

Larry King asks Bill Gates: Are you jealous of Apple's success? - cwan
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/06/larry_king_asks_bill_gates_are_you_jealous_of_apples_success.html

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fr0man
I think Gates is a little more concerned with eradicating disease and hunger
in third world countries at this point in his life. I'm sure he would prefer
M$ weren't so far behind in the mobile phone and tablet computing arenas, but
I just can't see it bothering him too much at this point in his life.

~~~
rbanffy
I think he is more concerned with being remembered as the one who eradicated
disease and hunger instead as the ruthless monopoly abuser heading Microsoft
into a DoJ investigation, mercilessly driving his competition out of business
by whatever means necessary.

But that's just my impression.

And may I remind you that, in order to be remembered for eradicating disease
and hunger, he has, actually, to do so.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Andrew Carnegie was regarded as a ruthless businessman by his contemporaries,
competitors, and employees. However, he is also almost solely responsible for
the free public libraries which have contributed so much to American education
(and which, sadly, are now falling into neglect everywhere).

Sometimes you have to regard a person as, y'know, a person -- someone who can
do both good things and bad things, things you're grateful for and things you
disagree with.

~~~
rbanffy
I'll be happy if he eradicates disease and hunger, don't get me wrong. I just
don't think _this_ is his priority.

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philwelch
You know, asking one of the top three richest men in the world whether he's
jealous of someone else's business success is a really weird question.

~~~
dinde
Why do you think that? Jealousy is a human emotion and has no limits, and no
level of success or achievement is a guarantee to be free of desire for more.

~~~
philwelch
You're right, of course, but that's pretty weird to me too.

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rbanffy
There is at least one slight factual error in his answer. He did not write the
first BASIC interpreter for the Apple II. That would be Wozniak's Integer
BASIC. What Microsoft (not sure if Gates) did was the AppleSoft BASIC, that
came with the Apple II+.

Distorting facts to make himself look better is the kind of thing I expect
from Gates. After all these billions, he still has something to prove.

~~~
10ren
He said, "I wrote _a_ BASIC for the very first Apple II computer".

~~~
rbanffy
He (or someone in his company) wrote a BASIC for the _second_ Apple II
computer. The original II could be made to run it through a language card.

~~~
10ren
Hmmm, you seem to be right:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Apple_II_Plus>

I guess there's not much difference between the Apple II and the Apple II
Plus, except that it's not the "very first Apple II". And also, the emphasis
on "very first" is a slightly odd way to talk about the "II" of anything. So
maybe you're right that Bill still has something to prove (or, likes to put
himself in the best possible light, a business/marketing quality?), it's just
that you also misquoted him slightly inaccurately... in support of your own
point... ;-)

I remember reading that Wozniak didn't write a floating-point BASIC, though
it's not clear why; and it's not clear who exactly at Microsoft wrote it.
Undoubtedly, it wouldn't be done totally by one person in isolation, both Bill
and Paul would have had a hand in it. It's odd: because it was the first
floating-point BASIC for apple, I tend to think it was the first floating-
point BASIC for microsoft, as if they were in competition. But they'd written
several basics before then (and I'm sure some of them were floating-point). So
much of that code and wisdom would be reused; hard for Wozniak to compete with
that!

~~~
KC8ZKF
According to Woz, Jobs was concerned about the progress he was making on FP
BASIC:

"Steve Jobs got concerned that I wasn't making enough progress. He even
accused me of slacking and coming in at 10 AM in one staff meeting, but I
pointed out that I'd been laying out our floppy PC Card [...] and that I'd
been leaving at 4 AM every morning, long after even the Houston brothers, Dick
and Cliff, had left. "

<http://www.woz.org/letters/general/03.html>

~~~
rbanffy
In the end, it was a Very Bad Decision, as it gave Microsoft a critical
leverage during the early Mac days when the Apple II was still _the_ revenue
driver at Apple.

[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBasic.txt)

~~~
10ren
Wait! According to that it was on the very first Apple II (as Bill said)!

> [The Apple II] also came with Microsoft's Basic interpreter, dubbed
> "Applesoft Basic", on cassette tape.

BTW: Sculley seems villainous in that, too. Then again, what about that story
Woz tells, of Jobs lying to him about how much he'd get for their project, so
that Woz's "half" was less.

You know, I tend to see business as a partly adversarial/competitive game.
That's not something I cope with well personally, but that's how I see it.
From that perspective, Bill's opportunistic exploitation seems well-done, even
talented.

Personal story: in one deal I negotiated, with a very cool and impressive
biotech company that I admired greatly, was with their lawyers. I was warned
about them by other members of the company, but I have a law degree myself, so
I thought ha ha I'll be fine. But what they did was to smother the contract
with typographical changes, so that in the diff, the genuine changes were
hidden - and they made a substantive change that they didn't tell me about,
and that we hadn't discussed. I was outraged, so I cut off the negotiations. I
felt seriously unsettled that I was destroying the value that the transaction
would have created, but my key realization was that _in dealing with people
like that, sooner or later they'd catch me out_.

So I guess I'm not really OK with Bill's approach at all.

I draft my contracts very defensively, but most people aren't like that
company (or like Bill), so it's quite possible I miss out on fruitful
collaboration because of my "safe" approach.

~~~
rbanffy
I believe there is nothing wrong with defensive contracts. Unless one business
partner intents to screw the other, the defensiveness of the contract is moot.
I like to explain, when such defensiveness comes into negotiations, that we
should be prepared to the eventuality of either CEO being murdered and taken
over by a psychopathic double. A good contract is balanced and forces both
parties to play fair, just in case they need such kind of cohersion.

It's also OK to decide you won't deal with Company A because they (or their
lawyers) cannot be trusted or because, for any kind of reason, they don't play
fair. By dealing with them you send the wrong message - that this is
admissible - and enable them to continue on this path hurting other companies
they deal with.

And yes, Jobs doesn't come through as a very nice guy. I am not sure I would
like to work for him.

~~~
10ren
Great explanation, thank you. Now that you say it, it reminds me of how a law
school lecturer explained that often litigation was exactly as you describe:
there wasn't a breakdown of relations, but it was due to a bankruptcy/death,
and insurance companies then litigated it to the hilt (which, rationally, they
should do, so they know exactly what the law is, and can adjust premiums
appropriately to reflect the risk they will bear. But in practice, the
fighting and blaming is pretty unpleasant)

The meat of the case is the story of the previous agreement of the parties, so
you could get an excessively jaded view of business if you assumed that people
kept on turning on each other afterwards. In law school, every agreement ends
in disaster.

