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sigamy

macrumors 65816
Mar 7, 2003
1,392
181
NJ USA
I like Bill Gates (and Steve Jobs too). I think Bill is a class act, humble respectable and genuine. That was a nice interview.

I think Bill has gained these traits in this post-MS second act. He was a ruthless business man in the 1980s and 90s. I now have respect for Gates that I did not have while he was running MS.
 

macman34

macrumors regular
Apr 13, 2013
174
0
I agree. Jobs and Gates were and are amazing people. And I never ever thought of Apple and MS as real competitors. More like two different companies that just happen to be doing similar things in the same IT industry.

Both Jobs and Gates are very flawed people. But they rose above their flaws to change the world. And I believe their legacies will live for many many centuries to come. The only other person in IT I can see being remembered for centuries is Johnny Ive.

And Ballmer? He's a sorry sorry case indeed. Sure Apple has Schiller. But Ballmer is way more extreme. And defo not in a good way. If you had to look at the 2 CEO's now. I think Cook is much better placed to take Apple forward then Ballmer is placed to take MS forward.

Excellent comparison you did there with Ballmer and Schiller. Both arch tools and clowns imo. But while Balmer is almost universally ridiculed as a baboon and a moron, Schiller is getting away with it, and he is imho more so than Balmer.

What people do in public and how they feel in private are sometimes two vastly different things. We don't know of the possible charitable donations made by Steve Jobs, just as we don't know the motivations for Bill Gates charitable work. In fact, what are his motivations in this interview regarding Steve Jobs?

Is this a chance to re-write history now that "the other guy" has passed? Is he attempting to siphon off for himself some of the good will people of the world feel for Steve Jobs? We just can't know for sure.

Many have been suspicious of the Gates Foundation and its partners focusing their "charitable work" outside of the US. Some feel this is a preemptive strike to enter the third world market and canonize themselves so that when a billion people finally get the purchasing power, they will choose "their savior" Windows. Even if it takes 20 years, the cost of this investment masquerading as charity is peanuts compared to the reward of dominating that enormous future market.

It's diabolical, yes, but that's Bill Gates for you :)

There was an article in the ny times, way back when (I can't find the link) exposing an elaborate "fraud" (so to speak) based on the foundation, if someone has that link I 'd be great to read it again cause I can't remember the details.
 

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
I think Bill has gained these traits in this post-MS second act. He was a ruthless business man in the 1980s and 90s. I now have respect for Gates that I did not have while he was running MS.

The only reason Gates is now "respected" by some users here is because he decided, after having broken antitrust and IPR laws for years, to try to atone for some of his and his company's gigantic criminal acts against would-be competitors and innovators. Otherwise, there would be absolutely no reason to put him on the same level as SJ.

A very smart move, indeed.
 

Nunyabinez

macrumors 68000
Apr 27, 2010
1,758
2,230
Provo, UT
.
It speaks volumes that in his last days, Steve was still mainly concerned with his expensive boat. Meanwhile, Bill Gates wants to give most of what he made to better humanity.

Two very different personalities for sure.

:apple:

Most of what he made? I think you had better look more carefully at how much Bill's net worth is and how much the Foundation is spending. If you compare it ratio wise, it's the equivalent of you dropping the change in your pocket into a homeless guy's coffee cup.

Granted, in actual dollars it is substantial and I applaud that they are doing something with their money (as opposed to most billionaires), but trust me, he is not feeling the loss and probably is making more on interest than he is spending on philanthropy.
 

Shrink

macrumors G3
Feb 26, 2011
8,929
1,727
New England, USA
The only reason Gates is now "respected" by some users here is because he decided, after having broken antitrust and IPR laws for years, to try to atone for some of his and his company's gigantic criminal acts against would-be competitors and innovators. Otherwise, there would be absolutely no reason to put him on the same level as SJ.

...who was pure as the driven snow...
 

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
...who was pure as the driven snow...

No one has said that - but SJ's contributions to the IT/media world are far more substantial than Gates's ever were. We are talking here about reinventing at least FIVE different industries.

Disregard Bill's recent philanthropy and you'll see that virtually nothing remains apart from stolen/bought code. This is what I am talking about.
 

macman34

macrumors regular
Apr 13, 2013
174
0
Take your blinders off and look at what Apple does... LOL. EXACTLY THE SAME CRAP on even a bigger scale...

and criticizing what he is doing in Africa is unfortunate. No one by him knows his motivations and even if he is doing it for tax purposes, your point is???? How much did Mr. Jobs do?

The op never said apple wasn't responsible for much of the same crap, especially recently. But two wrongs don't make a right.
 

Komentra

macrumors member
Jan 27, 2011
77
0
I always wondered why Steve didn't do more philanthropy. In the interview he even mentions how it's good that Bill realizes it's better to be giving than to be the richest person in the cemetery.

And Steve always talked about changing the world too albeit through technology he could of helped using his funds. I just don't get it.

But then again anyone who says they truly understood Steve Jobs would be lying.

None the less. I love Steve and I love Bill and thank them both for all the great thing's they've brought us and in Bill's case continue to bring to the world.
 

Shrink

macrumors G3
Feb 26, 2011
8,929
1,727
New England, USA
OK...for the record (as if anybody cared).

I don't give a ***t about Steve Jobs

I don't give a ***t about Bill Gates.

I think this whole cult of personality thing is nonsense.

This business of He-Who-Shall-Be-Revered-In-Life-And-Death gives me a big pain where I sit.

And this post is...
....a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury... signifying nothing.
 

komodrone

macrumors 6502
Apr 26, 2011
499
0
So we're watching the girl interview the guy that interviewed bill when bill interviewed his secretary about the secretary interviewing steve on why he couldn't come.
 

sigamy

macrumors 65816
Mar 7, 2003
1,392
181
NJ USA
No one has said that - but SJ's contributions to the IT/media world are far more substantial than Gates's ever were. We are talking here about reinventing at least FIVE different industries.

Disregard Bill's recent philanthropy and you'll see that virtually nothing remains apart from stolen/bought code. This is what I am talking about.

While I agree that much of Gates's wealth and power came from smart/ruthless business decisions and not engineering perfection, you simply can not underestimate the contributions of those decisions and of Microsoft on the early PC era and especially on enterprise IT.

The singular focus on creating a standard for software (even if the code for DOS was stolen or obtained cheaply) was Gates's vision. This and the decision to obtain all rights to his OS...these were as powerful, if not more, than the iPod and iPhone.

Now, did they do it fairly and legally? In some cases no. But we have plenty of examples of Apple doing similar things (Sherlock, Dashboard, retail stores).

I'm no MS fan...but I live with their stuff every day in corporate IT. Yes, it's buggy, poorly designed and "borrows" heavily from others. But, MS's focus on creating a standard and then ensuring backward compatibility for decades where very important to businesses everywhere and cannot be understated.
 

VulchR

macrumors 68040
Jun 8, 2009
3,377
14,249
Scotland
...
MS didn't make Office for Mac as a favor to anyone but themselves, it was a good business decision and they are in the business to make money. I'm sorry, but rhetorically I have to question your age level in terms of youth because you're looking at this from a personal level and not a professional one. And BTW, Office was on Mac long before it was on Windows so Microsoft stood a lot to lose financially by discontinuing Office for Mac. It's enough that many of the Windows licenses are bootlegged so it's not like Office is brining in unheard of revenues where MS could easily afford to drop Mac Office.

If you had bothered to read my signature, you would have realized that I am rather old*. :rolleyes: My point is that back in the day when the Mac was struggling, MS could have eliminated it as a competing platform for business by simply withdrawing MS Office from the Mac. Sure, they would have lost money in the short run, but in the long run they would have had a larger market share for Windows and would have recouped profits from selling more copies of Office & Windows. I have a feeling that MS did not pull the plug because Gates appreciated what Jobs had done at Apple.

*Old enough to have word-processed on a Lisa....
 

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
If you had bothered to read my signature, you would have realized that I am rather old. :rolleyes: My point is that back in the day when the Mac was struggling, MS could have eliminated it as a competing platform for business by simply withdrawing MS Office from the Mac. Sure, they would have lost money in the short run, but in the long run they would have had a larger market share for Windows and would have recouped profits from selling more copies of Office & Windows. I have a feeling that MS did not pull the plug because Gates appreciated what Jobs had done at Apple.

I do not know if it was appreciation or simply out of "charity" for a company that everyone and their dog proclaimed dead in the mid-90s... ;)
 

paul3000

macrumors member
Sep 4, 2011
34
2
Each time I see Steve speaking/presenting, I understand just what a presence he was at Apple, and for the brand in general.

Steve and Bill were there from the beginning, and I'm glad they got a chance at D to speak together.

For those here that have never read "Fire In The Valley," I would urge you to get to Amazon and get a copy. That was the first book I read on the PC revolution, what a great book that was.

Apple will always be a bite short of pristine now that Steve is gone.

Bryan

When I searched for "Fire in the Valley" I came across "Fire in the Valley FEMALE GENITAL MASSAGE" on VHS and figured that was a better investment.
 

HenryDJP

Suspended
Nov 25, 2012
5,084
843
United States
If you had bothered to read my signature, you would have realized that I am rather old*. :rolleyes: My point is that back in the day when the Mac was struggling, MS could have eliminated it as a competing platform for business by simply withdrawing MS Office from the Mac. Sure, they would have lost money in the short run, but in the long run they would have had a larger market share for Windows and would have recouped profits from selling more copies of Office & Windows. I have a feeling that MS did not pull the plug because Gates appreciated what Jobs had done at Apple.

*Old enough to have word-processed on a Lisa....

You're extremely short-sighted in your way of thinking. Just think for a quick second, the Mac's claim to fame has never been that it was developed to be used an stuffy office machine like the Windows PC was so MS Office certainly wasn't something it needed wholeheartedly. The arts have always been the Mac's claim to fame and it still is today. The entire recording industry that creates the music that you listen to today is all remastered using the Mac OS and Windows just has never been part of that equation in the computing world. I won't even bother getting into the graphic design world and the rest of the arts that use Macs extensively today. If you think for one minute that the lack of Office would've killed off the Mac then you certainly don't sound like a person that has had much Mac experience as you say. And BTW, I don't waste time reading people's signatures here. It's generally used for nothing more than a bragging station for products people own and I couldn't care less.. :rolleyes:

----------

I have a feeling that MS did not pull the plug because Gates appreciated what Jobs had done at Apple.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. ;)

----------

Hmmm you should see this thread right here on Macrumors:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1400095/

Many have XP as the top or in the top 10.

Once SP2 was released, XP security was good because Microsoft made some under-the-hood changes to the kernel.

Hmmm, yeah I guess the forum members know better than Microsoft themselves, especially since Microsoft announced in 2010 they were discontinuing security updates for XP and recommended people to update to Windows 7. :rolleyes: It was also on the news multiple times when Microsoft made that announcement. They said they could not continue re-patching XP and they insists that people upgrade or buy a Windows 7 PC to get a more secure system.
http://content.usatoday.com/communi...updates-for-windows-xp-sp2-pcs/1#.UZE_jZXw6S0
 

Renzatic

Suspended
You're extremely short-sighted in your way of thinking.

Coming from you, this is the most hilarious thing I've ever read on this board. You always criticize the competition, do nothing but praise Apple, and put more spin on a topic than a tilt-a-whirl.

I won't even bother getting into the graphic design world and the rest of the arts that use Macs extensively today.

...which is more heavily Windows and Linux based these days, since most of the programs used for such tend to run a bit better in Windows (the Adobe suite), has access to more widely used programs (3DSMax), has far better GPGPU support for high end work, and Apple has let their pro machine languish by the wayside while they chase the consumer market.

Music creation? Yeah. That's still Apple's market. But they've either lost, or don't an advantage worth considering when it comes to making games, movies, TV shows, and art anymore. Not like they used to back in the late 80's, early 90's.
 
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HenryDJP

Suspended
Nov 25, 2012
5,084
843
United States
.
It speaks volumes that in his last days, Steve was still mainly concerned with his expensive boat. Meanwhile, Bill Gates wants to give most of what he made to better humanity.

Two very different personalities for sure.

:apple:

You're giving BG way too much credit. Some of you guys here only see as far as your two eyes take you, sad.
 

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
I know this being MR and all we have to mention Steve but...

I was more impressed by the 60M piece of Gates creating these solutions, like the toilet, and the thermo, to solve real world problems.

For all Steve's Genius, am not sure he cared about the outside world that much.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
You're giving BG way too much credit. Some of you guys here only see as far as your two eyes take you, sad.

And your Steve Jobs The Saint, Bill Gates The Devil opinion pieces aren't as equally short sighted.

When it comes to business both were geniuses in their chosen fields, and conniving, thieving bastards every chance they got.

Steve Jobs stole ideas just as happily as Gates did, loved taking credit for the work of others, never said a nice thing about anyone outside of Apple while inflating the worth of their own contributions, and had enough charisma and stage presence to end up making you believe everything he said after all was said and done.

Bill Gates was a cutthroat businessman who screwed over his partners every chance they got, hamstrung the competition through underhanded means, rigged an entire industry to work in his favor, and was generally a bastard to everyone outside of Microsoft.

Bill Gates forced the world work for him. Steve Jobs made the world think he invented white on rice while telling us we're all special snowflakes for using his products. As businessmen, both were both visionaries...and complete ***holes.
 

Gizmotoy

macrumors 65816
Nov 6, 2003
1,108
164
You're giving BG way too much credit. Some of you guys here only see as far as your two eyes take you, sad.

There's little room to argue that Bill has been anything less than incredibly charitable since leaving MS. He had been roundly criticized for his extremely low level of charitable giving during his tenure there, as well as his ruthless business acumen, and completely turned that around.

If you believe in second chances, especially as it pertains to wealth and charity, it's hard to think of someone who more accurately fits the description that Gates.
 
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