How did Steve Jobs manage to sell a “nonsensical” product like the NeXT computer or turn the failing Apple into one of the world’s most successful companies? Rival Bill Gates claimed during a CNN segment today that Jobs was actually a wizard who managed to fool people with magic spells.
The billionaire ex-Microsoft leader may not have meant that literally, but it certainly alludes to Steve Jobs’s famous “reality distortion field,” which implied he could sell any idea and product, no matter how trivial. Gates mentioned that Jobs was an “asshole” at times but admitted there wasn’t anyone quite like him.
“I was like a minor wizard because he would be casting spells, and I would see people mesmerized, but because I’m a minor wizard, the spells don’t work on me,” said Gates, the world’s second-richest person, according to a transcript provided by the network.
“I have yet to meet any person who” could rival Jobs “in terms of picking talent, hyper-motivating that talent, and having a sense of design of, ‘Oh, this is good. This is not good,’ ” Gates added of his sometime collaborator and competitor.