When Bill Gates called Steve Jobs a genius and said he was jealous of him

Microsoft founder Bill Gates believes that tech firms deserve the kind of scrutiny they faced the recent Congressional hearing last month. And that he thought Steve Jobs was a genius.

Gates was speaking to Armchair Expert podcast host Dax Shepard when he got talking about a range of topics including the Congressional hearing, his foundation's work on vaccines and his rival Steve Jobs.

Gates told Shepard that if anyone is as successful as he is, or as Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai are, they deserve rude, unfair and tough questions. He added that the government deserves to have shots at people like them since that kind of grilling comes with the super successful territory.

Gates was referring to the July 29 hearing at the House Judiciary Committee where the Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook CEOs were questioned about their business practices as a part of an ongoing anti-trust investigation.

Gates also spoke about his foundation’s work on Covid-19 vaccines and what it was like to start Microsoft. He also spoke about what it was like being a ‘celebrity’ adding that the idea od tech entrepreneurs being famous in popular culture took some getting used to.

Speaking about his late rival, Gates said that he was not as “tough” at Jobs was but he admired how he turned Apple around on his return.

“Jobs was a genius, what he did, particularly when he came back to Apple... no one else could do what he did there. I couldn’t have done that.” Gates said admitting that he envied Jobs’ charisma.

“He was such a wizard at over-motivating people— I was a minor wizard so I couldn’t fall under his spell— but I could see him casting the spell. I was so jealous,” Gates said.

Gates also spoke about what he considers his personal shortcomings like how he isn’t “that great” socially, he doesn’t know how to cook and that he doesn’t speak any other language fluently.

Among the other things Gates talked bout he mentioned that he meditates using Headspace and that he’s a big fan of the movie Spy Game. And his favourite colour is blue.

You can listen to the whole podcast here.