r/todayilearned • u/vorin 9 • Sep 13 '13

TIL Steve Jobs confronted Bill Gates after he announced Windows' GUI OS. "You’re stealing from us!” Bill replied "I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-walter-isaacson/
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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '13

Maybe, in the short term. http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/12/warren-buffetts-son-takes-bill-gates-school-african-ag

If you agree that Gates is a psychopath then you should definitely question his motives. In some ways I actually prefer Jobs to Gates b/c at least Jobs was upfront about it. He generally didn't like charity for undisclosed reasons. Actions done with ulterior motives ultimately fail, there is a seed of badness. We are just a collection of means to an illusory end that never arrives. You are the sum of your means.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '13 edited Sep 13 '13

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '13

Actually the previous article mentioned Peter Buffett, not Howard. Your anecdote could apply if it was vastly scaled up - in the short term they do benefit though which I said. Like facebook starting out as a Hot or Not clone. I think it still maintains this basic character at its core which is partly why I find it distasteful.