“Steve, we've recently developed Excel, Word, Chart, and File. Are you interested?” Jobs, narcissistically caressing his beloved Macintosh, once again ignored Gates. “If you don't want it, I'll sell it to IBM.” Jobs hesitated, glancing back at Gates. Between IBM and Microsoft, he realized with reluctance that he had no other choice.
In 1980, computing giant IBM suddenly announced its entry into the personal computer industry, capturing half of the market share in a short period. This made Jobs grit his teeth. He subsequently hired director Ridley Scott to produce a commercial intended to attack IBM. In 1984, Apple commissioned Scott to film a legendary advertisement aimed at promoting Apple's new product, the Macintosh. Although the concept of the Macintosh originated from the child of company researcher Jef Raskin, Jobs once again claimed it as his own.
However, no matter how excellent the Macintosh was, it could not dispel the gloom in Jobs' mind. Meanwhile, in the chilly Seattle north of California, the increasingly confident Bill Gates was not as stubborn as Jobs. Gates was clear-headed, knowing that the massive IBM was far more dangerous than Apple, but he also understood that conquering IBM meant conquering the world.
One Monday morning in 1980, Jack Sambus, responsible for IBM's software engineering, called Gates' office on the eighth floor of Microsoft. From that moment, Bill Gates became one of the wealthiest people in the world. A week after that call, Gates, Paul Allen, and Ballmer arrived at IBM's Miami headquarters. To build its own personal computer, IBM told Microsoft that it needed two things: a programming language and an operating system.
Regarding the programming language, Gates said no problem; he had his Basic. For the operating system, Gates was equally confident, once again demonstrating his business acumen: “We have what you want. If IBM wants to beat Apple, it needs us.” The eager IBM agreed to Gates' shrewd contract terms: IBM would only have the usage rights to the operating system, while ownership would remain with Gates, who also retained the right to sell it to other computer companies. It is easy to imagine that without this clause, Gates might never have become the world's wealthiest person.
However, the real problem was whether Microsoft actually possessed an operating system. When Allen and Ballmer exchanged nervous glances and sweated, the confident Gates reminded Allen of a long-lost friend, Tim Paterson. Paterson had created an operating system but struggled to find buyers and was currently in difficult straits. Allen, facing an uncertain future, went alone to Paterson's home and proposed buying the ownership of his operating system for $50,000. Paterson was speechless, feeling as if he had fallen from the sky, but he had no idea how much wealth his hard work would generate after being rebranded and sold to IBM. This operating system was DOS, the predecessor of Windows.
On February 24, 1985, Jobs turned 30, but he was horrified to find that no one in the company was willing to offer him a birthday tribute. The Apple Computer Inc., which he had founded with his own hands, had been pushed to the brink of disintegration by himself. He was the one who split Apple into the irreconcilable Macintosh faction and the others, and he was the one who made the despairing co-founder Wozniak want to leave.
In May of the same year, John Sculley, along with Murray McKinney, president of the marketing department, decided Apple's future—removing Jobs from his position. Jobs had fully believed that the board of directors stood on his side, but unexpectedly, the board voted together to officially strip him of his position at Apple. Just as Jobs was leaving, Bill Gates' graphical user interface system was released. Gates retained ownership of the system and actively sold it to various computer manufacturers. This finally placed Gates on the throne of the world's richest person, and its name was—Windows.
