The strange love-hate relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs never quite got along.

Over the course of 30-plus years, the two went from cautious allies to bitter rivals to something almost approaching friends — sometimes, they were all three at the same time.

It seems unlikely that Apple would be where it is today without Microsoft, or Microsoft without Apple.

Here's the history of the bizarre relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, as told by the Walter Isaacson biography of Jobs and other sources.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs weren't always enemies — Microsoft made software early on for the mega-popular Apple II PC, and Gates would routinely fly down to Cupertino to see what Apple was working on.

In the early '80s, Jobs flew up to Washington to sell Gates on the possibility of making Microsoft software for the Apple Macintosh computer, with its revolutionary graphical user interface.

Gates wasn't particularly impressed with what he saw as a limited platform — or Jobs' attitude. “It was kind of a weird seduction visit where Steve was saying we don’t really need you and we’re doing this great thing, and it’s under the cover. He’s in his Steve Jobs sales mode, but kind of the sales mode that also says, ‘I don’t need you, but I might let you be involved,'" Gates later said.

Source: Fortune