Similarities and Differences

There were many similarities and differences between the leadership styles and the visions of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Similarities included the tendency to purchase intellectual property off other people, for a reasonable price, and sell these products alongside their own technologies, therefore taking full credit for others’ inventions. In Steve Jobs’ case, he purchases the mouse, keyboard and the graphical user interface from Xerox, and sells it alongside Apple’s computer, Lisa, hence taking full credit for Xerox’s invention. In the case of Bill Gates, he purchases the Disk Operating System, or DOS, from Seattle Computer Products, and modifies it for IBM, therefore taking full credit for the operating system.

Differences between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs included the way they treated their respective companies and workers. Steve Jobs favoured the Macintosh sector of his company rather than the Apple Computer 2. He thought that the Macintosh was the future of computer hardware and hence was quite hard on his workers, and treated them with the utmost disrespect. Bill Gates on the other hand, was quite fair towards his workers, and wanted the whole company to prosper, not just one sector.

These similarities and differences contributed towards Bill Gates’ tendencies to innovate upon generative technologies and also set forth Steve Jobs’ aptness to create closed technologies.

Picture Credits

Image: Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/bill-gates-vs-steve-jobs-hired-better-01007643#jQHVg7mFKlXMTMlf.97 Retrieved 2016-10-10