
 Getting Involved: Gates vs. Jobs - nickb
http://hivelogic.com/articles/2008/06/regarding-involvement-gates-vs-jobs
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pmjordan
I'd have to agree with the first comment on the post: I don't think the
confusion was real, he was just putting himself in the position of a user.

However, I think there is a difference between Jobs and Gates that this
illustrates: Jobs would do his best not to allow that kind of thing to ship.

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reggplant
This isn't necessarily true, as noted in the Joel's tale:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=228298>

Bill gates was very involved with the code and structure of Microsoft's early
software and this article basing its judgement of the two people on one email
from Gates isn't exactly solid evidence that Gates was necessarily like that
in person.

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goodkarma
The full text of the article quoted Gates saying he sent emails like that all
the time - that was his job.
[http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821...](http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp)

I do think the confusion was real. And it kind of makes sense when you think
about it.

Bill Gates was very involved in Microsoft code, to the point where he used to
review all code, even after Microsoft was no longer a tiny startup. He was a
programmer, after all.

But that kind of thing doesn't scale. Especially when you have thousands of
programmers, dozens of divisions all with "product managers", and many many
products..

He obviously tried to stay in touch with Microsoft products as best as he
could. But his role changed over time in his company - he could no longer be
the chief code writer.

~~~
ibsulon
...and this was the fundamental failing of Microsoft. They were so involved in
finding the next generation of revenue and growing (instead of just putting
out dividends and cautiously expanding out of their core competency) that they
lost focus.

I like their keyboards, though. :)

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wallflower
Jeff Barr, the Amazon Web Services evangelist, mentioned during one of his
talks that Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO, had an intimate hand in the shaping of
the Amazon Web Services APIs.

