Bill Gates is better than Steve Jobs! Why?

I know a number of people who love Apple and loved Steve Jobs and I know even more people who spread slanders about Microsoft and its founder Bill Gates but I really think that they are wrong and I decided to explain why I admire Bill Gates.

Steve Jobs and his success

Steve Jobs is being seen as the greatest innovator of the computer time, when he said that thinner phone is cool then it must be true and that was giving him great power which I respect.

Apple computer was the first successful personal computer (the first personal computer ever was Altair I think) designed by Steve Wozniak and Apple was the first company that introduced graphical user interface with mouse (designed by Xerox). Steve Jobs created amazing company from which he was fired. Then he bought Pixar (because they had interesting computers) and founded company called NeXT which was then bought by Apple and that's basically how he got back to Apple.

At that time Apple was bankrupting company that would be finished just in few months but Steve Jobs saved it (It was Bill Gates and Microsoft who invested 150 million USD in Aplle in 1997 to help them out). Since then Steve introduced iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad and Apple found new glory. Jobs inspired many people and had great influence on several industries (computers, phones, etc.). In a way I feel inspired by Steve Jobs and I agree with many of his views of the computer world and entrepreneurship and the world will miss him.

Bill Gates and his success

Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. The first success was creating BASIC programming language but what changed the industry was Bill's deal with IBM when he managed to sell an operating system which he didn't even have yet.

Microsoft became large success and Bill Gates became the richest man in the world.

Microsoft Windows didn't make Steve Jobs happy as he felt that the graphical user interface was stolen from Apple (which is true in a way but don't forget it was actually Xerox who designed the interface originally).

Success in the industry

When you look at the numbers, Windows still control 82.58% of the market share.

iPods are more successful then Zune devices (most people don't even know that they exist).

iPhone from Apple is certainly more successful then Windows Phone 7 but iPhone is going down thanks to Google's Android.

Nowadays Apple is bigger than Microsoft, it has bigger revenue although Microsoft has more employees. But it was not like that when Bill Gates was still leading Microsoft. When Bill Gates left Microsoft it was growing by 58 percent per year (then went down to -11 percent). Now when Steve Jobs left Apple, it is growing by 35 percent per year.

Money

In 2011 Bill Gates is the second richest man in the world the richest in the U.S. (59 billion USD). The difference between Bill Gates and the second richest American Warren Buffett is 20 billion USD. This year Steve Jobs had 7 billion USD and he was the 39th richest person in the U.S..

Helping the world

Bill Gates has founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. He has already spent 28 billion USD and even so his fortune grew by 5 billion USD in 2011.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett created a promise called Giving Pledge, in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time. A minimum total of at least 125 billion USD has been promised from the first 40 donors. The promise was also joined by Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO).

I know of no philanthropic activity of Steve Jobs and he did not sign the Giving Pledge.

Imagine Cup

When I write about saving the world I can't forget Microsoft's competition Imagine Cup focusing on helping students team creating real-life products dealing with world problems.

If you are a student my advice is to really consider becoming an Imagine Cup competitor. I was in TOP 18 in world-wide finals in New York in Software Design category.

Legacy

At the end of his life Steve Jobs was afraid of Apple sharing its destiny with HP which is now being dismembered leaving the personal computer industry.

Steve Jobs vowed to 'destroy' Google's Android. He said: "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." and also: "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong."

Before leaving he created a business plan for Apple for the next two years.

Bill Gates left Microsoft and focused on philanthropy, his goal is to eradicate polio and fight against poverty, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

The end

I can see how many people keep admiring Steve Jobs and I admire him and respect him too but for me the number one is Bill Gates.

Dicslaimer: I have no shares of Microsoft or Apple. My company Celebrio Software deals in business with Microsoft and in 2011 I was in Microsoft Imagine Cup world-wide finals. I have never owned any Apple product. I own Microsoft products and I use Windows Phone 7. I have read biographies of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.