Biography of Steve Jobs reveals rivalry with Gates

STEVE JOBS called long-time rival and Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates “unimaginative” and not really a product person, according to a biography of the deceased Apple chief executive.

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology,” Jobs told author, Walter Isaacson. “He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

“He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger,” Jobs added.

The biography, Steve Jobs, by Isaacson hit bookstores yesterday, but was released earlier than expected on Apple’s iBooks and Amazon.com’s Kindle late on Sunday.

Gates, for his part, was slightly envious of Jobs’ mesmerising effect on people but found the technology icon “weirdly flawed as a human being.”

But Gates, despite his differences with Jobs, enjoyed his frequent visits to Apple’s office in Cupertino, especially when he got to watch Jobs’ interaction with his employees, according to the biography.

“Steve was in his ultimate pied piper mode, proclaiming how the Mac will change the world and overworking people like mad with incredible tensions and complex personal relationships,” Gates said.

Isaacson’s biography reveals Jobs refused potentially life-saving cancer surgery for nine months, was bullied in school, tried various quirky diets as a teenager, and exhibited early strange behaviour such as staring at others without blinking.

The book paints an unprecedented, no-holds- barred portrait of a man who guarded his privacy fiercely, but whose death ignited a global outpouring of grief and tribute.

Isaacson, in an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS on Sunday, provided more insight into Jobs’ personality and character traits.

While Jobs revolutionised multiple industries with his cutting-edge products, he was not the world’s best manager, Isaacson said.

Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints at Apple and then brought a revolution to the mobile market. “He’s not warm and fuzzy,” Isaacson said in the interview. “He was not the world’s greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the world’s worst managers.”

Jobs, in his final meeting with Isaacson in mid-August, still held out hope that there might be one new drug that could save him. He also wanted to believe in God and an afterlife.

“Ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about (God) more. And I find myself believing a bit more. Maybe it’s because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear,” Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying.

“Then he paused for a second and he said ‘yeah, but sometimes I think it’s just like an on-off switch. Click and you’re gone’,” Isaacson said of Jobs. “He paused again, and he said: ‘and that’s why I don’t like putting on-off switches on Apple devices’.”