Jobs admired Zuckerberg for ‘not selling out’

Steve Jobs, who mentored Silicon Valley technology leaders in the months before he died, said he admired Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for “not selling out.”

“We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don’t see anybody other than Facebook out there,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson in excerpts of an interview released online by “60 Minutes,” the CBS television show. “Just Facebook, they’re dominating this.” 

“I admire Mark Zuckerberg,” Jobs said of Facebook’s chief executive officer on the recording. “I only know him a little bit, but I admire him for not selling out, for wanting to make a company. I admire that, a lot.”

Jobs, who co-founded Apple Inc. and died Oct. 5, told Isaacson his opinions on competitors, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and of his struggles with cancer. The biography, which goes on sale today, was based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs and was previewed on last night’s “60 Minutes.”

Google, which competes with Apple in making operating systems for smartphones, had a lot in common with Microsoft, Jobs said. When Larry Page took over leadership of Google, Jobs told him to simplify the company, according to the book, purchased by Bloomberg.

“Microsoft never had the humanities and the liberal arts in the DNA; it was pure technology company, and they just didn’t get it,” Jobs said. “Google’s the same way. They just don’t get it.”

Jobs, who died at age 56, told Isaacson he sometimes believed in God and sometimes felt life was more like an “on- off switch.”

“Click, and you’re gone,” Jobs said, according to Isaacson. “And that’s why I don’t like putting on-off switches on Apple devices.”