Speak Forcefully

Interview With Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: A Comparison

One old interview. One new interview. One with Steve Jobs and another with Bill Gates.

Here is a 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. I remember reading this standing in a computer store in Phoenix Arizona and thinking "WOW! This guy has GOT IT. He has the vision thing down pat!"

Remember - this interview was before the peak boom of dot-coms.

"The Web is an incredible democratizer. A small company can look as large as a big company and be as accessible as a big company on the Web. Big companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars building their distribution channels. And the Web is going to completely neutralize that advantage.

What will the economic landscape look like after that democratic process has gone through another cycle?

The Web is not going to change the world, certainly not in the next 10 years. It's going to augment the world. And once you're in this Web-augmented space, you're going to see that democratization takes place.

The Web's not going to capture everybody. If the Web got up to 10 percent of the goods and services in this country, it would be phenomenal. I think it'll go much higher than that. Eventually, it will become a huge part of the economy."

Remember - the above interview is nearly 10 years old.

Now, read an interview with Bill Gates with Peter Jennings. Think Gates is a visionary? I don't. A businessman - definitely. Politician - absolutely. Vision?

posted by majqa @ 9:46 PM