The Digital Age: Jobs vs. Gates

Text is history. Welcome to the future. Apple's future. Kinda neat. The digital age was not born peacefully. It emerged from a bitter rivalry between two of the most influential minds the world has ever known. Bill Gates, the young computer prodigy. We have an operating system. And Steve Jobs, the charismatic innovator. Today, for the first time ever, I'd like Macintosh to speak for itself. Two brilliant thinkers. Tell you what, I'll let you invest your one million dollars in our company. Willing to do whatever it takes. How's 50 grand sound? It sounds amazing. To go down in history... We had a deal that you agreed to! As the man who would make the computer personal. If Apple goes down, you've got no one to fight. A teenager and his friend are on a mission to hack into their local computer center and help themselves to some free computer time. The hacker's name is Bill Gates. Bill Gates was a guy who came from a well-to-do family in Seattle, had a great education, was a smart guy, was by all accounts a very driven and competitive guy. That was his nature. Bill wanted to win. Even as a teenager, Gates possesses a rare knowledge. He knows how to operate a mainframe computer. Mainframe computers were these huge computers that experts used to crunch data. They were used by corporations and the gods of tech had to run these things. They couldn't be handled by regular people. In 1974, the concept of the personal computer doesn't exist. Until a company in New Mexico introduces the first computer small enough to be used by the general public. It's called the Altair 8800. It was a proof of concept toy in a way. I mean, it was a sophisticated toy. It was a direction, but it didn't do a whole lot. It didn't have a terminal. It didn't have a keyboard. It didn't have any of the things that we typically associate with a computer right now. Most importantly, there's no easy way to operate it. When the Altair is released, Bill Gates is a student at Harvard University. Gates and his friend Paul Allen know that to be useful, the Altair needs a programming language. And they decide to give it one. Bill Gates and Paul Allen sensed that something was in the air. They didn't want to spend the next two or three years watching the parade go by. They use an early form of programming in which holes are punched into spools of paper in patterns that form commands. To prove that their program works, they'll have to take it directly to the makers of the Altair. Hugo, you look older, they'll take you seriously. Okay. But Gates and Allen aren't the only ones determined to make computers easier to use. 3,000 miles away. The future of the personal computer is being imagined in a completely different way. Steve Jobs is a college dropout. Who has just returned from a spiritual quest in India and has limited experience with computers. He was part of the hippie crowd, the whole drugs and all kinds of alternative lifestyles. He was not trained in computing. One of Job's friends is Steve Wozniak, an electronics and computer hobbyist who's come up with a radical idea. Hey! What you working on? I got something new. Check this out. Wozniak has built a computer with a microprocessor, like the Altair. But he's added two other key components, a keyboard and a monitor. Instead of having to punch code into paper, Programming can now be written directly using the same keys found on a typewriter. It was a eureka moment. I could type commands on the computer and they came up on my TV screen. These things I call eureka moments are surprises that even you didn't realize how important they were going to be for how things work. Jobs is immediately intrigued. Like Wozniak, Jobs is less interested in how computers work and more interested in how he can sell them. Steve was the total businessman. He wanted the company, I just wanted to build cool products. And that was pretty much our relationship. We needed each other so badly. Bill Gates is waiting on word from his partner Paul Allen. was demonstrating the software they created for the Altair. Okay, this is just a basic language rewrote, but let me type in a few commands and show you how it works. You don't know which ideas are going to have the greatest potential until you've actually put them in practice. Sometimes someone comes up with an idea and you say, wow, this could really revolutionize the world. Paul? Gates and Allen have just sold the first software program for personal computer. It's enough to inspire Bill Gates to take the biggest risk of his life. At the age of 19, he drops out of Harvard and along with Paul Allen starts a small computer company in an Albuquerque strip mall. They call it Microsoft. In a California garage, Another ambitious company is being born. Steve Jobs thinks he can sell the latest computer designed by his partner, Steve Wozniak. After all, it has 16 times the memory of the Altair 8800. And a memorable name. I was thinking Executech. Maybe, uh, Personal Computers Inc. No. It was a brilliant name because it made people laugh. It was sort of a disjuncture a bit. Apple and computer. Those two words didn't go together, but it made you feel it was friendly. It took the edge off the word computer. But a clever name won't make it any easier to sell their creation. As you can see, we're using the ASCII keyboard, and as well as the MOS 6502 chip. Why didn't you use the Intel 8080? It's more compa- You can see the design here. If you want to know more, you can buy one. I think we've shared enough. Even with the revolutionary addition of a keyboard and monitor, the Apple I is a flop. Jobs only sells 200 units to computer hobbyists. But Jobs and Wozniak are not ready to quit. We knew we were going to be successful. We never once thought we would fail. We knew that we were going to shock the world and that we were going to be so far ahead of everybody else's attempts to build low-cost computers that we were going to own the world. While Steve Wozniak works to make their processors faster. Steve Jobs knows he needs to make the computer itself more appealing. Not only to computer enthusiasts, but to everyone. He begins to imagine a fully contained machine, incorporating all the needed components into a revolutionary easy-to-use design. It was just a thing of beauty. Steve Jobs brought a whole different design and spiritual dimension to computing. He looked at the zen of computing, and he was able to bring a sense of beauty to computing. The Apple II was about to change the computer business forever. And one man is determined, left behind. 22-year-old Steve Jobs believes a personal computer will one day be in every home. And now, he's one step closer to making that dream a reality. In June 1977, the Apple II was released. And it's unlike anything the public has ever seen before. It's easy to use design is an instant hit with consumers. Within a year of its release, the company is bringing in $8 million in sales. We started selling right away. We were so advanced in the computer world. It was color, it was graphics. We were so many light years ahead of everyone else. Apple has its first hit. But when Bill Gates gets a look at the computer... He sees a way to advance his own company, Microsoft. The Apple II may be perfect for everyday consumers, but its programming isn't compatible with most business software on the market. Gates knows if he can give it the ability to run business programs, he can cash in on Apple's success. Gates and his engineers spend months developing the soft card. A circuit board that plugs right into the Apple II. Allowing it to run business software. But in order for Microsoft to benefit from its design, two of the greatest minds in the computer industry will have to meet face to face. Sure looks good. On the outside, it's what's inside that matters. You know how to write code? I hire people for that. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were like a binary star system. Starting in the 1970s, they orbit around each other. They each have a grand gravitational pull. Now you'll be able to run everything out there. Word processors, spreadsheets. Bill Gates has just given Steve Jobs a way to turn his popular home computer into a powerful business machine. It's a win for Apple and for Microsoft. By 1980, selling soft cards to Apple users has become Microsoft's number one revenue source. And the company triples its sales. But Bill Gates is already looking past Steve Jobs. And sets his sights on the biggest name in technology. IBM. For decades, IBM has been at the forefront of business technology. But now they want to get into the personal computer business. The thing that Gates saw that was important was IBM was going to be a big deal in this area. And so he wanted to be the principal software on that PC. What we're really looking for is an operating system. An operating system? I thought you only needed programming languages. We could go with another vendor. I mean, we have an operating system. Gates makes a deal with IBM. Even though Microsoft hasn't actually built an operating system yet But Bill Gates knows where he can get one How's 50 grand sound? It sounds amazing Who'd you say it was for? Confidential. Gates purchases an already finished operating system from a small software company and renames it Microsoft DOS. Basically they said, we're gonna pay you $50,000 and we can do with this anything that we want with it. And the company was glad to sell it to them. Armed with an operating system, Bill Gates now has the upper hand. So when he returns to IBM, he makes one non-negotiable demand. I like the right to sell it to third parties. Gates is making software, and software was king. And so Gates made the very shrewd idea of creating software that could be on any device. And I think IBM was not thinking of it in terms of where it was headed. Gates negotiates a non-exclusive license to IBM for Microsoft DOS. Now, Microsoft has the right to sell their operating system to any computer company in the world. It probably ranks as the greatest business deal in history. The money that DOS brought in made Microsoft an incredibly wealthy company. And when you have a lot of wealth, you have a lot of power. And you can begin to shape an industry. Steve Jobs has been watching from afar as Bill Gates dominates the computer business. Apple's response to the IBM PC was, you know, derision. They thought it was a big, clunky, inelegant box, but they were also smart and they knew anything that IBM stepped into, it was going to own a chunk of that market. Jobs knows if he's going to keep Apple competitive. He needs a big idea. This guy, Jeff Raskin, suggested we go to Xerox Park Center. He said they have some things you should see. They're under wraps, they're kind of secretive. Yeah. So what kind of great things have you got going on over at Xerox Park? Oh, it's object-oriented. programming, network stuff, nothing as exciting as you guys. I tell you what, I'll let you invest your one million dollars in our company, if you give us a full tour of your facility. We can make that happen. Steve Jobs has no idea that what he's about to see will transform his life, his company, and the world. Andy, you're on the Mac team now. Burrell, you're also on the Mac team. And Mike, you're coming as well. Design meeting tomorrow morning, 8 a.m. Jobs makes one non-negotiable demand. Everyone on the team must be as passionate as he is. Steve Jobs, he had a certain vision. He was not particularly pleasant to deal with a good chunk of the time. All of this sucks, okay? There are amazing stories about the pressure cooker that the Macintosh team was under, but he was also the most charismatic guy who ever walked the planet, according to anyone who ever met him or worked with him. With building the Macintosh demanding all his attention, Jobs realizes he needs a proven business leader to run Apple. Steve needed somebody who could be a crisp manager and marketer. Because Steve was all over the place. He was not a great manager. In 1983, former Pepsi executive John Sculley steps in as Apple's new CEO. Just as Jobs is nearing completion on the Macintosh. We're all set. All the top guys? Yep. All in for the Mac. Who'd you pick for software? Microsoft. You trust Gates? There's no one better. What he did for Apple II? Insanely great. Once again, Steve Jobs invites Bill Gates to participate in his latest innovation. Text is history. Welcome to the future. Apple's future. Steve wants to show off this notion that they're going to do this user interface that's really cool and graphical. And Gates thinks it's absolutely wonderful and he's willing to write Microsoft software to be part of it. Kind of neat. But Gates senses an even bigger opportunity for Microsoft. I think when Bill Gates saw the graphical user interface, I can't imagine he did anything but think like, I gotta run back and tell my guys about this because this is the way you're going to interact with computers in the future. What's wrong with ours? It's brain dead. His can slide windows around. He can have two open at once. Why don't we just drum up a look-a-like? We need to beat him to the punch. This has to happen now. Bill Gates decides to go after Apple directly. He instructs his team to start work on a graphical user interface that they call Interface Manager. Try it. But by the fall of 1983, a different name would finally stick, Windows. When word of Microsoft Windows reaches Steve Jobs, he's only weeks away from releasing the Macintosh, the idea he's devoted the last three years of his life to. The man who Jobs thought was an ally has declared war. Gates, get him down here now. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Both staking their futures on the same revolutionary approach to software for the personal computer. But in the effort to get to market with it first, the one-time partners are now at war. Gates, get him down here now. Is this how you treat your friends? I trusted you! I brought you in on the Apple II. I brought you in on the Macintosh. We had a partnership. We had a deal that you agreed to. And you're stealing from us. You're killing us, and I'm not going to stand for it. Bill Gates is a smart guy, and he's a smart businessman, and he recognized an opportunity. He wanted to create a great computer. He wanted to create a great company, a strong company. And you do whatever you have to do to get that. Windows is still two years away from being ready. But Bill Gates knows he needs to beat jobs to the announcement. I'm here to show a few highlights for our upcoming product. It sports a user-friendly graphical interface. Timing is such a factor in these things. So it's like, okay, let's start something from nothing. That's the spirit of Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs dream has been hijacked But unlike gates he has a working product That's ready to sell And a natural talent for marketing it Many of us have been working on Macintosh for over two years now today for the first time ever I'd like Macintosh to speak for itself. Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag. The Mac was the ultimate fusion of beauty with technology. The world's first truly beautiful machine. It looks like it's smiling at you. It looks friendly. That made Steve Jobs'heart sing. The unveiling of the Macintosh is a hit. The computer itself is slow and struggles to find buyers. The Macintosh sales fell drastically. We had a factory designed to build 80,000 Macintoshes a month and the sales fell to 500 a month. Our Apple stock dropped in half. This is scary stuff for a company. I got with the design department and I think it's gonna be... Steve! There's no one who admires your brilliance and vision more than I do. John? What are you saying? The board's decided... that it's best if you step down. Steve Jobs had created a board of people who are all almost like father figures to him. And they're looking at the kid, Steve Jobs, who had become undisciplined, was spending too much money, was antagonizing people, and they finally vote to kick him out of the company he founded. Steve told me it was like a kick in the gut. In 1985, the Macintosh fails to light the world on fire. And Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple computers, is out of his own company. A man who once seemed an unstoppable pioneer has been cast aside while his rival Bill Gates is building Microsoft into an empire. MS-DOS has become the standard operating system on millions of computers. And on November 20th, 1985, Bill Gates and Microsoft introduce Windows to the world. As Bill Gates'legal troubles mount, his competitor, Apple, is doing no better. Apple without Steve Jobs is not innovating. They're kind of milking the old product line. They don't even have a good new operating system. With Windows dominating the industry, Apple's share of the home computer market falls to 4%. And in 1996... the company loses one billion dollars apple was struggling apple went through a series of ceos that were treading water you had you know scully you had gil amelio you had spindler apple was within a month or two of going bankrupt apple stands on the brink of collapse So 12 years after forcing him out, the board asked Steve Jobs to come back. But before he can begin making Apple innovative again, Jobs knows he's going to need an infusion of cash. And fast. To get it, he'll have to turn to an unlikely source. Hi, Bill. Bill Gates is under investigation for running a monopoly. Steve Jobs is back at the company he founded. But it's on the verge of bankruptcy. Hi Bill. Steve. The Justice Department. On board a... If Apple goes down, you've got no one to fight. But if you keep us in the game... Think about it. It didn't behoove Gates for Apple to go away at that stage of the game. If you have no competitor, then people say, you own all the market, and that's not a good thing. It's better to have a crippled competitor than no competitor at all. Now, I'd like to talk about meaningful partners. Apple lives in an ecosystem, and it needs help from other partners, and I happen to have a special guest with me today via satellite downlink, and if we can get him up on stage right now. Good morning. This was a remarkable moment when Steve Jobs brought Bill Gates up on the screen. The cult of Macintosh jeered and booed him. He was reviled as a monopolist, as a bully. They hated Windows, they hated PCs, and they hated Bill Gates. Despite initial backlash, Microsoft and ...bests $150 million in Apple. And Jobs wastes no time turning Apple around. Steve just takes massive control. And he makes sure that the products are just relentlessly beautiful. Like the original iMac, with its translucent colors and that rabbit-shaped design. Seven minutes to load a song. In 2001, Steve Jobs pushes beyond computers. The MP3 player that ruined my day. Into entirely new products, like the iPod. Make me something better. Nobody knew we needed a thousand songs in our pocket. We all had MP3 players. But Steve said, no, I'm going to create something that's so great, people don't know they want it, but once they see it, they're going to want it. Everybody says, that's great, but Steve says, no, somebody's going to be smart enough to put this on a telephone and we'll be left out. So he comes up with the iPhone. In 2007, fans wait in line as long as over a hundred hours to buy what would become Steve Jobs signature marvel, the iPhone. And Apple is on its way to becoming one of the most profitable companies in the world. concept that you could carry around and hold these supercomputers in your hands and do all kinds of things with them and interact with the world is a big idea. You had to pick one person who impacted technology more than anyone in this era it would have to be Steve Jobs. While Steve Jobs reputation soars, Bill Gates has an image problem. And if we can get him up on stage right now. He wanted to be beloved and he wanted his name to go down in history. in the pantheon of great men. In an effort to redeem his legacy, Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest men in the world, turns to philanthropy. He was motivated to become a philanthropist, not only to make the world a better place, but to rehabilitate his image. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation becomes the largest private foundation in the world. Gates now is very compassionate and very wise and has come around to the thinking that we all are on the same team. He's going to leave the world a better place. For years Steve Jobs has been downplaying the news that he's suffering from pancreatic cancer. By 2011 his health problems forced Jobs to resign as Apple CEO. Maybe he didn't know he was dying, but he knew he had limited time on this planet. Death became an important motivator for him, and if you think about it, everything that he did that people remember him for today were when he was dying. His death is mourned the world over by legions of fans as devoted to the man as they are to his machines. In the year following his death, Apple would become the most valuable company on earth. The relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates was very complex. They were like brothers in a way. They were with each other every step of the way, sometimes rivals, sometimes friends. They were mean to each other, but eventually reconciled. because they were the two pioneers that built the industry.

Text is history. Welcome to the future. Apple's future.

Kinda neat. The digital age was not born peacefully. It emerged from a bitter rivalry between two of the most influential minds the world has ever known.

Bill Gates, the young computer prodigy. We have an operating system. And Steve Jobs, the charismatic innovator. Today, for the first time ever, I'd like Macintosh to speak for itself.

Two brilliant thinkers. Tell you what, I'll let you invest your one million dollars in our company. Willing to do whatever it takes. How's 50 grand sound?

It sounds amazing. To go down in history... We had a deal that you agreed to! As the man who would make the computer personal. If Apple goes down, you've got no one to fight.

A teenager and his friend are on a mission to hack into their local computer center and help themselves to some free computer time. The hacker's name is Bill Gates. Bill Gates was a guy who came from a well-to-do family in Seattle, had a great education, was a smart guy, was by all accounts a very driven and competitive guy. That was his nature. Bill wanted to win.

Even as a teenager, Gates possesses a rare knowledge. He knows how to operate a mainframe computer. Mainframe computers were these huge computers that experts used to crunch data.

They were used by corporations and the gods of tech had to run these things. They couldn't be handled by regular people. In 1974, the concept of the personal computer doesn't exist.

Until a company in New Mexico introduces the first computer small enough to be used by the general public. It's called the Altair 8800. It was a proof of concept toy in a way. I mean, it was a sophisticated toy.

It was a direction, but it didn't do a whole lot. It didn't have a terminal. It didn't have a keyboard. It didn't have any of the things that we typically associate with a computer right now. Most importantly, there's no easy way to operate it.

When the Altair is released, Bill Gates is a student at Harvard University. Gates and his friend Paul Allen know that to be useful, the Altair needs a programming language. And they decide to give it one.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen sensed that something was in the air. They didn't want to spend the next two or three years watching the parade go by. They use an early form of programming in which holes are punched into spools of paper in patterns that form commands.

To prove that their program works, they'll have to take it directly to the makers of the Altair. Hugo, you look older, they'll take you seriously. Okay.

But Gates and Allen aren't the only ones determined to make computers easier to use. 3,000 miles away. The future of the personal computer is being imagined in a completely different way.

Steve Jobs is a college dropout. Who has just returned from a spiritual quest in India and has limited experience with computers. He was part of the hippie crowd, the whole drugs and all kinds of alternative lifestyles.

He was not trained in computing. One of Job's friends is Steve Wozniak, an electronics and computer hobbyist who's come up with a radical idea. Hey!

What you working on? I got something new. Check this out. Wozniak has built a computer with a microprocessor, like the Altair. But he's added two other key components, a keyboard and a monitor.

Instead of having to punch code into paper, Programming can now be written directly using the same keys found on a typewriter. It was a eureka moment. I could type commands on the computer and they came up on my TV screen.

These things I call eureka moments are surprises that even you didn't realize how important they were going to be for how things work. Jobs is immediately intrigued. Like Wozniak, Jobs is less interested in how computers work and more interested in how he can sell them.

Steve was the total businessman. He wanted the company, I just wanted to build cool products. And that was pretty much our relationship.

We needed each other so badly. Bill Gates is waiting on word from his partner Paul Allen. was demonstrating the software they created for the Altair.

Okay, this is just a basic language rewrote, but let me type in a few commands and show you how it works. You don't know which ideas are going to have the greatest potential until you've actually put them in practice. Sometimes someone comes up with an idea and you say, wow, this could really revolutionize the world.

Paul? Gates and Allen have just sold the first software program for personal computer. It's enough to inspire Bill Gates to take the biggest risk of his life. At the age of 19, he drops out of Harvard and along with Paul Allen starts a small computer company in an Albuquerque strip mall.

They call it Microsoft. In a California garage, Another ambitious company is being born. Steve Jobs thinks he can sell the latest computer designed by his partner, Steve Wozniak.

After all, it has 16 times the memory of the Altair 8800. And a memorable name. I was thinking Executech. Maybe, uh, Personal Computers Inc.

No. It was a brilliant name because it made people laugh. It was sort of a disjuncture a bit. Apple and computer. Those two words didn't go together, but it made you feel it was friendly.

It took the edge off the word computer. But a clever name won't make it any easier to sell their creation. As you can see, we're using the ASCII keyboard, and as well as the MOS 6502 chip.

Why didn't you use the Intel 8080? It's more compa- You can see the design here. If you want to know more, you can buy one.

I think we've shared enough. Even with the revolutionary addition of a keyboard and monitor, the Apple I is a flop. Jobs only sells 200 units to computer hobbyists. But Jobs and Wozniak are not ready to quit. We knew we were going to be successful.

We never once thought we would fail. We knew that we were going to shock the world and that we were going to be so far ahead of everybody else's attempts to build low-cost computers that we were going to own the world. While Steve Wozniak works to make their processors faster.

Steve Jobs knows he needs to make the computer itself more appealing. Not only to computer enthusiasts, but to everyone. He begins to imagine a fully contained machine, incorporating all the needed components into a revolutionary easy-to-use design.

It was just a thing of beauty. Steve Jobs brought a whole different design and spiritual dimension to computing. He looked at the zen of computing, and he was able to bring a sense of beauty to computing. The Apple II was about to change the computer business forever. And one man is determined, left behind.

22-year-old Steve Jobs believes a personal computer will one day be in every home. And now, he's one step closer to making that dream a reality. In June 1977, the Apple II was released.

And it's unlike anything the public has ever seen before. It's easy to use design is an instant hit with consumers. Within a year of its release, the company is bringing in $8 million in sales. We started selling right away. We were so advanced in the computer world.

It was color, it was graphics. We were so many light years ahead of everyone else. Apple has its first hit.

But when Bill Gates gets a look at the computer... He sees a way to advance his own company, Microsoft. The Apple II may be perfect for everyday consumers, but its programming isn't compatible with most business software on the market. Gates knows if he can give it the ability to run business programs, he can cash in on Apple's success.

Gates and his engineers spend months developing the soft card. A circuit board that plugs right into the Apple II. Allowing it to run business software.

But in order for Microsoft to benefit from its design, two of the greatest minds in the computer industry will have to meet face to face. Sure looks good. On the outside, it's what's inside that matters.

You know how to write code? I hire people for that. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were like a binary star system.

Starting in the 1970s, they orbit around each other. They each have a grand gravitational pull. Now you'll be able to run everything out there.

Word processors, spreadsheets. Bill Gates has just given Steve Jobs a way to turn his popular home computer into a powerful business machine. It's a win for Apple and for Microsoft.

By 1980, selling soft cards to Apple users has become Microsoft's number one revenue source. And the company triples its sales. But Bill Gates is already looking past Steve Jobs.

And sets his sights on the biggest name in technology. IBM. For decades, IBM has been at the forefront of business technology.

But now they want to get into the personal computer business. The thing that Gates saw that was important was IBM was going to be a big deal in this area. And so he wanted to be the principal software on that PC. What we're really looking for is an operating system.

An operating system? I thought you only needed programming languages. We could go with another vendor. I mean, we have an operating system.

Gates makes a deal with IBM. Even though Microsoft hasn't actually built an operating system yet But Bill Gates knows where he can get one How's 50 grand sound? It sounds amazing Who'd you say it was for?

Confidential. Gates purchases an already finished operating system from a small software company and renames it Microsoft DOS. Basically they said, we're gonna pay you $50,000 and we can do with this anything that we want with it.

And the company was glad to sell it to them. Armed with an operating system, Bill Gates now has the upper hand. So when he returns to IBM, he makes one non-negotiable demand.

I like the right to sell it to third parties. Gates is making software, and software was king. And so Gates made the very shrewd idea of creating software that could be on any device. And I think IBM was not thinking of it in terms of where it was headed.

Gates negotiates a non-exclusive license to IBM for Microsoft DOS. Now, Microsoft has the right to sell their operating system to any computer company in the world. It probably ranks as the greatest business deal in history. The money that DOS brought in made Microsoft an incredibly wealthy company.

And when you have a lot of wealth, you have a lot of power. And you can begin to shape an industry. Steve Jobs has been watching from afar as Bill Gates dominates the computer business. Apple's response to the IBM PC was, you know, derision. They thought it was a big, clunky, inelegant box, but they were also smart and they knew anything that IBM stepped into, it was going to own a chunk of that market.

Jobs knows if he's going to keep Apple competitive. He needs a big idea. This guy, Jeff Raskin, suggested we go to Xerox Park Center. He said they have some things you should see. They're under wraps, they're kind of secretive.

Yeah. So what kind of great things have you got going on over at Xerox Park? Oh, it's object-oriented. programming, network stuff, nothing as exciting as you guys.

I tell you what, I'll let you invest your one million dollars in our company, if you give us a full tour of your facility. We can make that happen. Steve Jobs has no idea that what he's about to see will transform his life, his company, and the world. Andy, you're on the Mac team now. Burrell, you're also on the Mac team.

And Mike, you're coming as well. Design meeting tomorrow morning, 8 a.m. Jobs makes one non-negotiable demand.

Everyone on the team must be as passionate as he is. Steve Jobs, he had a certain vision. He was not particularly pleasant to deal with a good chunk of the time. All of this sucks, okay? There are amazing stories about the pressure cooker that the Macintosh team was under, but he was also the most charismatic guy who ever walked the planet, according to anyone who ever met him or worked with him.

With building the Macintosh demanding all his attention, Jobs realizes he needs a proven business leader to run Apple. Steve needed somebody who could be a crisp manager and marketer. Because Steve was all over the place.

He was not a great manager. In 1983, former Pepsi executive John Sculley steps in as Apple's new CEO. Just as Jobs is nearing completion on the Macintosh.

We're all set. All the top guys? Yep.

All in for the Mac. Who'd you pick for software? Microsoft. You trust Gates? There's no one better.

What he did for Apple II? Insanely great. Once again, Steve Jobs invites Bill Gates to participate in his latest innovation. Text is history. Welcome to the future.

Apple's future. Steve wants to show off this notion that they're going to do this user interface that's really cool and graphical. And Gates thinks it's absolutely wonderful and he's willing to write Microsoft software to be part of it.

Kind of neat. But Gates senses an even bigger opportunity for Microsoft. I think when Bill Gates saw the graphical user interface, I can't imagine he did anything but think like, I gotta run back and tell my guys about this because this is the way you're going to interact with computers in the future.

What's wrong with ours? It's brain dead. His can slide windows around.

He can have two open at once. Why don't we just drum up a look-a-like? We need to beat him to the punch.

This has to happen now. Bill Gates decides to go after Apple directly. He instructs his team to start work on a graphical user interface that they call Interface Manager. Try it.

But by the fall of 1983, a different name would finally stick, Windows. When word of Microsoft Windows reaches Steve Jobs, he's only weeks away from releasing the Macintosh, the idea he's devoted the last three years of his life to. The man who Jobs thought was an ally has declared war.

Gates, get him down here now. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Both staking their futures on the same revolutionary approach to software for the personal computer. But in the effort to get to market with it first, the one-time partners are now at war.

Gates, get him down here now. Is this how you treat your friends? I trusted you!

I brought you in on the Apple II. I brought you in on the Macintosh. We had a partnership. We had a deal that you agreed to. And you're stealing from us.

You're killing us, and I'm not going to stand for it. Bill Gates is a smart guy, and he's a smart businessman, and he recognized an opportunity. He wanted to create a great computer. He wanted to create a great company, a strong company. And you do whatever you have to do to get that.

Windows is still two years away from being ready. But Bill Gates knows he needs to beat jobs to the announcement. I'm here to show a few highlights for our upcoming product. It sports a user-friendly graphical interface.

Timing is such a factor in these things. So it's like, okay, let's start something from nothing. That's the spirit of Silicon Valley.

Steve Jobs dream has been hijacked But unlike gates he has a working product That's ready to sell And a natural talent for marketing it Many of us have been working on Macintosh for over two years now today for the first time ever I'd like Macintosh to speak for itself. Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag.

The Mac was the ultimate fusion of beauty with technology. The world's first truly beautiful machine. It looks like it's smiling at you. It looks friendly.

That made Steve Jobs'heart sing. The unveiling of the Macintosh is a hit. The computer itself is slow and struggles to find buyers. The Macintosh sales fell drastically.

We had a factory designed to build 80,000 Macintoshes a month and the sales fell to 500 a month. Our Apple stock dropped in half. This is scary stuff for a company. I got with the design department and I think it's gonna be... Steve!

There's no one who admires your brilliance and vision more than I do. John? What are you saying?

The board's decided... that it's best if you step down. Steve Jobs had created a board of people who are all almost like father figures to him. And they're looking at the kid, Steve Jobs, who had become undisciplined, was spending too much money, was antagonizing people, and they finally vote to kick him out of the company he founded.

Steve told me it was like a kick in the gut. In 1985, the Macintosh fails to light the world on fire. And Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple computers, is out of his own company.

A man who once seemed an unstoppable pioneer has been cast aside while his rival Bill Gates is building Microsoft into an empire. MS-DOS has become the standard operating system on millions of computers. And on November 20th, 1985, Bill Gates and Microsoft introduce Windows to the world.

As Bill Gates'legal troubles mount, his competitor, Apple, is doing no better. Apple without Steve Jobs is not innovating. They're kind of milking the old product line.

They don't even have a good new operating system. With Windows dominating the industry, Apple's share of the home computer market falls to 4%. And in 1996...

the company loses one billion dollars apple was struggling apple went through a series of ceos that were treading water you had you know scully you had gil amelio you had spindler apple was within a month or two of going bankrupt apple stands on the brink of collapse So 12 years after forcing him out, the board asked Steve Jobs to come back. But before he can begin making Apple innovative again, Jobs knows he's going to need an infusion of cash. And fast.

To get it, he'll have to turn to an unlikely source. Hi, Bill. Bill Gates is under investigation for running a monopoly. Steve Jobs is back at the company he founded. But it's on the verge of bankruptcy.

Hi Bill. Steve. The Justice Department. On board a...

If Apple goes down, you've got no one to fight. But if you keep us in the game... Think about it.

It didn't behoove Gates for Apple to go away at that stage of the game. If you have no competitor, then people say, you own all the market, and that's not a good thing. It's better to have a crippled competitor than no competitor at all.

Now, I'd like to talk about meaningful partners. Apple lives in an ecosystem, and it needs help from other partners, and I happen to have a special guest with me today via satellite downlink, and if we can get him up on stage right now. Good morning.

This was a remarkable moment when Steve Jobs brought Bill Gates up on the screen. The cult of Macintosh jeered and booed him. He was reviled as a monopolist, as a bully. They hated Windows, they hated PCs, and they hated Bill Gates.

Despite initial backlash, Microsoft and ...bests $150 million in Apple. And Jobs wastes no time turning Apple around. Steve just takes massive control. And he makes sure that the products are just relentlessly beautiful. Like the original iMac, with its translucent colors and that rabbit-shaped design.

Seven minutes to load a song. In 2001, Steve Jobs pushes beyond computers. The MP3 player that ruined my day. Into entirely new products, like the iPod. Make me something better.

Nobody knew we needed a thousand songs in our pocket. We all had MP3 players. But Steve said, no, I'm going to create something that's so great, people don't know they want it, but once they see it, they're going to want it. Everybody says, that's great, but Steve says, no, somebody's going to be smart enough to put this on a telephone and we'll be left out. So he comes up with the iPhone.

In 2007, fans wait in line as long as over a hundred hours to buy what would become Steve Jobs signature marvel, the iPhone. And Apple is on its way to becoming one of the most profitable companies in the world. concept that you could carry around and hold these supercomputers in your hands and do all kinds of things with them and interact with the world is a big idea. You had to pick one person who impacted technology more than anyone in this era it would have to be Steve Jobs. While Steve Jobs reputation soars, Bill Gates has an image problem.

And if we can get him up on stage right now. He wanted to be beloved and he wanted his name to go down in history. in the pantheon of great men. In an effort to redeem his legacy, Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest men in the world, turns to philanthropy.

He was motivated to become a philanthropist, not only to make the world a better place, but to rehabilitate his image. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation becomes the largest private foundation in the world. Gates now is very compassionate and very wise and has come around to the thinking that we all are on the same team.

He's going to leave the world a better place. For years Steve Jobs has been downplaying the news that he's suffering from pancreatic cancer. By 2011 his health problems forced Jobs to resign as Apple CEO.

Maybe he didn't know he was dying, but he knew he had limited time on this planet. Death became an important motivator for him, and if you think about it, everything that he did that people remember him for today were when he was dying. His death is mourned the world over by legions of fans as devoted to the man as they are to his machines. In the year following his death, Apple would become the most valuable company on earth.

The relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates was very complex. They were like brothers in a way. They were with each other every step of the way, sometimes rivals, sometimes friends.

They were mean to each other, but eventually reconciled. because they were the two pioneers that built the industry.

Transcript for:The Digital Age: Jobs vs. Gates

Transcript for:
The Digital Age: Jobs vs. Gates