Gates vs. Jobs

“Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, is a hands-on manager, who studied even the minutest details of his products, with the heart and eye of an artist. His insistence on high-quality, good-looking products struck a chord with many people who appreciated the beauty of Apple products, resulting in such fabulous successes as the Macintosh computer and the iPod portable music system. These successes often reshaped how consumers viewed technology and also reshaped the technology itself. Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates are the two people most often credited with the development of the mass-market personal computer, perhaps decades before it might otherwise have evolved. He wisely surrounded himself with top-notch executives in all the key corporate positions, and he held on to them rather than driving them away. Almost by willing it, he transformed the corporate culture into one in which employees wanted to come to work and where they saw themselves as part of a great company that had a mission to change the world for the better. Moreover, Jobs, the hobbyist of old, brought the fun back into tinkering with electronics. ” (http://www.answers.com/topic/steve-jobs)

“The need for predictability and understanding rules out companies like Microsoft. Gates, even before he nearly missed the Internet boat, saw clearly that the technology has a mind of its own. His own titanic success, however, has been built on controlling the technology. By making MS-DOS and Windows the universal, all but inescapable entry into personal computing, Gates created a degree of market control that, until the Internet arrived, gave Microsoft’s business a very high degree of predictability (and profit). Control is basic to Gates’s nature and his management practice. He has an obsession with detail. ” (http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/management-styles.php)

It seems to me that Gates is more of the typical corporation, no trust in other people, just out to make money, while Jobs is truly all about the artisitic value of the company & making a better quality product for the consumer. Both are highly influential people of our decade.

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