Notable tech writer Walt Mossberg is going to retire soon. As a last celebration before his retirement, he showed up in front of an audience at Vox Media’s Code Conference on Wednesday and described stories about Steve Job and Bill Gates.

Mossberg was met by previous improv comic and previous Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (presently CEO of his stealth startup Chorus), who was hysterical.

Mossberg rose to popularity and fortune through his Personal Tech segment for The Wall Street Journal, where he made technology easier to understand for the normal individual. Throughout the years, he evaluated numerous a PC and gadget from Apple and from Microsoft. Also, en route, he got manys a post-section personal telephone calls from Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

Costolo coaxed out a few stories about Jobs and Gates from Mossberg in front of an audience Wednesday. For example, there was a point in the late 1990s, just before Jobs returned to lead Apple, that Apple was 90 days from insolvency and was in talks to pitch itself to Sun Microsystems.

Mossberg composed a section that he portrayed as a “obituary for Apple.” In it, he said that Gates had outfoxed Jobs, and that despite the fact that “Steve made rock jumps in tech, Bill was a superior business fellow.”

Sure enough, the morning after the section distributed, Mossberg got a telephone call from Gates. He was angry.

“I’m just a business guy?” Gates said, according to Mossberg. “I’m sick and tired of Steve being the tech guy and I’m the business guy.”

It turns out, this was a trademark both tech head honchos had in common: neither one of them took criticism very well, even minor critiques, as per the stories Mossberg told about them.

Mossberg said Jobs additionally used to call him after he had looked into Apple items.

“I’m not calling to complain about the column,” Jobs would say, according to Mossberg. But “then he’d complain about the column,” Mossberg said.

Regardless of the amount Mossberg raved around an Apple item, and suggested individuals get it, when Mossberg brought up its downsides (which he accomplished for each item), it appeared to irritate Jobs.

“I think this is unreasonable,” Jobs would inform him concerning the things the section evaluated, Mossberg said.

All things considered, after some time they appeared to tune in, Mossberg said. “The tech business got the notice,” he stated, and began making their items something normal individuals could all the more effortlessly figure out how to utilize.

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