Did you know that in 1997 Steve Jobs used patents to pressure Bill Gates into investing $150 million into Apple, because he believed Apple would go under if Microsoft didn’t have “a stake in our success”.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was no stranger to legal battles involving the patent system. Apple is currently waging war on a number of Android vendors and the company’s former CEO vowed to crush Google’s mobile platform before his untimely passing last year. ”I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple boss. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” But more than a decade before the iPhone even existed, Apple was locked in patent battles with Microsoft that would end up saving the company from the brink of bankruptcy. Read on for more.
Microsoft’s 1997 investment in Apple is now a major bullet point in Apple’s history that is known the world over. As Apple struggled to stay alive, Jobs and his team managed to secure a $150 million investment that ended up helping to keep the company afloat long enough to begin a climb that would eventually see it become the most valuable company in the world.
In 1997 Steve Jobs used patents to pressure Bill Gates into investing $150 million into Apple, because he believed Apple would go under if Microsoft didn't have "a stake in our success".
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