Idealize Bill Gates, not Steve Jobs

CrazyKooK

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In the weeks following Steve Jobs death it was pleasant at first to recognize some great design and business practices of a visionary man. But it seems a lot of the world was not just appreciating a successful visionary but idealizing a man. I just recently read an article about the differences between two very powerful men. The story from Bloomberg is below:

Apple is undoubtedly the gold standard of today’s tech world. In fact, it’s probably the gold standard of American industry at the moment. Its innovative design, user interface, and ecosystem make it a titan in any category it enters. And it’s clear that Steve Jobs was the reason Apple rose to its current heights from the brink of bankruptcy. In the wake of his death, HBR espoused his greatness — something I’ve done as well. And he was great. Steve Jobs has likely been our generation’s most important leader in the world of business. But Steve Jobs is not the most important leader from the world of business. While Jobs should be who MBAs and industrial designers try to emulate, I’m not sure he’s who we should idolize. That respect should be bestowed on someone we talk less and less about, Bill Gates.

Both Jobs and Gates had immeasurable impacts on the world. Apple ushered in the era of personal computing in many respects. Microsoft’s platform made it possible for a generation of computer scientists to learn and flourish. Apple seems to have perfected the art of delivering fantastic consumer products. Microsoft has worked diligently to make the enterprise more and more efficient. Regardless of which camp you fall in today, it’s impossible to deny each corporation’s contribution. Jobs and Gates each deeply respected each other’s contributions.

But at the end of his life, Steve Jobs worried about Apple, Inc. Walter Isaacson quoted the wizard of Cupertino saying, “Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands. But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed. I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.†At the end of his life, Jobs saw his legacy as Apple.

Bill Gates stepped away from Microsoft in 2006 and, despite the company’s growing troubles in the face of the mobile disruption, has devoted his genius to solving the world’s biggest problems, despite the fact that solving those problems doesn’t create profit or fame.* Gates committed his talents to eliminating diseases, increasing development standards, and generally fighting inequality.

Since 1994, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation amassed an endowment of over $31 billion in funds to fight the world’s most difficult issues. But it hasn’t merely accumulated funds, the foundation has already given away over $25 billion. Those aren’t trivial numbers. In seventeen years, the foundation has raised and given away more than one-tenth of Apple’s extraordinary market capitalization. While the developed world takes things like clean water, basic healthcare, and the availability of food for granted — there are billions of human beings that don’t have such fundamental resources.

Gandhi famously said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.†I don’t doubt that, in recent years, both Gates and Jobs did just that. Jobs made the world more beautiful and the billion of us with resources loved him for it. Gates is making the world ideal, and the billions of us with no voice will be forever impacted.

Yesterday, I read a note Gates wrote to members of the Harvard community. It speaks for itself:

I hope you will reflect on what you’ve done with your talent and energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you work to address the world’s deepest inequities, on how well you treat people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Those are not the words of a leader of business. Those are the words of a leader of people. Those are the words of an idol.

As much as I love Apple, Inc, I would happily give up my iPhone to put food on the plates of starving children. Steve Jobs turned his company into a decade long leader in the truly new space of mobile computing. Bill Gates decided to eliminate malaria. Who do you think we should be putting up on a pedestal for our children to emulate?
 

Emperor Pan I

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Apple is a fashion company, that knows how to market it's subpar products to mainstream audiences. Microsoft offers the best mainstream products, amazing developer tools and a high quality platforms for tech development and growth. It does so by squashing out smaller companies, and strongarming it's way into every area it can.

Steve jobs was a dickhead, even his biography confirms this. Bill Gates bought QDOS from someone else and retooled it as MSDOS, launching an entire platform on someone else's work.

Dennis ritchie died a week after Steve jobs. He died alone, not a millionaire, and no news coverage and press. In 1972 he designed and wrote the C programming language. C was designed as a multifunctional and multiplatform programming language to write the Unix operating system. In essences, every computer, or computer like device is a direct results of the contributions Dennis Ritchie made to the world of computing. Windows and Linux were written in C. OSX, and all the modible apple products were written in a C derivative. All modern programming languages were either written in, or derived from the functionality of C. Linux would not exist without the Unix OS paradigm and now Linux is the most robust OS in existence, and helps run Google, Amazon, the U.S. Department of defence, and thousands of other websites. If you want to idealize someone, pick the right person. The real architect of the tech world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...c-dies-at-70/2011/10/13/gIQAXsVXiL_story.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
RIP sir
 

ST

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I completely agree with both of these posts. Bill Gates has been my idol since I was a young child; not Steve Jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone and am currently texting on it, but I've just always liked Gates more.
 

Octopor

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i almost didn't read it because you said idealize instead of idolize and it made me angry
 

CrazyKooK

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Apple is a fashion company, that knows how to market it's subpar products to mainstream audiences. Microsoft offers the best mainstream products, amazing developer tools and a high quality platforms for tech development and growth. It does so by squashing out smaller companies, and strongarming it's way into every area it can.

Steve jobs was a dickhead, even his biography confirms this. Bill Gates bought QDOS from someone else and retooled it as MSDOS, launching an entire platform on someone else's work.

Dennis ritchie died a week after Steve jobs. He died alone, not a millionaire, and no news coverage and press. In 1972 he designed and wrote the C programming language. C was designed as a multifunctional and multiplatform programming language to write the Unix operating system. In essences, every computer, or computer like device is a direct results of the contributions Dennis Ritchie made to the world of computing. Windows and Linux were written in C. OSX, and all the modible apple products were written in a C derivative. All modern programming languages were either written in, or derived from the functionality of C. Linux would not exist without the Unix OS paradigm and now Linux is the most robust OS in existence, and helps run Google, Amazon, the U.S. Department of defence, and thousands of other websites. If you want to idealize someone, pick the right person. The real architect of the tech world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...c-dies-at-70/2011/10/13/gIQAXsVXiL_story.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
RIP sir

well said. There are a lot of people you could say are more selfless but comparing two mean of similar characteristics was the thought. Thanks for making me aware of Dennis Ritchie. I'm not a computer programmer but I really hope to be able to revolutionize an industry in my lifetime.


Octopor: ... oops
 

RoaCh of DisCord

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I'm mixed.

Bill Gates has done a lot of Philanthropy.. which is great.. but I question how much of it is out of genuine care rather than PR. That said, in the end it doesn't matter -- his foundation has given millions of dollars to much needed causes, and regardless of anything speculative.. it's been nothing but a benefit to the world. Jobs on the other hand, from what I've heard.. didn't do a whole lot that we know of. However, he could have also donated without making it public (not everyone needs the recognition)..so we may never honestly know for sure. There's no proof of it..but I'm just sayin. Personally, I don't believe anyone is obligated to give to charity anyway...so for me it isn't a huge issue. It's a nice thing to do..and great.. but you earn what you earn and you decide how you spend it.

As for Apple vs Microsoft.. Microsoft in my view is the Walmart of the computing industry. They're a giant organization and incredibly powerful..yet instead of using this power to better their products and work with other companies / they try to forcefully annihilate everyone else *in Microsoft's case it's through legal action* (see the hundreds of petty lawsuits they've filed against possible competitors.. even tiny ones like linux..which doesn't even share 2% of the desktop user market).

Anyway..I think I just rambled (drinking wine)..but as far as I see it..both have strengths and weaknesses. I prefer apple.. and honestly, I've just never been a fan of gates. As for as idolizing goes, though, I idolize no one.
 

CrazyKooK

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I'm mixed.

Bill Gates has done a lot of Philanthropy.. which is great.. but I question how much of it is out of genuine care rather than PR. That said, in the end it doesn't matter -- his foundation has given millions of dollars to much needed causes, and regardless of anything speculative.. it's been nothing but a benefit to the world. Jobs on the other hand, from what I've heard.. didn't do a whole lot that we know of. However, he could have also donated without making it public (not everyone needs the recognition)..so we may never honestly know for sure. There's no proof of it..but I'm just sayin. Personally, I don't believe anyone is obligated to give to charity anyway...so for me it isn't a huge issue. It's a nice thing to do..and great.. but you earn what you earn and you decide how you spend it.

As for Apple vs Microsoft.. Microsoft in my view is the Walmart of the computing industry. They're a giant organization and incredibly powerful..yet instead of using this power to better their products and work with other companies / they try to forcefully annihilate everyone else *in Microsoft's case it's through legal action* (see the hundreds of petty lawsuits they've filed against possible competitors.. even tiny ones like linux..which doesn't even share 2% of the desktop user market).

Anyway..I think I just rambled (drinking wine)..but as far as I see it..both have strengths and weaknesses. I prefer apple.. and honestly, I've just never been a fan of gates. As for as idolizing goes, though, I idolize no one.

You make some good points.

I don't think Bill Gates philanthropy has anything to do with PR (or at least it is a second thought). This is because the families high involvement on it rather than a third party, and even more so the fact that Billions of dollars have been donated (not millions), the Return on Investment for PR would not make sense at that level. Also, the foundation would focus on Microsoft, not Bill Gates, and Microsoft would attempt to bring more awareness to their contributions.

I do always think it is ironic that highly successful businessmen will be ruthless and put out inept products to save costs but then be philanthropic to others. I think it is a separation from the idea that customer service and high product quality doesn't bring the sense of individual good will that donating that squandered money does
 

Emperor Pan I

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Dude, every tech company on the planet has at least one or two lawsuits going on against at least one or two other companies. That isn't Microsoft, that's everyone. Hell, Bethesda is suing a company for a game called "scrolls" because it is to much like "the elder scrolls". It is outrageous.
 

CrazyKooK

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A company like Microsoft is actually required to make those lawsuits for its own survival. Microsoft is formed almost 100% on intellectual property (meaning, no physical product). If they didn't file a billion patents (which I find sometimes excessive, preventing entry of any competitors) and didn't sue in the case of infringement, they would lose the basis in which their product competes.

I do acknowledge that a lot of suits can be Bull****, I heard about the Scrolls thing before and think it is ridiculous. But there is another case where Team Fortress 2 was almost copied exactly (I mean artistic style, gameplay, EVERYTHING)... the game looked almost identical, but they got away with it because they are based in China. Yes, it is a tangent, just wanted to point it out
 

CrazyKooK

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A company like Microsoft is actually required to make those lawsuits for its own survival. Microsoft is formed almost 100% on intellectual property (meaning, no physical product). If they didn't file a billion patents (which I find sometimes excessive, preventing entry of any competitors) and didn't sue in the case of infringement, they would lose the basis in which their product competes.

I do acknowledge that a lot of suits can be Bull****, I heard about the Scrolls thing before and think it is ridiculous. But there is another case where Team Fortress 2 was almost copied exactly (I mean artistic style, gameplay, EVERYTHING)... the game looked almost identical, but they got away with it because they are based in China. Yes, it is a tangent, just wanted to point it out
 

ST

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I'm mixed.

Bill Gates has done a lot of Philanthropy.. which is great.. but I question how much of it is out of genuine care rather than PR. That said, in the end it doesn't matter -- his foundation has given millions of dollars to much needed causes, and regardless of anything speculative.. it's been nothing but a benefit to the world. Jobs on the other hand, from what I've heard.. didn't do a whole lot that we know of. However, he could have also donated without making it public (not everyone needs the recognition)..so we may never honestly know for sure. There's no proof of it..but I'm just sayin. Personally, I don't believe anyone is obligated to give to charity anyway...so for me it isn't a huge issue. It's a nice thing to do..and great.. but you earn what you earn and you decide how you spend it.

As for Apple vs Microsoft.. Microsoft in my view is the Walmart of the computing industry. They're a giant organization and incredibly powerful..yet instead of using this power to better their products and work with other companies / they try to forcefully annihilate everyone else *in Microsoft's case it's through legal action* (see the hundreds of petty lawsuits they've filed against possible competitors.. even tiny ones like linux..which doesn't even share 2% of the desktop user market).

Anyway..I think I just rambled (drinking wine)..but as far as I see it..both have strengths and weaknesses. I prefer apple.. and honestly, I've just never been a fan of gates. As for as idolizing goes, though, I idolize no one.
I agree too. I wish Microsoft would put more effort into making a good, user-friendly product (which they have, but not to Apple's level yet). Apple's products are so user friendly that they often lack customization (case in point, my iPhone). At least Microsoft isn't at vB's ridiculous level of non-user friendly administration.
You make some good points.

I don't think Bill Gates philanthropy has anything to do with PR (or at least it is a second thought). This is because the families high involvement on it rather than a third party, and even more so the fact that Billions of dollars have been donated (not millions), the Return on Investment for PR would not make sense at that level. Also, the foundation would focus on Microsoft, not Bill Gates, and Microsoft would attempt to bring more awareness to their contributions.

I do always think it is ironic that highly successful businessmen will be ruthless and put out inept products to save costs but then be philanthropic to others. I think it is a separation from the idea that customer service and high product quality doesn't bring the sense of individual good will that donating that squandered money does
Yeah I do think that they would try and draw more attention to MS rather than Gates, however, the two names are pretty much synonymous.
 

RoaCh of DisCord

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Dude, every tech company on the planet has at least one or two lawsuits going on against at least one or two other companies. That isn't Microsoft, that's everyone. Hell, Bethesda is suing a company for a game called "scrolls" because it is to much like "the elder scrolls". It is outrageous.
Lol, one or two.
 
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