Gates and Jobs, and The Importance Of Cooperation

There is a fundamental truth in politics and business, and that is, you can not achieve results alone. You need to work with useful people to achieve what you want. In business terms, "cooperation" refers to the act of working together towards a common goal or objective, typically in a mutually beneficial way. It involves individuals or organizations collaborating, sharing resources, knowledge, and expertise to achieve a specific outcome.

Most people are generally in competition than in cooperation in the world of business, but this was not the case with one Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. When Jobs was still alive, a good part of the time, Apple and Microsoft were producing products that were in direct competition with one another. As such, the term "frenemies" probably applied to the two men when they were running their respective companies. Microsoft was providing business software for Apple as far back as the earliest days of Apple II.

For many years, the two men had a serious problem, however, since Apple ordered Microsoft a graphical interface for its Lisa (first Mac) after buying the patent for a GUI operated by a mouse from Xerox Microsoft worked on a parallel project and released Windows 1, resulting in a lawsuit from Apple. Well, a legal battle ensued, and Apple lost in court many years later, but there has been a lot of friction between the two companies.

BAILING
In 1997, when Jobs came back to Apple at the company's lowest ebb, Microsoft bailed Apple out and bought Jobs time to rebuild the company. Apple was considered the biggest rival of Microsoft in the market at the time, and with them going down, it would be quite obvious who would rule the market single-handedly and make it even greater. I mean, Microsoft’s business was good, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t get better.

It was more than just the money, though. Gates had also made a commitment that Microsoft would continue to develop Office for the Mac; he worked in coordination with Apple to create applications for the Mac which are today called Microsoft Word and Excel.

Microsoft's public announcement that it would continue to fully support the platform was worth as much to Apple as its financial investment in the company. So, when Apple went on to introduce its new product lines (iMac, iBook, and the blue Power Mac G3), people not only bought them for their stylishness and quality, but also because they were fully supported by the important software vendors, starting with Microsoft; you cannot understate how significant that was in 1997.

Another reason Gates had to invest in Apple was that if Apple went down, it would be a monopoly business, and there was a chance he could be sued. Apple was leading in its patent infringement and intellectual property theft lawsuit against Microsoft, which the $150 million down payment on the settlement ended. When you are so big of a company that you can price gouge, dictate government policy, “pull” or “shutdown”, and cripple critical infrastructure, governments don’t like that at all. Not one bit.

In the past, Microsoft had already been sued for antitrust (monopolization). The Justice Department had a very strong case against Microsoft, and Gates’ lawyers were running out of stalling tactics. They barely escaped by claiming Apple was a competitor, which they barely were at the time. If Apple went down, Microsoft risked being broken up; Office would be a separate business, the operating system cross-licensed to at least 2–3 companies - it would’ve been a mess.

COMPARISON
Without a doubt, both men are extraordinary people who have made immeasurable contributions to advancing technology. When I first heard of Gates, his name was associated with being “the world’s wealthiest man”.

Microsoft's mission was never to make technology with deep empathy for nontechnical users or to help advance humanity. The mission was, unapologetically, world domination, to ensure "a computer on every desk was running Microsoft software." And Microsoft achieved just that by the mid-1990s— it has always been a textbook example of a "market-driven" company. From its founding, Microsoft has copied others wholesale products and made them only marginally good enough to beat competitors and dominate markets.

The late 90s and early 2000s is where I believe it became clear why Steve Jobs was such a hero for everyone who wants technology to serve them— and not the other way around. Jobs rebuilt Apple not by worrying about the corporate market, but by focusing on end consumers, leading to products like iTunes, iPod, iPhoto, GarageBand & iMovie becoming a hit.

Of the two companies, both reflected the core values of their founders, Apple set the bar so much higher than Microsoft. In short, Gates's ultimate goal and measure of success was to make money and dominate industry, whilst Job's was to advance technology for the consumer. Apple is continuously pushing the envelope for the Apple user experience & keeps forcing every other company to improve its products to keep up (e.g., Google, Microsoft, app makers, consumer electronic devices, etc.).

Everyone loves a comeback story. Once Gates reached the top, he never left. Jobs was booted from the company he created, and the triumphant return leading Apple to the heights he has is the simple reason why people love him more.

Evidently, Jobs revolutionized personal technology by establishing the Apple computer, leaving the world better than he found it. By the end of 2011, he had 0.6% shares of Apple, roughly around $2 billion. At the early stages of Apple Computer, he had 26% of shares in the company (estimated value of those shares would be $167 billion if Steve Jobs retained those shares). Even after being ousted from the company in 1985 by one of his ‘friends’, John Sculley, he sold all his shares but retained one share so that he could receive an annual report.

Jobs sold Pixar to Walt Disney and held around $7.4 billion or 7% of the shares in Walt Disney (Roy Disney, the successor of Walt Disney, owns just 1% in the company). This makes him the largest shareholder of Walt Disney. Following his death on 8th October 2011, Walt Disney & Apple Computer transferred those shares to Steven. P. Jobs Trust, which is run by Lawrence Powell (the widow of Steve Jobs).

LESSONS
Gates proved that cooperation between competitors can be more effective than destructive competition. Even today, the two companies cooperate on some issues at the same time they fight like cats and dogs. In Uganda, business people and politicians mostly look at themselves as enemies. We don't know how to utilise intelligent people in our families and communities - we just hate them!

Degrees don’t stop one from going for what they want. Bill Gates attended Harvard University but left after two years. Jobs didn't have a business degree, but that didn't stop him from becoming one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs ever. Jobs co-founded Apple Computers in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, and eventually built it into the global powerhouse it is today.

If the business isn’t doing well, cut down on costs. When Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, he knew he needed to cut a lot of jobs, or Apple would be bankrupt.

Personally, I think Jobs’ worst moment was denying that Lisa Brennan-Jobs was his daughter, and his disinterest in building a relationship with his biological Muslim father.

Finally, you can’t amass wealth without some sort of big luck. There are too many smart people in a very competitive world, but you need luck. Gates is now semi-retired, and Jobs is no longer with us, but their spirit still lives at the two companies.