Bill Gates has said many times that he prefers Android over iPhone, and that apparently hasn’t changed. In a recent “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, the Microsoft co-founder revealed that he unsurprisingly hasn’t made the switch to an iPhone nor does he use an iPad, Mac, or Microsoft Surface Duo.
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Apple certainly changed the music industry with the iPod and with the iTunes Music Store, which made it possible for customers to buy individual songs for very low prices. Interestingly, a 2003 email from none other than Bill Gates shows that other industry executives were quite surprised by Apple entering the music market.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation bought 501,044 shares in AAPL during the first quarter of the year, reveals an SEC filing.
The investment will already have been profitable. The exact gain made would depend on when the shares were purchased, as AAPL dropped 15% in the course of the quarter but then gained 25% in value …
During an interview on CNN this morning, Bill Gates touched on his thoughts on Steve Jobs. Gates praised Jobs’ design sensibility and how he was able to save Apple from collapsing.
Update: Bill Gates has told Bloomberg that he was “disappointed” by the ways his views were presented, and he does not back the FBI’s side of this particular case, and that the matter should be decided by the courts.
Apple is locked in a battle with the FBI over whether or not it should create a tool to access data on a locked iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen, but as some have expected, that’s only one of many cases in which Apple is involved. The Wall Street Journal reports this evening that the Department of Justice is seeking data from at least 12 other iPhones in criminal cases.
On a BBC radio show where interviewees are asked to choose eight music tracks with special significance to them, Bill Gates yesterday selected the Beatles song “Two of us” as one of them, saying that it summed up his relationship with Steve Jobs. In the Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs, Gates said the two of them had a varied relationship.
Steve really is a singular person in the history of personal computing in terms of what he built at Apple. For some periods, we were completely allies working together – I wrote software for the original Apple II. Sometimes he would be very tough on you, sometimes he’d be very encouraging. He got really great work out of people.
“In the early years, the intensity had always been about the project, and so then [when] Steve got sick, it was far more mellow in terms of talking about our lives and our kids. Steve was an incredible genius, and I was more of an engineer than he was. But anyway, it was fun. It was more of a friendship that was reflective, although tragically then he couldn’t overcome the cancer and died.
In the wide-ranging interview, Gates also talks about his childhood, girls, cars, holidays, ruthlessness, charity and his wife Melinda.
Via the FT
A new musical called “Nerds” about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is set to hit Broadway and at the same time be the first show of its kind to feature an in-show app experience, onstage holograms, and other new technologies.
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Add a World AIDS Day sticker – or geofilter – to a Snapchat photo today, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $3 to (RED). The LA Times reports that it hopes to raise as much as $3M from the initiative – something that could be achieved if just 1% of Snapchat users joined in.
You can also raise $3 by sharing a themed video clip on Instagram.
If you’re willing to part with a little cash, donating to the cause will buy you entry into one or more of a range of competitions with prizes like a bike ride through Central Park with Bono, a trip to the Games of Thrones set and meeting Snoop, Jimmy Kimmel, George Clooney, Matt Damon and more.
Apple is also joining in, with an iPhone 6s leather case in (what else) red.
Via Engadget
Becoming Steve Jobs, the new biography of Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, will be officially released tomorrow by Crown Business/Penguin Random House, and is currently available as a pre-order from Amazon ($12+) and Apple’s iBookstore ($13). Here are just some of the interesting revelations found inside, including some details regarding Jobs’ evolving attitude towards the media.
Jobs’ return to Apple was almost certainly not a strategic takeover. Despite speculation that Steve Jobs may have strategically orchestrated a takeover of Apple during his sale of NeXT — a view shared by Bill Gates and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio — the book suggests that Jobs was truly uncertain about his continued involvement with the company. Avie Tevanian and Jon Rubinstein, “the two men whom Steve trusted the most at Apple… agree that Steve did not intend to become Apple’s CEO,” and that they didn’t think they were going to be working for him there. Despite Jobs’ love for Apple, the company was in a precarious financial situation, and he had competing demands for his time.
A year later, Jobs told the authors that just as Bob Dylan would “never stand still,” and was “always risking failure” — the mark of a true artist — “[t]his Apple thing is that way for me.” Confronting the risk of failure and the consequences for his reputation, family, and Pixar, Jobs “finally decided, I don’t really care, this is what I want to do. And if I try my best and fail, well, I tried my best.” Jobs adopted the term “iCEO” or “interim CEO,” reflecting his continued uncertainty about the position…
Following the announcement last August that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was out the door as soon as the company could find a new captain to lead the ship, the Board finally announced today that it has found its guy: Satya Nadella.
As part of the changes, founder and former CEO Bill Gates has agreed to step down from the Board and into a new role as ‘technology advisor’. Gates says he will step up his time at the company meeting with various groups and helping with future products at the request of Nadella.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk7pPutimCM&start=70]
Bill Gates stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night to talk about his various charitable endeavours and to promote the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual letter published today. Despite the serious subject matter, Jimmy still managed to squeeze in a few laughs including apologizing for the MacBook and Apple keyboard and mouse that sit on his desk each night before removing them for the rest of the interview.
And then there was this:
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Microsoft’s stock is surging, up 8% in pre-market on the news that Steve Ballmer will be vacating the CEO role within the next year.:
REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 23, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has decided to retire as CEO within the next 12 months, upon the completion of a process to choose his successor. In the meantime, Ballmer will continue as CEO and will lead Microsoft through the next steps of its transformation to a devices and services company that empowers people for the activities they value most.
“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Ballmer said. “We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”
The Board of Directors has appointed a special committee to direct the process. This committee is chaired by John Thompson, the board’s lead independent director, and includes Chairman of the Board Bill Gates, Chairman of the Audit Committee Chuck Noski and Chairman of the Compensation Committee Steve Luczo. The special committee is working with Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., a leading executive recruiting firm, and will consider both external and internal candidates.
“The board is committed to the effective transformation of Microsoft to a successful devices and services company,” Thompson said. “As this work continues, we are focused on selecting a new CEO to work with the company’s senior leadership team to chart the company’s course and execute on it in a highly competitive industry.”
“As a member of the succession planning committee, I’ll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO,” said Gates. “We’re fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties.”
Microsoft’s stock has been flat since Ballmer took over the CEO roll from Bill Gates at the turn of the century. Ballmer has faced increasing criticism lately over the failure of the Surface RT and Windows Phones in a market dominated by Apple’s iOS devices and Android/Google devices. Perhaps his biggest gaffe was laughing off the importance of the iPhone (below).
Not gonna lie. I'm gonna miss Ballmer. Horrible tech visionary/leader but amazing entertainer
— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) August 23, 2013
Business Insider has gathered together a fun little collection of quotes by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on each other, taken from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs …
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We’ve heard Bill Gates talk about his last, emotional meeting with Steve Jobs before. First in the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs bio and then again in a video interview with ABC, but last night Gates once again discussed the final meeting in an interview with 60 Minutes (above). Gates talks about Steve’s sense of design despite very limited engineering background, his “intuitive sense for marketing that was amazing,” and his emotional last meeting where the two discussed a number of topics including products, family, and the yacht Steve was having a built at the time.
“He showed me the boat he was working on and talked about how he’s looking forward to being on it,” Gates told 60 Minutes, “even though we both knew there was a good chance that wouldn’t happen.”
Frustrated with your iPad’s lack of Office and no physical keyboard? Probably not but that doesn’t stop Bill Gates from believing it.
Serving as the lone hero for Microsoft’s compromise PC-tablet (the Surface Pro even has a fan, you know, like a PC), the Microsoft co-founder cited users’ growing frustration with the software and hardware limitations of the iPad as we move further into the post-PC reality.
The problem with this notion, as we all know, is that no shortage of keyboard cases for the iPad exists and productivity users have long since found a solution for their Office needs.
Microsoft has been rumored to launch Office for iOS for a while now, but it is hard to recall why it matters anymore with so many other solutions available.
Check out the 7:30 mark in the video below:
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The Steve Jobs segment begins at mark 3:35. Flashless version is here.
Microsoft cofounder and former CEO Bill Gates sat for an interesting interview with Yahoo! and ABC News. The public face of Microsoft responded to a wide range of questions, including those touching on his final conversation with Steve Jobs and how his passing affected him. Contrary to the popular belief, the two Silicon Valley luminaries kept in contact with each other throughout their respective careers. What were the topics of their friendly chats?
He and I always enjoyed talking. He would throw some things out, you know, some stimulating things. We’d talk about the other companies that have come along. We talked about our families and how lucky we’d both been in terms of the women we married. It was great relaxed conversation.
How did Jobs’ death affect Gates? Read on…
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtILiyMGl84&start=360]
Gates defends himself slightly but seems smart enough (and secure enough) not to handle the tough words head on.
“Well, Steve and I worked together, creating the Mac. We had more people on it, did the key software for it.”
“So, 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 mean, he faced several times at Apple the fact that their products were so premium priced they literally might not stay in the marketplace. So, the fact that we were succeeding with high-volume products, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies, its tough.”
“At various times, he felt beleaguered. He felt like he was the good guy and we were the bad guys. You know, very understandable. I respect Steve, we got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.”
It is getting harder and harder to hate Bill.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Looking to get a free Audio copy of the Steve Jobs book (or any book for that matter)? If you don’t feel like shelling out the $35 in addition to whatever you paid for the paper/digital version, Audible.com offers a free audio book with a 14-day membership which allows you to pick up the book for free.
The 3x110MB download is DRM free and can be played on any iOS device or in iTunes among others. Audible.com does offer many membership benefits…
Details from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson continue trickling in as big media got an early copy of the book. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times have published excerpts that offer a unique insight into the life of the famously private Silicon Valley luminary. According to a New York Times article from yesterday, after attempting to combat a cancerous tumor on his pancreas with a special vegan diet, Jobs then turned to the latest in modern medicine, which included an experimental gene therapy:
According to Mr. Isaacson, Mr. Jobs was one of 20 people in the world to have all the genes of his cancer tumor and his normal DNA sequenced. The price tag at the time: $100,000. The DNA sequencing that Mr. Jobs ultimately went through was done by a collaboration of teams at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT. The sequencing, Mr. Isaacson writes, allowed doctors to tailor drugs and target them to the defective molecular pathways. A doctor told Mr. Jobs that the pioneering treatments of the kind he was undergoing would soon make most types of cancer a manageable chronic disease. Later, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson that he was either going to be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it.
A 60 Minutes preview with Walter Isaacson also touched on Jobs’ cancer treatment, with the biographer revealing that Apple’s late CEO in hindsight was regretful for going with a special diet rather than chose to operate on it sooner. Another interesting tidbit from the New York Times article: Apple’s co-founder began designing his own luxury yacht back in 2009. This is a surprise since Jobs was many things, but not the kind of guy who would display his wealth:
Before Steve Jobs’ biography drops Monday, many news outlets have already gotten their hands on excerpts from the book. Huffington Post has posted tonight some excerpts from the biography regarding Steve Jobs’ harsh comments on Bill Gates. Steve said:
“He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”
Bill said regarding Steve:
“He really never knew much about technology, but he had an amazing instinct for what works.”
Steve said:
“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”
When it comes to Steve Jobs’ biological father, who we profiled a few months ago, Steve also harshly said..
Fortune Magazine will have an exclusive excerpt of the Walter Isaacson biography Steve Jobs which is due for publication on Monday, the 24th. The excerpt is said to focus on the Frenemy relationship that Jobs had with Microsoft Founder Bill Gates.
The magazine has secured exclusive rights to the sections in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs devoted to Jobs’ relationship to Bill Gates.
The excerpt will hit newstands and the Fortune iPad app on Monday and an ‘excerpt of the excerpt’ will be published online. Most 9to5Mac readers will probably prefer the book which will be released to the public the same day in both hardcover and electronic formats.
Isaacson will also go on 60 Minutes on Sunday promoting the book as well. Steve Jobs is available from Amazon for $17.88 for hardcover, $16.99 for Kindle and $19.79 for CD Audiobook. It is also available online at the iBookstore for $16.99 for iOS devices.
