PC manufacturers (displacing DOS!) but Jobs thought he could beat them all across the entire stack.
jonhendry 15y ago
Gates has had far more wealth than Jobs, more liquidly, for a long time, which I'm sure makes a big difference on outlook.

by acabal 15y ago

danieldk 15y ago

What's wrong with admiring one for taste, and the other for (post-Microsoft) ethics? Why should we compare people to pick the 'best human'?

rbanffy 15y ago
Had his ethics really changed he would acknowledge what he did before, at the helm of Microsoft, was wrong and pressure his successors not to repeat his past misdeeds. I think the only thing he apologized for was the plan to seize Allen's part of MS while he was dying (luckily, he recovered). And he did so after Allen found out about it. Have you ever heard something like an apology for all the rest? Me neither.
- shingen 15y ago
  He didn't do anything particularly offensive while running Microsoft. He shouldn't apologize. Competition on that big of a scale for that big of a prize should be very competitive, it should be painful and brutal. Gates didn't use a gun, he didn't use TNT to kill his competition, he didn't use the government to do it either. Oh no, the big company competed very much so harshly. And much like IBM before Microsoft, a new big nasty company came along and made them barely relevant. Now we have Google, Apple, Facebook, all giants that are nasty in their own ways. Who gives a shit. In another ten years, the world will be turned upside down again. You should be thanking Gates for stepping up to the plate and competing as he did. It's no different than the way Apple or Google or anybody else competes, and it's a good thing.

artursapek 15y ago

I think it's just that Jobs was much more interesting. I'm in the middle of the biography, and I hope to someday read one on Gates as well, but from what I've seen and read to date there was just more to talk about with Steve. He was charismatic and intense, yet somewhat tortured and insane. When people consider Bill Gates they definitely respect him and look up to him, but he's so laid back and humble that there's not much to talk about. He has a ton of money, he's sane, and he's pumping his cash into philanthropic goals that we won't see the effects of for years. I think people just prefer to talk about Steve because he was so vibrant (as Gates put it) and so you hear more about him, which you convert to people "looking up to him." However this video bothered me, why was the interviewer picking at Jobs' time left to live?

redthrowaway 15y ago
>he's so laid back and humble that there's not much to talk about. He certainly is now, but that's not the impression you get from reading the various and sundry Microsoft apocrypha. Check out Spolsky's recollection: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
- its_so_on 15y ago
  you should look up the word apocrypha some time.
  - c0riander 15y ago
    I'm not sure what you are getting at here. The word is originally Greek (ἀπόκρυφα) and means "those hidden away" - in common usage it can refer to accounts that are not part of the "official story," such as the Bible's Apocrypha. There are other meanings as well which cast doubt on the authenticity of the story (not surprising actually when you consider the Bible's Apocrypha's relationship with the Church.) Here are the 2 definition OED gives: 1. A writing or statement of doubtful authorship or authenticity; spec. those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted genuine by Jews, and which, at the Reformation, were excluded from the Sacred Canon by the Protestant party, as having no well-grounded claim to inspired authorship. 2. [As in Greek] Hidden things; secrets. rare.

philwelch 15y ago

Jobs sold a much better product in most cases; Gates used unfair and monopolistic business tactics to extract wealth and power above and beyond the actual value of his contribution.

paulhauggis 15y ago
Jobs did the same thing. All apple products are closed. You can't change out the hardware, software, and in the case of things like the ipod, the batteries. Jobs was a great visionary, but you can't tell me that he didn't use the exact same sort of tactics. If he had one the PC war, we not only would have closed software, but closed hardware.
- philwelch 15y ago
  It's not physically impossible to change the hardware, software, or batteries of any Apple product, it's just not designed to accomodate that. By selling a separate OS to multiple different PC vendors, Microsoft actually employed the exact opposite tactic, and that hasn't exactly been an unvarnished success. It's counterfactual to speculate on what Apple might have done if they won the PC war. The fact remains that Microsoft abused their monopoly to undermine Netscape and Java and stole the source code to Quicktime.

beatle 15y ago

One guy inspired MILLIONS to make a difference. Another guy is making a difference to MILLIONS. I admire both of them, but I think in the long run (20+ years) the first guy will have a bigger impact.

chollida1 15y ago
> One guy inspired MILLIONS to make a difference. > Another guy is making a difference to MILLIONS Well there are obviously no right or wrong answers here as we are both guessing but I'd say that Bill Gates has accomplished both your first and second points.

commieneko 15y ago

Great people are not necessarily nice people. I understand that Leonardo Da Vinci was a jerk. Often doing something really difficult either requires you to be a jerk, or it could just be a jerk is more likely to have the insensitivity to do the job. I'm old enough to remember Bill Gates was like while he was running Microsoft, and I know people whose businesses Microsoft seriously, and unethically IMO, damaged. If Gates has mellowed, then cool. Once you've accomplished your goals and squashed your opponents, then you've got time to play the nice guy and work on your place in history. (Mr. Carnegie built a lot of libraries that did a lot of good; after a career in industry and development that makes anything Gates might have done pale in comparison.) Personally I think Gates got pissed when he realized he had lost the browser wars and he couldn't own that internet thingie. Jobs's goals were a bit more ambitious than simply making "all the money." To describe Jobs's work as "an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and ... some expensive first-world gadgets." strikes me as glib and disingenuous. Anyone who seriously thinks that needs to spend some time with normal people and watch how they interact with technology. And the movies are better than just cool... Even had Jobs lived a normal life span it's unlikely that he would have accomplished all the universe denting he had in mind. If Jobs was a jerk, and having met him once I can say from personal observation that he was a bit of one, he was a jerk in a hurry.

hellweaver666 15y ago
> he was a jerk in a hurry It's strange you should say that, in his biography it mentions that he was always sure he would have a short life, from a very young age. It's no wonder that he didn't feel he had the time to be nice when he wanted to achieve so much.
waitwhat 15y ago
To imply that Bill Gates' goals were "simply making 'all the money'" is at best intentionally misleading. Microsoft's unofficial mission statement from 1977 was "a computer on every desk and in every home". They aimed ridiculously high, succeeded past anyone's expectations, and fundamentally changed the world all on their own. To dismiss the tens of billions of dollars that he is ploughing into his foundation (and the tens of billions of dollars he convinced Warren Buffet to also donate) as just "play[ing] the nice guy and work[ing] on [his] place in history" is, quite frankly, ridiculous. This is a foundation working hard on some of the most fundamental problems of humanity: crippling poverty and devastating diseases. Sure, this gets them a few headlines, but what do you expect when their budget is as much as the International Red Cross and Oxfam International combined? Bill Gates: Changed the world once. Will probably do it again. Steve Jobs: "This changes everything. Again."

jc123 15y ago

If you look at the cards that Jobs was dealt with in life (upbringing, fired from his company, cancer...) and what he was able to accomplish, it is admirable and inspiring. I think Jobs and Gates both exemplify to whom much is given, much more is required.

michaelcampbell 15y ago
What of his upbringing was particularly challenging?

vellum 15y ago

Back in the day, Bill was kind of a dick, too. From Gates by Stephen Manes: “The Gates motivational method: You yell, you holler, you point out how stupid something is, the chastened subject goes back and redoubles his efforts to do a better job.” Actually, I’m not sure if he’s mellowed out over time. You’d have to ask someone at his foundation.

MrScruff 15y ago

People look up to Jobs because he managed to achieve the ambitions of many here without giving up his principals. I personally have no burning ambition to cure malaria, does that make me a bad person also?

josefresco 15y ago
I you don't have a burning ambition to help someone ... anyone .. yes IMHO that makes you a 'bad' person. Stockpiling mountains of money that you can leverage to make even bigger mountains of money is not admirable in my book unless the end goal is to then use that to help the most people that you can.
- MrScruff 15y ago
  Now your twisting things - I didn't claim I have no ambition to help 'anyone', I said I have no ambition to devote my time to charity work. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes, I guess I'll have to learn to live with it. Also, there is no evidence that Jobs was particularly concerned with 'stockpiling mountains of money'. He was mostly concerned with making great products, which he felt was his contribution to the world. I for one am glad that he focused on what he was driven to do, rather than make some token effort to impress journalist and technology forum posters with what a fantastic man he was.

rahoulb 15y ago

Microsoft during the late 80s and 90s was famous for its ruthlessness and the way it exploited and crushed its competition. I wouldn't say "Jobs is the nasty one and Gates is the nice one"

drumdance 15y ago
Jobs was exactly the same way, he just happened to lose the PC battle. Bill Gates famously tried to help him license the the Mac OS to other PC manufacturers (displacing DOS!) but Jobs thought he could beat them all across the entire stack.

jonhendry 15y ago

Gates has had far more wealth than Jobs, more liquidly, for a long time, which I'm sure makes a big difference on outlook.