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Report
The billionaire rivalry between Apple and Microsoft
Business Insider
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9/11/2024
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs partnered in the early years of their companies before their relationship took a turn. Here’s what happened between the two tech billionaires, and how it has impacted Apple and Microsoft until today.
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Tech
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00:00
Although Microsoft and Apple are competitors when it comes to sales and dominating the market,
00:05
Jobs and Gates have a much more complicated relationship than that.
00:08
They've worked together in the past.
00:10
They've traded some harsh words for each other in the media.
00:13
The essence of Gates' opinion of Jobs is kind of like,
00:16
you have great ideas, you have great taste,
00:18
and those are things that Gates said about Jobs a lot, very often.
00:21
But he did not believe that Jobs had the technical chops to lead a company
00:26
into the new frontier of technology.
00:29
I'm Jordan Hart. I'm a trending tech reporter here at Business Insider,
00:32
and today we're going to be spilling the tea about one of the biggest rivalries
00:35
in the tech industry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
00:41
Apple and Microsoft were both founded in the 1970s.
00:44
Back then, personal computing was just emerging.
00:46
People were trying new stuff, innovating things.
00:49
Already at this computerized secretarial service,
00:52
one secretary can handle what six did before.
00:55
Warehouses don't need warehousemen. It's all done by computer.
00:58
Microsoft and Apple were pretty early collaborators.
01:01
Microsoft made the software for Apple's Apple II PC,
01:04
but their relationship wasn't perfect by any means.
01:07
One indicator that it may not go so well is a 1980s trip
01:10
that Jobs took to convince Microsoft to create software for Macintosh.
01:14
Jobs' sale pitch did not go over well with Gates,
01:17
who kind of saw him as more as a salesman than like a real tech leader.
01:21
They butted heads and they disagreed on the way their company should run
01:24
and the way the tech industry should move forward.
01:27
Our goal, and we think what serves the customer best,
01:30
is to constantly be working on making things better.
01:32
We're working on the next iPhone. We're working on the one after that.
01:35
We're thinking about the one after that.
01:37
As a lot of tech relationships between companies and CEOs work,
01:42
I mean, you kind of need that rivalry and that competitor
01:47
who's kind of neck and neck with you to innovate and create the next thing.
01:51
We love the competition.
01:53
People see that someone else has done a good job
01:56
and we can surprise them by showing that we can match and go beyond.
02:00
For the first few years of working on Macintosh,
02:03
Apple and Microsoft were very involved.
02:05
Gates even said that he had more men working on the Macintosh than Apple did.
02:09
So there was a partnership there.
02:11
There was a level of working together, creative ideas flowing,
02:15
and the pair had a lot of respect for each other.
02:18
The release of Windows in 1985 marked the end of the good vibes
02:22
between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
02:24
Jobs felt like Gates and co. were ripping off Apple's idea
02:27
of the graphical user interface.
02:29
Meanwhile, Gates felt like they both took the idea from Xerox,
02:32
who they both admired as a company.
02:34
Jobs felt like Gates had no shame in just completely copying Gates' idea.
02:38
And Gates felt like Apple didn't own one idea.
02:42
If you ask me, Microsoft and Bill Gates did not rip off Steve Jobs and Apple.
02:46
I mean, at this time, there was a lot of innovation,
02:48
a lot of ideas floating around.
02:50
Everyone was kind of trying to figure out how they could come up
02:53
with the next big thing that consumers would love.
02:55
So Microsoft was just doing what any other tech company would do,
02:59
and Apple doesn't really own the idea of graphical user interfaces.
03:03
At this point, the rivalry was full-blown.
03:05
Microsoft and Apple were both in the personal computing space.
03:08
Gates had a lot to say about Jobs' place in the tech industry.
03:11
He praised his charisma, his taste, and his ability to command an audience,
03:15
but ultimately felt like Jobs lacked the technical ability
03:18
that it took for a tech leader.
03:20
Jobs felt like Gates was a little bit too focused on business, too technical.
03:24
If you ask me, they both had a winning formula.
03:26
They just had different ingredients.
03:29
Back in the 1990s, Microsoft was king of personal computing,
03:32
thanks to its unique Windows interface, which was revolutionary.
03:36
They were also the most valuable company in the world.
03:38
And while Microsoft was at the top of its game in the 90s,
03:41
Apple needed a $150 million investment from Microsoft to help it stay afloat.
03:45
Apple was also dealing with a lot of turmoil at the executive level during that time.
03:49
Steve Jobs had left the company and returned in the 1990s,
03:53
staged a coup to become the CEO again.
03:55
So there was a lot of moving pieces there,
03:57
and that investment from Microsoft saved the company,
04:00
or at least helped it not go under.
04:02
Microsoft's investment in Apple isn't necessarily an indicator
04:06
that Jobs and Gates were on great terms.
04:08
There's a lot of competitors out there,
04:10
but we think we have a much, much better product.
04:12
So we'll see if people agree with us.
04:14
In the early 2000s, Gates made it clear that he felt that the closed-off philosophy
04:18
and ecosystem of Apple products would make it hard for people to commit to them
04:22
without Steve Jobs being there to be the salesman that Gates knew he was.
04:26
Gates isn't 100% wrong here.
04:28
Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world right now,
04:31
but its last few earnings reports indicate that things are starting to slip there,
04:35
and they need some innovation if they want to kick it up a notch
04:38
and be that dominant force that they were when the iPhone first came out.
04:41
Steve Jobs unfortunately passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2011,
04:46
but four years before that, Jobs and Gates joined each other on stage at a conference,
04:50
and the tone was a lot more appreciative and admirable than they'd been in years,
04:54
and it seemed like the pair had really put the past behind them
04:57
and were able to compliment each other for their hard work
05:00
and where their careers ended up taking them.
05:02
Gates and Jobs might have let bygones be bygones,
05:04
but their companies are still very much in competition with each other.
05:07
They're both worth over $3 trillion,
05:09
and they're racing for their $4 trillion valuation.
05:12
It's not just each other vying for that top spot,
05:14
but the startup that started yesterday that's gotten, you know,
05:18
over a million views on Kickstarter.
05:20
So there's definitely a lot more tension between Apple and Microsoft
05:24
with the companies that have yet to even come to fruition yet
05:28
who want that iPhone moment or that PC moment
05:31
to catapult them into the stratosphere like it did for Microsoft and Apple.
05:36
Maybe there's another Steve Jobs and Bill Gates rivalry brewing.
05:41
Oh, the brewing!
05:42
Ah, tea!
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