I think that Steve created a culture of artists, and they thought of themselves that way.

And in many ways, Microsoft was a culture of technologists solving technology problems.

And it led to very, very different products, but also very, very different scale, at least until the iPhone came out.

People will say that the circus hardware was the only time Apple

really paid attention to something Microsoft did

and that they really actually thought we had done a good job on the surface hardware,

which was quite the high praise at the time.

Windows is really caught in this conundrum of the value that corporations and enterprises see in Windows

is compatibility. And the levels of compatibility that Windows has are legendary. It was just

sort of speculating what would Apple be like if Steve Jobs were still running it.

In 2007, Bill Gates sat on stage with Steve Jobs at the All Things D conference.

Asked what he saw as the biggest difference between their companies, Gates looked at jobs and said,

I wish we had your taste. It was a rare concession from the most dominant technology company on Earth.

A decade earlier, Apple had nearly gone bankrupt.

Microsoft held the PC market so completely that Apple's share had fallen below 3%.

50 years after its founding, Apple has not only survived,

but reshaped entire categories of computing.

From phones to watches to a $600 laptop, the PC industry cannot match.

The question is how, and whether taste alone explains it.

Steven Sinovsky, board partner at A16Z and former president of the Windows Division at Microsoft, speaks to A16Z research partner, Theo Jaffe.

We have a very special guest. We have Steven Sinovsky, who is a legendary software warrior in the industry.

According to his LinkedIn, he's a board partner at 816Z. He wrote

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