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Bill Gates says tech firms 'deserve rude, unreasonable, difficult problems'
Bill Gates claims that tech companies "deserve" the kind of attention they got at Congressional hearings last month, and that late Steve Jobs was a "genius," he told the Armchair Expert podcast.
When you're as good as I am or any of those people are, you deserve rude, unreasonable, difficult questions, said the Microsoft founder to host Dax Shepard. The government needs to have shots on you, Gates said. This style of barbecue comes with a super productive territory. It's all right.
Gates referred to the July 29 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee where the CEOs of Apple , Google, Facebook, & Amazon were questioned about their business practices as part of the ongoing antitrust investigation.
During a wide-ranging podcast interview, Gates spoke about his foundation 's research on vaccination and what it was like to start up with Microsoft, but he also spoke about what it was like to be a celebrity of sorts; he says the idea of tech entrepreneurs becoming prominent in mainstream culture took a bit of getting used to.
It was insane because I was nerdy and not very sociable, so to be plunged into this world of 'what does he mean about it, what does he mean about it, what he says is semi-interesting' was like, whoa, what happened.
As for his late competitor, Gates said he wasn't as "tough" as Steve Jobs, but he respected how Jobs turned Apple around when he returned to the company.
Jobs was a genius, what he did, particularly when he came back to Apple ... No one else could have done what he did there. I couldn't have done that. Gates said he envied the charm of the late Apple CEO.
He was such a magician of over-motivating people — I was a minor magician and I couldn't fall under his spell — but I could see him casting a spell, Gates chuckled. I was so jealous of you.
Gates also spoke about what he found to be some of his professional failures. I'm not that smart socially, I don't know how to cook, and I'm really disappointed that I don't speak [other] languages fluently, he said.
For those who haven't listened, the Armchair Expert podcast has a sort of tech fan sound to it (for example, cohost Monica Padman asks Gates for her favorite color at one point. It's blue), but the style might actually have helped Gates to relax a bit; she admits sharing Shepard 's fascination with Diet Coke, for example, says he meditates on Headspace, and that he's a big fan of the Spy Game movie,
