This post is the result of me watching the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley – a not so well known made for TV movie which tracks the rise and fall of Steve Jobs and the rise and rise of Bill Gates with the backdrop of how the computer industry was revolutionized by the duo.
Before I go into more details of this topic, I would like to digress a bit regarding why this genre of two powerful men battling it out excites me. One of my favourite books is the Fourth Estate by Jeffery Archer which is the battle between two competing media barons. The struggle between Karunanidhi and MGR was also nicely captured in Mani Ratnam's Iruvar for the chief minstership in Tamil Nadu. In a way, even the Mahabharata boiled down to a battle of wits between Lord Krishna and Duryodhana's tactics. The seemingly two protagonists ( The grey shades in both the characters makes it difficult to pick an antagonist in cases) who keep pushing their way forward initially unaware of each other's existence hurling towards their shared destiny. The intriguing part when they come face to face and the chess game which is played out later makes for interesting reading/viewing in most cases.
Initial Days - Gates and Jobs
Gates and Jobs dropped out of college in order to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. Gates from Harvard and Jobs from Reeds College. Gates had a friend Paul Allen who had a steady job in Honeywell and completed education. Jobs had Steve Wozniak as friend working for HP. The friendship forged early on took them ahead on the road of entrepreneurship.
Jobs had audited a course in calligraphy and design which he claims later was the inspiration for fonts in graphical user interface, Gates had taken a infamous maths 55 class which he struggled through which made him realize there are far more intelligent people than him in this world. These two being really significant lessons which history would later come to tell.
Sleeping Giants who let the upstarts in – HP,IBM and Xerox
One of the interesting sub plots in the rapid ascent of the duo was the lack of interest shown by the leading industry players towards the personal computer market. As Wozniak was working for HP initially, the company had the first rights to apply for patents to his work but decided against it as they did not see the reason why ordinary folks would need a personal computer.
Similarly when Bill Gates did not sell the DOS operating system but chose to license it to IBM. IBM did not realize the implications of the power Microsoft would gain in the future over the hardware players including IBM.
The pioneer inventor of modern GUI and the mouse, Xerox research scientists could not convince their top management for a chance to commercialize the products, instead the management allowed access to Steve Jobs and his team to understand the system in exchange for shares of Apple Computers.
These costly mistakes which the big corporations let these two entrepreneurs to dig in deeper and create their personal empires.
Management Styles
Jobs was more an arrogant idealist who believed he was an artist and his products needed to change the world around. In contrast, Bill Gates realized the need to be indispensable and to create a need and do a vendor lock in, so that the customer cannot opt out.
Jobs ran his company in a fanatical fashion which tore the company into two, the team working on Macintosh as the chosen ones and rest as nobodies which led to great discomfort. This finally led to Steve Wozniak to quit Apple and own eventual ouster from Apple 3 months after his 30th birthday by John Sculley whom Jobs had bought in from Pepsi Cola.
In contrast, Gates knew how to keep his friends close and enemies even closer. He was always aided by Paul Allen who actually managed to buy the DOS operating system from Seattle Computer Company for a mere $50,000 which shaped Microsoft's destiny and off course current chief executive Steve Ballamer who have always stood by Gates.
Why Jobs lost out to Gates
Jobs was too arrogant and did not see that his arrogance alienated him from those closest to him
Market realities are more important than mere idealism, which Gates realized much more quickly
The enemy is seldom the big Goliath but lurking close by, ironically the way Apple blindsided IBM, HP in the first race, in the second contest Microsoft got the better of Apple.
The lesson of humility that there are more people smarter than him, let Gates be more careful and calculative
Epilogue
Bill Gates is still of the most richest men in the world but Microsoft is struggling with Google in the battle for services in the Internet space. Steve Jobs has made a come back of sorts with the Ipod / Iphone revolution, so I guess there are no permanent losers and winners in business or life.
An apt quote which was used in the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley to end the piece.
"Good artists copy. Great artists steal" by Picasso.
Jobs was a good artist however love him or hate him Gates was the great artist in the operating systems wars.
