Bill Gates was just extremely brutal and cold, both in his personal relations and in business practises.
Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs have probably been just as brutal but at least they innovated and created cool stuff. They have/had vision.
MS under Gates was special in that they didn't come up with anything very innovative. MS totally lacked vision. They first killed innovative competitors, then maybe incorporated parts of that innovation after delay. Gates was incredibly knowledgeable and intelligent, but not visionary. Tech was only secondary consideration to business. MS under gates was technologically underwhelming and super dull. After Gates resigned from his position as Chief Technology Officer in MS, Microsoft's as a tech company started to improve almost instantly.
Most people when they think innovation they think in terms of product, not process. From a process pov modern software engineering exists on a planet created by Microsoft. Commercial EULAs, shrink wrap software, platform effects, developers as customers, etc, etc were mostly Microsoft innovations.
Microsoft executed. They executed mostly well and sometimes brilliantly. Because if the processes are good enough for long enough product innovation can be secondary.
Apple eventually became Microsoft and that's how they beat them.
Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs have probably been just as brutal but at least they innovated and created cool stuff. They have/had vision.
MS under Gates was special in that they didn't come up with anything very innovative. MS totally lacked vision. They first killed innovative competitors, then maybe incorporated parts of that innovation after delay. Gates was incredibly knowledgeable and intelligent, but not visionary. Tech was only secondary consideration to business. MS under gates was technologically underwhelming and super dull. After Gates resigned from his position as Chief Technology Officer in MS, Microsoft's as a tech company started to improve almost instantly.