Earlier this month, Bill Gates got emotional talking about Steve Jobs.
"He and I, in a sense, grew up together," Gates said. "We were within a year of the same age, and we were kind of naively optimistic and built big companies. And every fantasy we had about creating products and learning new things — we achieved all of it. And most of it as rivals. But we always retained a certain respect and communication, including even when he was sick."
There's no relationship in history like that of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
As partners and rivals, they built the personal computing industry with two totally different styles.
Jobs was a working-class kid from California who believed in tight control over all products, and put a premium on design.
Bill Gates was an upper class kid from Washington who believed in open products, and didn't worry too much about great design.
"Each one thought he was smarter than the other one, but Steve generally treated Bill as someone who was slightly inferior, especially in matters of taste and style," said early Macintosh employee Andy Hertzfield in Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs bio. He added, "Bill looked down on Steve because he couldn’t actually program."
Gates quote inspired us to take a look back at some of the best quotes from Gates and Jobs about each other in Isaacson's book to get a deeper sense of what the men really thought of each other.
Gates: Steve Jobs was "fundamentally odd," and "weirdly flawed as a human being"
Jobs on Gates: “He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger"
Gates on Jobs: "He really never knew much about technology, but he had an amazing instinct for what works"
See the rest of the story at Business Insider