Steve Jobs: the lessons he left for Gates, Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg

Steve Jobs cannot be separated from his controversial personality, but his inventive and innovative mind left a deep mark that is still admired by locals and visitors to this day. Current and former CEOs of important technology companies have met with him and learned from him in one way or another as we look back 12 years since his passing.

This collection features anecdotes and testimonials from figures like Gates, Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg about what it was like to sit in front of a character whose legacy continues in the industry.

You may also like:

• Apple remembers Steve Jobs 10 years after his death
• Steve Jobs: films and books about the co-founder of Apple
• Windows was born 35 years ago: did Bill Gates copy Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs’ teachings

Bill Gates

The rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates goes hand in hand with the advent of personal computers, and can also be summed up by saying that Gates thought Jobs knew nothing about technology, but he was an excellent salesman, in addition to having “great instincts” for what worked from a devices perspective. On the other hand, the Apple co-founder stated in 1996 that both Gates and Microsoft make third-party products. Against all odds, the two worked closely together, from the time the Windows developer developed software for the Apple II until the California company accepted investment from the Redmond company to stay afloat when Jobs returned. to take the reins of Apple in 1997.

The attacks between the two continued for years, even after Gates resigned and left Microsoft in 2000 and 2006, respectively. However, they praised each other at every opportunity, such as in the famous 2007 AllThingsD conference interview in which Jobs emphasized Gates’ business style and vice versa.

In 2019, the Microsoft founder admitted in an interview with Wall Street Magazine a quality he truly admired in his colleague: his ability to charm people. “I wish I could be a wizard (like him) because I have more important reasons and I need to make sure they are not ignored,” Gates said.

Jeff Bezos

There is not much information detailing the relationship between Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, although there was a meeting that could be considered fundamental, as detailed in the book. Working backwards: insights, stories and secrets from inside Amazon. It is believed that the directors met in the late 90s in Cupertino, in the presence of other representatives of Apple and Amazon; The state of the music industry was discussed, but Jobs quickly revealed what the real problem would be: Apple told them that it had just developed its first Windows app, “the best Windows app ever made.” At the same time, the head of the Californian company also predicted a decline in sales of CDs, that is, a significant part of Amazon’s business.

The paper’s authors, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, believe that Jobs’s words were key to Bezos realizing that sales of physical products, or most of them, were likely to fail.

As for what the two leaders had in common, journalist Catherine Clifford’s reporting said they both believed there was an exception to the business idea of ​​listening to the customer, and that was when something truly revolutionary was being built, something people had never seen before saw. “To do something extraordinary, a company and its leaders must think beyond what their customers are capable of,” Clifford wrote.

Elon Musk

The Tesla co-founder has repeatedly acknowledged his gratitude and admiration for what Jobs achieved with Apple, but he has never liked comparisons to being the “Steve Jobs of our time.”

“I think it’s the actions that matter, not what people will think of me in the future. “I will die, but will my actions be beneficial?” — Musk said in an interview with the magazine GQ.

Despite this, Jobs’ official biographer Walter Isaacson, who is also writing a biography of Musk, did not hesitate to highlight the similarities between both businessmen. “In some ways, he is the Steve Jobs of our time; “He is crazy enough to think he can change the world, and therefore he may be one of those who will change the world,” the author of profiles of Leonardo da Vinci and Einstein emphasized this year.

On the other hand, Gates does not agree that Musk is being compared to Jobs. “Elon is more of a hands-on engineer; Steve was a genius in design, staffing and marketing. “It’s impossible to walk into a room and confuse them for each other,” the Microsoft co-founder told the magazine. Bloomberg TV.

Mark Zuckerberg

Jobs mentored the founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg said that when things were not going well at the social network, early in its history and when many people wanted to buy it, he met with the founder of Apple. “He said that in order to reconnect with what I thought was the mission of the company, I should visit this temple in India where he went at the beginning of Apple’s evolution.”

So Zuckerberg did: he flew to India and traveled around the country for almost a month. This reinforced the importance of what was being done at Facebook.

“Steve, thank you for being a mentor and friend. Thank you for showing that what you create can change the world. “I will miss you,” the young man wrote after Jobs’ death on October 5, 2011.

The Apple executive also held fruitless talks with Facebook about various partnerships related to Ping, the California firm’s social networking attempt, but there were “onerous terms that we couldn’t accept,” Jobs said.

To get a broader answer, he recommended watching an interview he gave with journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg in June 2010. “Confidentiality means people know what they’re signing up for,” Jobs emphasized at the meeting, which also included Zuckerberg.

While Jobs’s line is instructive, we can’t forget that Facebook’s biggest scandals involve the platform’s handling of its users’ personal information.