The rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates famously drove the computer revolution, and the two frienemies and titans of industry apparently maintained a bond until the very end. According to the Telegraph, Jobs kept a letter that Gates sent him by his bed before finally succumbing to Cancer last October.
Jobs had harsh words for Gates over the years, publicly ridiculing him as unimaginative and tasteless. Gates, for his part, looked down on Jobs for lacking technical gifts and consistently dismissed Apple products as frivolous and misguided (usually just before copying them). But as Jobs's condition worsened, Gates says the lighter side of their relationship came to the fore.
“Steve and I did an event together, and he couldn’t have been nicer…I got a fair bit of time with him in his last year," Gates said. The Microsoft founder said he visited Jobs at his Palo Alto home.
"We spent literally hours reminiscing and talking about the future.” After the visit, Gates wrote his old rival a letter, which Jobs's wife Laurene says he kept by his bed.
“I told Steve about how he should feel great about what he had done and the company he had built. I wrote about his kids, whom I had got to know,” he said.
Gates and Jobs were the same age and worked together as partners before Microsoft became Apple's biggest competitor in the late '80s and '90s.
