Sam Oliver
The book "Steve Jobs" by author Walter Isaacson, released last week, includes comments from both Jobs and Gates about one another. While Gates said he found Jobs to be a "weirdly flawed human being," Jobs asserted that Gates was a "basically unimaginative" person who "never invented anything... He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."
Upon hearing those comments, Gates spoke with ABC's This Week, and said he was not bothered by negative remarks made by Jobs. He admitted that Jobs said "a lot of very nice things about him," in addition to "a lot of tough things."
"We got to work together," Gates said. "We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all."
The Microsoft chairman said Jobs felt as though he was the "good guy" and Microsoft "were the bad guys." Gates said it was "understandable" why Jobs might feel that way.
"He faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace," he said. "So the fact that we were succeeding with high volume products, you know, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies — it's tough."
Isaacson's book — which is now available in hardcover, on Apple's iBooks, and Amazon Kindle — describes a number of confrontations between Gates and Jobs over the years. The book states that as Jobs would become emotional and angry, Gates had an opposite reaction and actually calmed down.
"I'm good when people are emotional — I'm kind of less emotional," Gates was quoted as saying.
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87 Comments
Responding to unflattering comments made about him in Apple co-founder Steve Jobs's new biography, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said he's not bothered by the remarks.
Whew! That's a relief.
i had a boss once where i used to sell pc's in a small shop... when a customer would come in complaining and shouting his head off... my boss would remain calm and mellow with a wry smile on his face - it was an unnerving quality.
he was also a bespectacled asshole of a little nerd with a bad haircut
mmm
i had a boss once where i used to sell pc's in a small shop... when a customer would come in complaining and shouting his head off... my boss would remain calm and mellow with a wry smile on his face - it was an unnerving quality.
he was also a bespectacled asshole of a little nerd with a bad haircut
mmm
strewth, give the guy a break, jobs is dead, no need to be insulting about his appearance
For all the things he did as part of Microsoft that I don't agree with, Bill Gates in his later years has grown into one heck of a human being.
It's called "constructive criticism" right.