People laud Steve Jobs as one of our greatest entrepreneurs. Some people will look at his famous tantrums and salesmanship as the key to his success. Others will say he was a visionary who simply understood technology and people and was right more times than he was wrong. I love the stories that make up the legend that is Steve Jobs as much as the next geek, but the facts actually tell us something far more interesting than the lore.
In 1997 at the Macworld Expo Steve Jobs along with Bill Gates announced a historic collaboration. At that time Apple was dangerously close to bankruptcy and it needed help in order to get momentum behind a turn around. Prior to this announcement the battle between Apple and Microsoft were a part of the tech wars. Brilliantly dramatized in movies like the Pirates of Silicon Valley, there was a real sense of war between the titans Gates and Jobs with fans picking sides and locking in. At Macworld Steve Jobs with the help of Bill Gates announced the Microsoft investment of $150 million in Apple and the ongoing commitment on developing Office on the apple platform.
This key collaboration bought Apple the time and support it needed to regain traction and drive. At the time of the announcement Apple developers and supporters in the audience were angry. They booed, they cried. No one in the audience could have seen this coming, and no one (at the time) praised Steve Jobs for his savvy. Here is the point. If Steve Jobs were an angry egomaniac who could not be reasoned with, let alone worked with, a deal of this magnitude could have never happened. Yet looking back this is a key moment that impacted the success of Apple. It was also a key moment in the growth and expansion of Microsoft Office the central revenue generator for Microsoft. Effectively this collaboration was a winner for both companies.
