Gates, Jobs make rare joint appearance

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Legendary technology rivals Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made a rare joint appearance Wednesday and wasted no time making nice.

“Bill built the first software company in the industry,” said Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. “Bill focused on software before anyone.”

Gates, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, hailed Jobs for taking big risks and developing products with “incredible taste and elegance.”

“What Steve has done is quite phenomenal,” Gates said.

That set the tone for a 90-minute chat in which the two computer industry icons fielded questions from Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg and technology reporter Kara Swisher at the newspaper's “D: All Things Digital” conference.

Jobs and Gates reminisced about early days working together in the 1970s, interspersing their views on the current state of technology.

When Swisher asked for the greatest misunderstanding about their relationship, Jobs joked: “We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade now.”