Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, in an extensive interview with Rolling Stones, admitted that his company was also interested in acquiring WhatsApp, which now belongs to Facebook. Gates also praised Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his approach towards WhatsApp.
“Yeah, yeah. Microsoft was willing to buy it, too. . . . I don’t know if it was for $19 billion, but the company’s extremely valuable,” Gates said.
On Zuckerberg
One of the questions asked him “You mentioned Mark Zuckerberg. When you look at what he’s done, do you see some of yourself in him?”
To this, Gates replied affirmatively, and added that they both are Harvard dropouts, and both have aggressive views on what software could do. Gates, further, said that he is impressed with Zuckerberg for designing the user interface of his product. Gates consider Facebook’s CEO more of a product manager than he was. “I’m more of a coder, down in the bowels and the architecture, than he is,” he says. But this does not make much of a difference. “I start with architecture, and Mark starts with products, and Steve Jobs started with aesthetics.”
Gates also credits Zuckerberg for being aggressive with WhatsApp, but he also mentions that the price paid was a bit higher than expected. On being asked about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, he said that he does not admire him.
A lot has changed
On being asked about the change in the computers since Gates started Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and the present time, he replied it is very exciting to witness a time where computers were unheard and , now, when they are required for every activity. “That was the dream that I wanted to make come true, and in a large part it’s unfolded as I’d expected.”
On Office and the other Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) assets, Gates said that these software, which we invented in Nineties, and kept on updating after, have lasted for a long time. And now is the time to tune them up. But that’s pretty exciting for the people inside who say, “We need to take a little risk and do some new stuff.”
