Bill Gates revealed the details of an intimate letter this week that he sent to Steve Jobs shortly before the Apple co-founder passed away in October. In an interview with The Telegraph, Gates says he learned of Jobs' medical condition and wrote him a letter, one that Jobs later kept by his bed. "I told Steve about how he should feel great about what he had done and the company he had built," said Gates, discussing Jobs' children in the letter too. He also dismissed Jobs' critical comments about him in the recent Steve Jobs biography:

"He spent a lot of his time competing with me. There are lots of times when Steve said [critical] things about me. If you took the more harsh examples, you could get quite a litany."

Gates describes Jobs as an "incredible genius" and praised his work on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, in spite of his own work at Microsoft. "We made great products," said Gates. "It’s quite an achievement, and we enjoyed each [other’s work].” Despite the obvious competition, it's clear there was a great amount of mutual respect between the pair — something that Jobs' wife claimed was not portrayed in his biography. "We were not at war," says Gates. "Competition was always a positive thing."