Bill Gates On Steve Jobs In 1998: 'He Knows He Can't Win' (AUDIO)

Cringely on technology:

As you may be able to read on the picture, it is an interview with Bill Gates from June, 1998. That's the interview I did for my ill-fated Vanity Fair piece on the relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It is almost sixty minutes entirely devoted to Bill talking about Steve.

Read the whole story: Cringely on technology

Comments

[Cryostatic]

08:57 AM on 04/13/2010

I will say this. I don't buy Apple products, because I'm a tinker-geek, and I don't like being told how I have to use them. I do however, appreciate Jobs' insight into the consumer market. Without Apple, I probably wouldn't have any of the mobile devices that I currently use. Apple comes out with excellent products, which other companies try to mimic or exceed, and I wind up with a comparable (in some cases, superior) product with less restrictions.

[Tumult]

12:33 AM on 04/13/2010

Both companies are bad. I own and buy products from both because I don't have a choice for what I want.
But I would love to see the dominance of both companies end. I can't understand why people would be loyal to either company. Microsoft has a near monopoly on PC and Apple is overpriced and abusive.
No loyalty here, I am glad Amazon is so much better than Apple on digital video, and Barnes and Noble beats Amazon on ebooks.

I can go with whatever the best is for individual components on my PC, I just wish the same was true of operating system, and I wish all media content was interchangeable rather than having to have 5 different versions of the same software.

The companies don't get my money when I can avoid it because of bad practices, and people here are viciously loyal.

[Nathaniel Mills]

10:02 PM on 04/12/2010

Billiante.

[frug]

05:00 PM on 04/12/2010

Coke/Pepsi, dogs/cats, Mac/PC... the more marginal the importance, the more the ferocious the camps.

Mac and PC are both good... at different things. I have one of each.

[Mydian01]

07:44 PM on 04/12/2010

so do i.. i use my iMac for everything except games, and i have bootcamp for games.. win win.

[rp2009]

04:13 PM on 04/12/2010

Gates left MS as the winner. He took even took a a big chunk of his winnings and donated huge amounts to charities.
As to the Hugo Chavez part.......C'mon people. It called business. A good Business leader acts in the best interest and bottom line of the business. Acting on the whims of the geeks will destroy any and every business.
It has become obvious that his business model works. His business model saved the music industry and has been a boon to independent app developers. It is a win for content providers, consumers, innovation and apple itself.
Apple fought its way to the top after being down for the count. No one but the consumer decides where to lay their money down. The nexus one is a great product and Google has the money clout and leverage to make things happen, same for RIM or or any of the other tech heavyweights.
Jobs has been touted as one of the best CEO's in our time, Its about having foresight, business sense and the capability to produce a quality product that sells, not about any of this draconian or Hugo Chavez nonsense.

[maigoro]

02:56 PM on 04/12/2010

The thing at that time Bill was 100% accurate - he then invested $300 million into apple and resurrected it from the dead - it was on it's way to join Packard Bell.

[myaa]

03:36 PM on 04/12/2010

Gates is probably among the shrewdest businessmen around. Might not be a technical genius as Steve Jobs, but this guys has (or at least had till he semi-retired) his fingers on the pulse of the market.

[Unimatrix42]

03:42 PM on 04/12/2010

GATES???!?!?

LMAO!!!

[Unimatrix42]

03:42 PM on 04/12/2010

Yeah, how about no he didn't.

How about Microsoft purchased 150 Million worth of non-voting Apple shares and Apple agreed to drop the trade dress lawsuits. How about Microsoft didn't "save" Apple -- Apple had plenty of cash on hand.

How about Apple's stock is trading at 240, Microsoft around 27? How about Apple has the highest margins on products, 40 Bn in cash reserves and a brand identity and loyal user base that any company would kill for?

You know... there's this thing called Google...

[Mydian01]

04:19 PM on 04/12/2010

calm down, your talking true and common wisdom.. to idiots.

[XXYR]

07:39 PM on 04/12/2010

All pretty much true. Unless of course you are the type who concludes that Subway must make the best lunch in the world because they have the most shops.

And if you think that, you are too dumb to hold a conversation.

[OutAtFirst]

02:30 PM on 04/12/2010

Windows Vista, enough said.

[StansDad]

01:31 PM on 04/12/2010

but.. but iwork sucks

[brigadere]

11:59 AM on 04/12/2010

Mt. Gates is still correct. And I say this with while typing on a Mac book pro with an iPhone sitting not too far away. Steve Jobs is great at executing great product ideas, but if the guy was a president he would be Hugo Chavez. An authoritarian nightmare.

Apple stifle freedom and build unnecessary friction in the use of its products by locking down the technologies that consumers buy with their hard earned cash. If you want to void my warranty if things fail as a result of my actions, fine. But don't dictate what I can or can not run on something I paid $500 for.

[jsgaetano]

01:14 PM on 04/12/2010

Exactly.

That's one thing I love about Fake Steve Jobs- he asks where people think Gates learned his monopolistic behavior from? He learned it from Apple and IBM, the grandmasters of monopolistic behavior.

Apple is cool and all, but they shamelessly rip off other people's ideas, and do everything possible to lock people in to the Apple monopoly. It always amuses me how people say Apple is so free and open... then I ask them why a non-Apple device won't work with iTunes. Or why OSX can't run on non-Apple hardware. Or why any Windows software written by Apple is a steaming pile of refuse.

But that's what people don't understand about monopolies- it's possible for them to do great things BECAUSE they act that way. Yeah, iPad is cooler than XP tablet... because MS doesn't want to do hardware, and leaves that stuff up to other companies. And besides, the US and EU have a "MS isn't allowed to do what everyone else can" laws on the books, so they aren't as free to innovate anymore, a situation MS's competition spent billions to bring about.

Monopolies are also great for standardization- iTunes is a great, streamlined service. But it wouldn't be possible unless a dictator like Steve Jobs was willing to shove it down the video and music industry's collective throats.

[Andrew Harris]

02:42 PM on 04/12/2010

It's amusing how you try to sound like you know so much about monopolies, when you're fundamentally wrong about Apple having one. Apple isn't a monopoly, anywhere across any of it's businesses. So ... you're wrong. But feel free to keep sticking your neck out :)

[Mydian01]

07:40 PM on 04/12/2010

i disagree with you. im not even going to argue why, just that i disagree.

[crayola 08b]

01:33 PM on 04/12/2010

like you i'm sitting at my desk typing on my macbook pro with my ipone next to it. however, i disagree with your assessment.

what we see with microsoft and apple are two vastly different ideologies of personal computing.
the thing many people never seem to realize is if the Mac OS wasn't strictly controlled it would basically just be Windows. the reason the Mac OS experience is much more hassle free has always been that Apple controls the software AND hardware. microsoft's has to try to make windows work with an almost unlimited number of computer configurations.

when you control the software and hardware then the user experience is much more seamless by default. at the same time however you have to be a bit tyrannical in order to keep everything under your control.

before i switched to the mac 11 years ago i always built my own pc's, part by part. if i decided i wanted a faster motherboard, cpu or graphic card i'd just go to the local computer store and get the best of what i could afford and put it in. i loved tinkering with my system. funny thing is when i switched to apple i didn't miss that at all.

as a creative professional i prefer using apple products because they don't get in the way of my job. so the choice between windows or mac os just depends on what kind of user you are and what you want from your computer.

[O R Senthil Kumaran]

11:52 AM on 04/12/2010

Nice comparision.. But I think that there is a misleading aspect to this one. At any point, you will M$ and IE to be prominent OS and Browsers. Others are catching up.. Apple is taking itself an entertainment company. M$ did achieve what it set itself to, a computer on every desk. Also Bill is concentrating on his foundation work and he has left M$ as a satisfied person long ago. No need of pulling him again.

[SwingingFromCenter]

11:34 AM on 04/12/2010

This is an old interview, and it's held the test of time. Is that why it's news? Because it proved to be prophetic?

The only thing Steve has "won" at is creating a cult of zombies who will buy whatever he tells them to, whether they need it or not, and whether it fills a need or not. Apple still doesn't have a respectable market share in the OS/PC market, it's losing dominance to the Android platform in the mobile market, the iPad sales numbers were lackluster (and the newness is already wearing off of it, and thus people are starting to realize it doesn't actually do anything). Sure they've still got the iPod market, but that's the result of clever marketing, not a superior product.

[skyslimit]

12:26 PM on 04/12/2010

disagree

[skyslimit]

12:26 PM on 04/12/2010

zombie want braiiiiins!

[freethinking moderate]

10:09 AM on 04/12/2010

Apple isn't even competing with Microsoft any longer. Apple has its sights on a bigger prize - becoming THE entertainment technology provider.

[timm0]

10:02 AM on 04/12/2010

The irony is that microsoft has been caught by apple simply by using the playbook microsoft used.

Capitalism is fun.

When you can find it.