Money Aside.

Money aside, which of these individuals would you prefer to work with or for? Why?

The movie Pirates of Silicon chronicles not only the development of the computer, specifically the Mac and the Windows programs, but also the relationship ship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Both innovators are driven, brilliant, and changed the world. However, their individual personalities vary, Steve Jobs being tyrant-like and Bill Gates being nerdy and ever-so-slightly helpless. If I had a choice of who and for which company I wanted to work, I would work for Bill Gates.

Steve Jobs was portrayed, and in fact is, extremely motivated to the point of annoyance—he verbally abused his employees yet justifies it by saying that he is actually motivating his employees. But the degradation he bestows upon them for a seemingly worthless design cannot be conducive to a happy, low-stress work environment. Yes, he has built an empire and these tactics have made Apple popular—I am using a Mac computer—but how many enemies has he made in the process? How has he tainted his image? Steve Jobs’ pride probably does not allow him to think these things, and therefore as a boss, he would not be understanding or merciful if a program crashed or one had to take off for a funeral.

Bill Gates on the other hand is comically clueless and more child-like in that his personality is not as strong and in-your-face as that of Steve Jobs. He may have lifted some of his ideas from Apple, but Steven Jobs lifted some of his ideas from Xerox, so from that standpoint, both of their business are on similar playing fields. Bill Gates seems more personal, however. He is not a Steve-Jobs-machine that is looking for world domination, high status, and a company run like a military. Bill Gates is more diplomatic and his workplace would be more pleasant and have employees that experience lower stress while still trying to improve the world via windows innovation.

To further my point, I would like to discuss the iPad. This iPad is most likely going to cause an education and personal revolution—knowledge and communication will literally be at the fingertips of man at all times. But this system is not similar to the “anything-goes-and-everything-is-free World Wide Web (Newsweek April 5, 2010). He will have control of Apps, all apps, the internet, and all programs will be Apple-made—“the iPad won’t play videos that are created in Flash software, which is used for about 75% of all Web videos. Jobs has a “radical lockdown” (Newsweek April 5, 2010) on this system, and this exact strong diction used in the magazine describes Jobs. He is exclusive and does not work well with others, with other companies. The people must “sacrifice freedom for the sake of a lovely device” (Newsweek April 5, 2010). In other words, they are under the mercy of Steve Jobs. Perhaps, this reflects the corporate workplace of Steve Jobs’. It reflects a workplace that I would rather bypass for that of Bill Gates.