All About Opportunity

At the The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, history was made when Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates took center stage…together. During their joint appearance, the two men answered questions from a panel and then took some questions from the audience.

One of the audience questions struck me as interesting and the responses from Jobs and Gates were very insightful:

Question from the audience: Bill, even your harshest critic would have to admit that your philanthropy work is planet-shaking, incredible and could be, if you make it, a second act so amazing that it would dwarf what you’ve actually done at Microsoft. If you had to choose a legacy, what would it be? And Steve, do you look at Bill and think, gee, that guy is so lucky he had a company so rich with talent that he didn’t have to personally come in every day and save it, and I wish I had the opportunity?

Mr. Gates: The most important work I got a chance to be involved in, no matter what I do, is the personal computer. That’s what I grew up with, in my teens, my 20s, my 30s. I even knew not to get married until later because I was so obsessed with it. That’s my life’s work. And it’s lucky for me that some of the skills and resources that I was able to develop through those experiences can be applied to the benefit of the people who haven’t had technology, including medicine, working for them. So it’s an incredible blessing to have two things like that. But if you look inside my brain, it’s filled with software and the magic of software and the belief in software, and that’s not going to change.

Mr. Jobs: I think the world’s a better place because Bill realized that his goal isn’t to be the richest guy in the cemetery. That’s a good thing, and so he’s doing a lot of good with the money that he made.

I’m sure Bill was like me in this way. I mean, I grew up fairly middle class, lower middle class, and I never really cared much about money. And Apple was so successful early on in life that I was very lucky that I didn’t have to care about money then. And so I’ve been able to focus on work and then, later on, my family. And I sort of look at us as two of the luckiest guys on the planet because we found what we loved to do and we were at the right place at the right time and we’ve gotten to go to work every day with super bright people for 30 years and do what we love doing.

I don’t think about legacy much. I just think about being able to get up every day and go in and hang around these great people and hopefully create something that other people will love as much as we do. And if we can do that, that’s great.

So true to recognize an opportunity and capitalize on it. What’s more important is that each of these men was doing something he believed in very strongly. Their dedication to making that belief a reality has changed the world. I respect the work of these two men and admire their humility.