Microsoft founder Bill Gates coolly parried some harsh criticism from late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in an interview with ABC television Sunday, saying their professional rivalry was positive.
Gates, who maintained a long rivalry with the Apple innovator, was asked about an authorized biography of Jobs by Walter Isaacson which portrayed Gates as comparatively uninspired as a creative spirit.
The Microsoft founder was told by ABC that Jobs “basically said that you were ‘unimaginative, had never invented anything and shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.’ That’s pretty tough stuff. What’s your reaction to that?”
“Well, Steve and I worked together, you know, … creating the Mac. We had more people on it, did the key software for it,” Gates explained.
“So over the course of, you know, the 30 years we worked together, you know, he said a lot of very nice things about me and he said a lot of tough things.
Gates went on: “I mean, he faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace. 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.
“So the fact that, you know, at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was — he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable.
“I, you know, respect Steve. We got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all,” Gates told ABC.
Jobs lost his years-long battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 earlier this month.
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)was an American entrepreneur,marketer, and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he is widely recognized as a charismatic and design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields, transforming "one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies."Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, a year later, the Macintosh. He also played a role in introducing the LaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser printers, to the market.
After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He served as CEO and majority shareholder until Disney's purchase of Pixar in 2006. In 1996, after Apple had failed to deliver its operating system, Copland, Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer, and the NeXTSTEP platform became the foundation for the Mac OS X. Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor, and took control of the company as an interim CEO. Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCijRcBxmnbVQHjjFo…
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