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As young men born in the same year (1955), they set out from the same starting point, but with radically different personalities. In the early days of personal computers, both dropped out of college and launched their own businesses. Of the two, the late Steve Jobs was always the quick, live-for-the-moment hare, while Bill Gates was the dispassionate, lawyerly, bide-your-time tortoise. For two decades, the race between the two went according to script, with the hare jumping out to a huge early lead, before falling hopelessly behind. Apple Computer appeared to be headed for bankruptcy in 1997 when Gates and Microsoft came to the rescue with a $150 million investment. While appearing as the noble competitor, Gates could not hide his contempt for his longtime rival. In a Vanity Fair article in 1998, Gates said sneeringly -- "What I can't figure out is why he is even trying. He knows he can't win."
But this is when the fable took an amazing twist.In the last 12 years of his life, Jobs reinvented himself and his business not once but several times, and finished far ahead of his rival. He built the most valuable business in the world--creating more than half again as much wealth for his shareholders as Microsoft.
Microsoft reached its all-time peak in market capitalization in September of 2000, when the stock was worth $642 billion. Today it is worth only about a third as much--at $229 billion (as of Oct. 25).
By contrast, Apple's market cap has climbed from a mere $6 billion at the end of 1998 to $364 billion today (again, Oct. 25)--a 60-fold increase.
As Walter Isaacson writes in his just-released and highly readable biography, Jobs "revolutionized six industries"--personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing--and he "reimagined a seventh"--in creating the stores that became shrines to his memory in the days and weeks following his death from pancreatic cancer on October 5.
As many have commented, Jobs saw
But this is when the fable took an amazing twist.In the last 12 years of his life, Jobs reinvented himself and his business not once but several times, and finished far ahead of his rival. He built the most valuable business in the world--creating more than half again as much wealth for his shareholders as Microsoft.
Microsoft reached its all-time peak in market capitalization in September of 2000, when the stock was worth $642 billion. Today it is worth only about a third as much--at $229 billion (as of Oct. 25).
By contrast, Apple's market cap has climbed from a mere $6 billion at the end of 1998 to $364 billion today (again, Oct. 25)--a 60-fold increase.
As Walter Isaacson writes in his just-released and highly readable biography, Jobs "revolutionized six industries"--personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing--and he "reimagined a seventh"--in creating the stores that became shrines to his memory in the days and weeks following his death from pancreatic cancer on October 5.
As many have commented, Jobs saw