As everyone knows, tech history was defined in the last decades by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, two geniuses that helped to build the modern world with their revolutionary innovations. Although they had a nice relationship back in the day, the moment when Gates released Windows, Jobs considered him as a traitor, and since that moment both of them entered into one of the most fascinating rivalries ever seen. Here are the funniest banters that both tech leaders ever said to each other.
Bill Gates Assured That Steve Jobs Didn't Knew Anything About Technology
In some of the tensest moment of this love-hate relationship between the two tech masterminds, Microsoft´s CEO got to the point of assuring that Apple´s Co-founder didn't knew anything about technology. Considering what Jobs made to his company, and his involvement in the creation of groundbreaking products as the iMac or the iPhone, this looks like one of the most inaccurate statements in the history.
One time, Gates tried to endorse Jobs´ quality in design, by saying that this was a field in which Apple´s CEO had an amazing instinct for what works, even if he really never knew too much about technology. However, the most famous moment was when Apple was about to buy NeXT in 1996 in order to get Jobs back to the company.
Given the fact that Bill Gates knew that this move would turn Apple into a major competitor in short term, he talked to Gil Amelio -Apple´s CEO back in those days- to convince him of not getting Jobs back to the company. Believe it or not, Gates literally said that Jobs´ technology was nothing but a warmed-over UNIX and that taking him back to Apple was a terribly bad decision, since a 99 percent of what he said and think was wrong, and he didn't know anything about technology or engineering.
Far from not saying any kind of similar statements, Steve Jobs showed no mercy with Bill Gates when he made the controversial decision of quitting Microsoft to focus more on his foundation in 2006, since Apple´s co-founder said that Gates must feel more comfortable on philanthropy than technology, considering that he´s unimaginative and has never invented anything.
Jobs And Gates Entered Into Personal Considerations
If there´s an undeniable fact about both tech leaders is that they are quite characteristic. While Steve Jobs has always been considered as a perfectionist and someone very unpleasant to work with, Bill Gates has always been contemplated as a nerd stereotype. Believe it or not, on their long and rough rivalry, there were moments in which both of them actually got to the point of saying things about each other´s personality.
On one hand, Jobs stated that Gates was an incredibly boring and unadventurous person that was always too focused on business instead of having a good time even for a moment. Actually, Jobs went far beyond and said that Gates could have been a broader guy if he had dropped acid once when he was younger.
On the other hand, Bill Gates used almost the same assertions everyone uses to describe Steve Jobs´ persona, by stating that he was fundamentally odd, which of course, was the confirmation of the well-known weirdness that Apple´s co-founder always showed. In fact, Gates went to the further step by saying that he was "weirdly flawed as a human being."
The Beginning Of The Rough Statements
When Microsoft announced the first version of Windows back in 1985, it was practically the end of the good relationship that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had, since Apple Co-founder explicitly blamed Gates for ripping off the Macintosh. This has been one of the most crucial moments in the history of technology, and the beginning of a series of rough statement that both leaders said to each other.
One of the first was said by Jobs, who filled with rage because of what Gates did, not only told that he ripped Apple completely, but also that he´s a person without any kind of shame since only shameless people could do something like this. In some way, this phrase was remembered back in the 90s, when Gates´ unpopularity was at its peak.
Far from getting his mouth shut, Bill Gates actually replied what Steve Jobs said about what he did, claiming that he surely entered into one of his reality distortion fields if he actually believed that Microsoft did any harm to Apple. An unfriendly statement in which Gates could have used Jobs´ experience with LSD.
