

Jobs vs. Gates: Who's the Real Star? - rradu
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/01/70072

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hga
I haven't read the article, but I'll always hold Bill Gates to be a "star" for
his ability to forge a company that was consistently able to produce software
that basically worked (as in didn't seg/protection fault). I've long said that
was a secret of their success, e.g. part of how they beat all of their Office
competitors but WordPerfect during the transition to Windows.

It makes a difference when your CEO is a serious programmer (how many of us
could rewrite an 8080 assembly BASIC interpreter on a long plane ride without
the benefit of a computer?). Far too many companies in the '80s and beyond
(the period I started following) came out with one working product and then
basically lost their ability to write software, often by burning out or
otherwise not retaining their key programmers (Lotus is a classic example).

I'll bet a lot of you young whippersnappers who are using safe languages (e.g.
not C/C++) and one or a very few small teams don't know from harsh experience
how fragile a software based enterprise can be. Fast CPUs that can easily
afford the overhead required for safety and the tremendous leverage of today's
Internet enhanced development environment (that e.g. allows the building of
huge libraries like CPAN) have given you fantastic advantages, which you are
making the most of.

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hga
OK, having read the article it's not even vaguely fair since their paths with
and roles in their respective companies are not at all alike. Jobs is still
rebuilding Apple after his return and his role in the company is a lot more
central than Gates, who it sounds like after a certain point made sure the key
people design people had a clue
(<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html>) but then left a lot
more details to them.

Plus as the author acknowledges Jobs may be making anonymous donations, which
I'll note are by definition less well tracked than the prominently named ones
and that have also been the style of many in the past. E.g. the bulk of the
money necessary to relocate MIT to its "new" campus before and during WWI was
anonymously donated by George Eastman (Kodak). We _might_ be surprised someday
to learn that Jobs has been making significant donations, or perhaps he'll
move into that mode later ... or perhaps he's sufficiently concerned about his
health that he's focusing everything on Apple and his family and if he passes
away he will leave it to his wife to do the philanthropic phase.

