Steve Jobs Was a Tough Character, Says Bill Gates

Bill Gates: Steve Jobs was a tough character, but he didn’t direct his anger at me too often.

Many adjectives have been used to describe Steve Jobs, the legendary founder of Apple, which is the world’s most valuable company today. Words like hard, perfectionist, clever, and hardworking are often attributed to the man. But Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, has his own description of Jobs. Gates was interviewed by the authors of the new Steve Jobs biography “Becoming Steve Jobs.”

In the book, Gates praised the late Apple chief for his extraordinary showmanship and capability to market tech products. Gates was amazed by Jobs’ pursuit for perfection, particularly, during rehearsals for product launches, adding that Jobs was “really, really tough” on people when things weren’t ready “I was never in his league,” Gates said about Jobs.

Furthermore, Gates said that Jobs would tirelessly rehearse presentations with marketing and PR teams until everything was perfect. The Microsoft founder also recalls how Jobs would pretend he was thinking over what he was saying while on stage. “I mean, his whole thing of knowing exactly what he’s going to say, but up on stage saying it in such a way that he is trying to make you think he’s thinking it up right then,” Gates said.

The book also reveals a time when Jobs alienated software developers that were crucial to the success of the Mac. The authors, Brent Schlender of the Wall Street Journal and Rick Tetzeli of Fast Company, noted that Jobs got cocky about the Mac and ignored a community of software developers. Gates summarized everything saying, “Steve was a tough character.”

Source: VentureBeat