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July 22, 2012 6:49 PM

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What did Steve Jobs think of his rivals?

By: Overtime Staff
Topics: Overtime Original

"They just don't get it." That's how Steve Jobs described his digital rivals Microsoft and Google in an interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson.

Isaacson conducted more than 40 taped interviews with the Apple co-founder and CEO-- all of them done while Apple was on its ascent and Jobs was on his decline, ill with a form of pancreatic cancer that would end his life at age 56. Those tapes were the makings of "Steve Jobs," the biography (Simon & Schuster) published last October.

On 60 Minutes Overtime, we take a listen to some of those interviews in which Jobs talks about his rivals. Who did he like? Who did he loathe? The tapes reveal what Jobs thought about Bill Gates, Microsoft, the Google guys, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

Complete coverage: Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

On Zuckerberg, for example, Jobs tells Isaacson: "You know, we talk about social networks in the plural, but I don't see anybody other than Facebook out there. It's just Facebook-- they're dominating this. I admire Mark Zuckerberg. I only know him a little bit, but I admire him for not selling out. For wanting to make a company. I admire that a lot."

Also on 60 Minutes Overtime this week - a digital look inside the Jobs' family photo album.

And click here for Steve Kroft's two-part 60 Minutes piece "Steve Jobs," produced by Graham Messick.

Disclosure: Walter Isaacson's biography "Steve Jobs" is published by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS corporation.

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by Buck-Ofama_in-2013 May 14, 2013 2:42 AM EDT: Look at Apple/Mac since 2001 (OS X - each new build BETTER than the last) and Windows since 2000 (2000, XP, Vista, 7 and 8 - EACH with it's own nightmares), iTunes vs Windows Media Player, iPod vs Zune, iPhone vs Windows phone, MacBook Pro vs every other laptop in the world... Apple has outdone them all because instead of building what he wanted and what he thought was cool, Steve Jobs built what people wanted, and what people thought was cool.. and most importantly, he made sure it worked BEFORE he released it. Bill Gates could learn a lifetime's worth from that las part.; Reply to this comment


by ProfPaul31 July 15, 2012 8:11 PM EDT: I find this interview so interesting! Ever since I laid my hands on an Apple Computer back in 1993, I knew Apple was going to outdo Microsoft and they did! Today, I am surrounded by mostly Apple Products and Lab Tops. My music productivity has skyrocketed as a result of my Apple Music Software and Lab Tops...visit my personal teaching site at flyingmidieagle1 to learn more. I like how he focused on what he was accomplishing and I have done the same with my Virtual Science University Products. Steve Jobs has been my model for what I have done with my Science Education Business. Steve Jobs has his mark in history with other innovators like Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein!; Reply to this comment


by AndySansone October 28, 2011 3:14 PM EDT: The phrase "It's lonely at the top" means the boss isn't going to be seen as the nicest person all the time. Bosses make difficult decisions and competition can be brutal. That's just the way it goes in a free market system. I couldn't care less about how he was perceived by his employees. Apple products dominate because he assembled a brilliant team and was at the helm leading the way.; Reply to this comment


by azereta October 25, 2011 9:01 PM EDT: Steve was not a saint.; Reply to this comment

by p_syrus October 25, 2011 6:27 PM EDT

Jobs was a business guy with a talent for marketing tech toys. Gates was a business guy with a talent for unscrupulous business practices.

The real heroes of the tech world are the people who develop the actual technologies which provide new ways of creation. They aren't the guys running the businesses, they are the guys who actually innovate.

Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Tim Berners-Lee, Jon Postel, David Clark, Linus Torvalds are among the many mathematicians, physicists,v and engineers who have reimagined and created new possibilities of human technology and society.

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by cbs_bull October 28, 2011 10:57 PM EDT: Good points. Fully agree with you. I think those behind-the-scenes scientists stand at a higher ground than the biz people for today's tech.

On the biz practice, in my own opinion, Google("Don't be evil.") is better than Microsoft. Microsoft is evil.

by coolkids1331 October 24, 2011 11:49 PM EDT

If Steve Jobs wasn't the type of business man that you are all talking about...Picky, rude, arrogant, demanding. Apple would not be the company it is today! Thanks to that behavior, I have a lot of very cool toys !
Thank you Mr. Jobs. You have enriched many lives and will be missed.

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by frankiethepunk2 July 17, 2012 8:42 AM EDT: I totally disagree with the thesis that you have to be an arrogant Pr*ck to motivate people. I'm amazed that people worship Jobs for being an ass%hole. Lets separate his genuine genius from his real flaws. One did not enhance the other.

by chanakya2011 October 24, 2011 4:33 AM EDT

as a recent "switcher" from windows i am increasingly fond of my macbook air, preceeded at long intervals by my iphone 4 and ipod shuffle. this last piece of hardware, the shuffle, floored me by its size - lack of - and i sill marvel at how much it holds, and how elegant it looks and feels.

several years my junior, jobs was a genius; but i feel thankful that neither he, nor, more importantly his wife tried to present anything but the unvarnished truth about him; and a better biographer could not be found, isaacson does a superb job - everyone should read his obituary of jobs in time magazine, it is sheer poetry.

gives one pause to realize all at once that it does not take a saint, a kindly soul, or even an engineer to produce apple products ... it takes a steve jobs.

thank you, steve, tho; you can't hear me; mrs. steve, and walter isaacson.

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by karengray November 5, 2011 11:44 AM EDT: He CAN hear you!

by johnsmith9875 October 23, 2011 9:56 PM EDT

The more I learn about Steve Jobs, the more I respect Bill Gates.

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by skeezix06 October 24, 2011 3:26 AM EDT: I don't.


by lincoel October 24, 2011 8:32 AM EDT: Jobs was the perfect example of his time - self-involved and self-indulgent while expecting near perfection from his subordinates. But that's the way most people are. Everyone thinks they are the hero and that they are the only right way of thinking.


by timthepatriot October 24, 2011 10:12 AM EDT: Agree 100%, John.


by timthepatriot October 24, 2011 10:39 AM EDT: Agree. 100%


by RobMtl October 25, 2011 12:11 AM EDT: I agree. Gates gives millions away with his foundation. Steve was self-absorbed with the next iProduct.
As for Apple products, if I need a database, server or programming platform, I use Microsoft products. Apple doesn't make any business IT products.


by 01234567895 October 27, 2011 6:58 PM EDT: 30yrs ago if i touching to the computer my Dad going to kick me out the house ! Right now in my hand i got 10 computers and small shop.I respecting Bill Gates Created all Technology in this World everyone in this World knowing him ! But if you asking people knowing iphone 5 may be a fewer people knowing Steve Jobs !Compare a Big Bulldozer made in USA to a bicycle and still making in china anyway i remember 25yrs back i washed the cover of macintosh got paid 3$ an hour .Now is Apple !

by skeezix06 October 23, 2011 9:28 PM EDT

If I could afford an Apple, I would throw my microsoft out the door.

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by lincoel October 24, 2011 8:33 AM EDT: And wait until you get a Mac. You can do nothing for yourself. Upgrade a video card. Not going to happen, you have to buy a new Mac. Want to upgrade your RAM. Can't be done. Mac is for drones.


by karengray November 5, 2011 11:45 AM EDT: Me too!


by dylan_89 July 15, 2012 9:26 PM EDT: lincoel is 100% right and plus if you were to take the money it costs to buy a mac and were to build your own computer, which is easier than most people realize,it would be probably close to twice the computer that mac would be

by cutiger1981 October 23, 2011 8:38 PM EDT

sure cbs godded him up...they are all liberals...duh!
but hey the guy is a brillant business mind and he will be greatly missed. and im not ashamed to say i appreciate that cbs presented the story the way they did. think it was thoughtful, respectful, just proves once again why cbs news is a great organization, even in spite of the whole liberal thing. just because some people dont understand that great companies are built on great people putting the right people around them, well lets face it that's jealousy talking.

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by timthepatriot October 24, 2011 10:16 AM EDT: Steve Jobs employed hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers to cut costs. His business could still have been quite successful had he chosen to pay American workers instead. He loves to say that he wasn't "about getting rich" and that's a wonderful thought. But, his words and actions do not correspond with one another.

Plus, he was a jerk who died bitter and genuinely unliked by those who actually knew him.


by cbs_bull October 28, 2011 10:43 PM EDT: Why do you single out Apple on using Chinese sweatshops? Who hadn't done it? Microsoft? IBM? Give me a break. Well, maybe only Google because they were kicked out of China for not following CCP's censorship. Microsoft kissed CCP's butt than most of other companies.


by karengray November 5, 2011 11:46 AM EDT: I pity people like you who always break things down into .. "liberal" or conservative. TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to this video.

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