Steve Jobs’ official biography, authored by Walter Isaacson, had some tough words for Bill Gates. Steve Jobs said Bill Gates was “unimaginative and has never invented anything" also he continued saying "[gates] just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas."
Last Sunday ABC channel interviewed Bill Gates and the host of the interview asked Gates to respond to Steve’s criticism. Bill Gates was very humble and simply brushed off the comments. He went on praising Steve for the tremendous work he has done to change the digital landscape and side-lined the harsh criticism. It was great to see Bill Gates being so cool in handling such comments from Steve Jobs and not retaliating.
Here is the full text of Bill Gates response
When you think about why is the world better today, the Internet, the personal computer, the phone, the way you can deal with information is just so phenomenal. Over the course of 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. 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.
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.
And so the fact that at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable.
Embedded below the video of Gates Interview