# Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs: Who Is Better? Born 1955, 12 Lists
> Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, both born in 1955, on 12 rankings: tech CEOs, billionaires, commencement speeches, Seattle and the most overrated tech legend.
*By YPB Team · Published October 30, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/bill-gates-vs-steve-jobs-ranked*
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Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5: All Things Digital, 2007. Photo: Joi Ito, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born eight months apart, and for three decades every quarrel about personal computers came back to the two of them. Gates turned 71 on 28 October.1 Jobs died fifteen years ago this month, on 5 October 2011, and Tim Cook broke the news to Apple staff by email.2
The photo above is from their joint interview at the D5 conference in May 2007. Twelve rankings pair them up again, sometimes face to face and sometimes beside a name that dwarfs them both.
> Gates collects the lists that count reach, money and giving; Jobs collects the ones that count taste and the stage; the lists that ought to settle it belong to a third man.
## Bill Gates vs John D. Rockefeller: the greatest entrepreneur
The greatest entrepreneurs of all time is a 17-name ranking with both founders on it. Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Sam Walton and Akio Morita fill out the field.
Gates co-founded Microsoft with his school friend Paul Allen in 1975.3 Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple the following year, and Jobs had to found it twice in effect, after the board pushed him out in 1985.
John D. Rockefeller is the hardest name in the field for either of them. Standard Oil set the pattern for the giant industrial corporation before electricity reached most American homes.
Silicon Valley has a reply. Rockefeller's empire was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911, while Microsoft and Apple are both still selling the products their founders started.
Gates, Jobs and the oil baron who came first. Play it →
## Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates: the greatest tech CEO
Of the twelve, the tech CEO ranking was built for a straight head-to-head. Twenty chief executives are on it, including Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, Lisa Su, Andy Grove and Morris Chang.
Jobs's case rests on the second act. He came back to a struggling Apple in 1997 and ran it until shortly before his death, the stretch that produced the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.
Gates's case starts with one of the strangest deals in the business. At Macworld Boston in August 1997, with Jobs on stage, Microsoft announced a $150 million investment in Apple and a commitment to keep shipping Office for the Mac.4 The rival paid to keep the rival alive.
Nadella is the modern complication. The CEO who turned Microsoft toward the cloud has a claim that the man who founded the company never had to make.
The plain matchup: one founder against the other. Play it →
## Computing history: Alan Turing vs Bill Gates
A 14-name ranking of computing's most influential people sets the two founders against the scientists. Claude Shannon, Dennis Ritchie, Grace Hopper, Linus Torvalds, Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing are among them.
Gates has reach on his side. On 24 August 1995 Microsoft launched Windows 95 near Seattle with what PBS called the biggest, noisiest product launch in the history of the personal computer, part of a plan to put his software on every PC in the world.5
Jobs has the design case and an awkward neighbour. Steve Wozniak is in the same field, and he is the one who showed the prototype Apple-1 at the Homebrew Computer Club in 1976; buyers paid $666.66 for the board.6
Turing wrote the theory every machine on the list runs on. Neither founder can say that.
The software king against the man who defined the computer. Play it →
## Warren Buffett, Gates and Jobs: the most famous billionaires
The most famous billionaires in history is a 22-name ranking of fortunes people recognise. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Howard Hughes, J. Paul Getty, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and Taylor Swift are on it.
Gates headed the rich lists for much of the 1990s and 2000s, and his fame now runs the other way: in May 2025 his foundation committed to spending $200 billion over twenty years and set 2045 as the date it closes.7
Jobs is here on a smaller fortune with a stranger shape. A large share came from Pixar, the animation studio he bought from George Lucas and later sold to Disney.
Warren Buffett connects the two stories. He is the investor whose giving flows largely through the Gates Foundation, which makes him the one name on the list that a Gates fan cannot root against.
A Pixar fortune against the Oracle of Omaha. Play it →
## Thomas Edison vs Steve Jobs: America's greatest innovator
The greatest American innovators of all time puts both founders in a 23-name field that starts centuries earlier. Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla and George Washington Carver are all on it.
The government already ruled on this question once. Jobs received the National Medal of Technology at 30, from Ronald Reagan,8 and Gates received the same medal at 37.1
Edison is the problem for both. His Menlo Park laboratory in New Jersey turned invention into a production line, a century before either founder opened a garage.
Wozniak is on this ranking as well. Any Jobs voter has to decide whether the Apple I counts for the man who sold it or the man who built it.
Menlo Park, New Jersey, against Cupertino. Play it →
## Jack Welch, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: the toughest boss
The toughest boss in business history lists 22 people who were hard to work for. Jack Welch, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Anna Wintour, Gordon Ramsay and Andy Grove made the cut.
Jobs is the name most readers expect. The board stripped him of his operating role in 1985 after a fight with John Sculley, and the stories from his return are about abrupt firings and product reviews that ended in a single word.
Gates belongs here more than his later image suggests. The young Microsoft was known for meetings where a weak proposal met open contempt from its founder.
Welch is the professional's pick. At General Electric he cut the weakest managers every year by design, which makes both founders look improvised.
Neutron Jack against Apple's most feared product reviewer. Play it →
## Most overrated tech legend: Steve Jobs vs Elon Musk
Of all twelve rankings, the most overrated tech legend is the only one built to take people down. It holds 35 names, from Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla to Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Jobs draws the familiar charge. Critics say Wozniak designed the early hardware and that thousands of engineers built the products Jobs presented.
Gates has a charge sheet written by Jobs himself. In a 1995 interview filmed for PBS, Jobs said: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste."5
Elon Musk is the current version of the same complaint. He came to Tesla as an investor after it was founded, and the list asks how much of any founder legend is the founder.
The unkind list, and both founders are on it. Play it →
## Stanford 2005 vs Harvard 2007: Jobs and Gates at commencement
The greatest commencement speeches of all time is a 23-speech ranking, and two of the entries are this rivalry. Jobs spoke at Stanford in June 2005; Gates spoke at Harvard two years later.
Gates opened at Harvard by telling his father he had finally come back for the degree, more than thirty years late. He called himself "Harvard's most successful dropout", then turned the address to global inequality.9
Jobs built the Stanford speech from three stories: dropping out of Reed, getting fired from Apple, and a cancer diagnosis. His sign-off came from the back cover of a counterculture catalogue he read as a teenager.
David Foster Wallace gave "This Is Water" at Kenyon in the same spring as Jobs, and J.K. Rowling, William McRaven and Chadwick Boseman are also on the ballot.
Two speeches from spring 2005. Play it →
## Dolly Parton vs Bill Gates: the most generous celebrity
The most generous celebrities of all time is a 15-name ranking of entertainers, athletes and one software founder. MrBeast, Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Keanu Reeves, Taylor Swift and Paul Newman are the competition.
Gates is here for the foundation he set up with Melinda French Gates in 2000. In 2016 Barack Obama awarded both of them the Medal of Freedom for that work.10
Steve Jobs is absent. He received the same medal from Joe Biden in 2022, posthumously, for his inventions and his role at Pixar and Disney.11 Same award, different citation, and this list only counts one kind.
Dolly Parton is the opponent nobody out-gives on goodwill. Her Imagination Library sends a free book every month to young children enrolled in it.
Jobs has no entry here. Play it →
## Tim Berners-Lee, Gates and Jobs: the class of 1955
The most influential people born in 1955 is a 23-name ranking of one birth year. Jobs was born on 24 February8 and Gates on 28 October.
The third computing name from that year is the one who gave the other two a network to sell into. Tim Berners-Lee was born in London on 8 June 1955,12 and he invented the World Wide Web without patenting it.
The rest of the class is a surprise. Eric Schmidt, who later ran Google, shares the year, and so do Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Van Halen, Rowan Atkinson, John Grisham and Alain Prost.
Three computing names, one birth year. Play it →
## Pirates of Silicon Valley: Anthony Michael Hall vs Noah Wyle
The best performances as real business founders is a 19-name ranking of actors playing the people who started companies. Four of the entries are Gates or Jobs.
Pirates of Silicon Valley, the 1999 TNT film, cast Noah Wyle as Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Gates.
Jobs has been played more often since. Ashton Kutcher took the role in Jobs in 2013 and Michael Fassbender in Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs two years later. Gates has never had a second biopic.
The other founders set a high bar. Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Keaton's Ray Kroc and Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes are all on the list.
The 1999 TV film that staged the rivalry first. Play it →
## Jimi Hendrix vs Bill Gates: the greatest person from Seattle
The greatest people from Seattle is a 20-name ranking, and only one of this article's two founders qualifies. Gates was born in the city and went to Lakeside School, where he met Paul Allen, who also made this ranking.
Jobs was born in San Francisco. Seattle belongs to Gates alone.
Jimi Hendrix is the natural favourite, with Quincy Jones and Chris Cornell behind him.
Home turf, and Jobs is not invited. Play it →
## Gates and Jobs: two scorecards that never merge
Count what each man left behind and the split is clean. Gates left software on most of the world's desks and a foundation with a closing date; Jobs left objects people still photograph and a speech graduates still quote.
The most useful rankings here are the ones that seat a scientist, an inventor or a guitarist beside them. Each is built from [head-to-head matchups](/articles/how-head-to-head-voting-works), where a codebreaker and a billionaire meet on equal terms.
If your own shortlist of founders has a name these twelve missed, build a ranking around it.
## More rankings, more angles
- [Steve Jobs Among the Greatest Entrepreneurs of All Time: 14 Lists](/articles/steve-jobs-ranked-many-ways) — Jobs alone, from the garage to the turtleneck
- [Apple vs Samsung Compared: 14 Categories, 14 Arguments](/articles/apple-vs-samsung-ranked) — the company Jobs built, against its phone rival
- [Tesla vs Edison: Who Was the Better Inventor? 13 Lists](/articles/tesla-vs-edison-ranked) — the older American rivalry over who built the future
Sources
National Science and Technology Medals Foundation — Bill Gates laureate page: born 28 October 1955, National Medal of Technology at age 37: nationalmedals.org (checked 2026-10-30)
Apple Newsroom — Tim Cook's email to employees on the death of Steve Jobs, 5 October 2011: apple.com (checked 2026-10-30)
Microsoft — 50 years of Microsoft timeline, 1975 founding by Bill Gates and Paul Allen: news.microsoft.com (checked 2026-10-30)
Microsoft — Microsoft and Apple announcement at Macworld Boston, including the $150 million investment, 6 August 1997: news.microsoft.com (checked 2026-10-30)
PBS — Triumph of the Nerds, part 3 transcript: the Windows 95 launch of 24 August 1995 and Steve Jobs on Microsoft's taste: pbs.org (checked 2026-10-30)
Computer History Museum — Revolution exhibition, the Apple-1 at the Homebrew Computer Club, 1976: computerhistory.org (checked 2026-10-30)
Gates Foundation — press release on the $200 billion, twenty-year spend-down and 2045 closing date, 8 May 2025: gatesfoundation.org (checked 2026-10-30)
National Science and Technology Medals Foundation — Steve Jobs laureate page: born 24 February 1955, National Medal of Technology at age 30 from Ronald Reagan: nationalmedals.org (checked 2026-10-30)
Harvard Gazette — remarks of Bill Gates at Harvard Commencement, 7 June 2007: news.harvard.edu (checked 2026-10-30)
The White House (Obama archive) — 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, including Bill and Melinda Gates: obamawhitehouse.archives.gov (checked 2026-10-30)
The White House (Biden archive) — 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, including Steve Jobs (posthumous): bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov (checked 2026-10-30)
W3C — Tim Berners-Lee biography: born in London, 8 June 1955: w3.org (checked 2026-10-30)
