People tend to idolize Steve Jobs more than they do Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg is not one of them.

"When I was growing up, Bill Gates was my hero," Zuckerberg said on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Wednesday.

Michael Arrington, on stage interviewing him, responded. "Oh come on! He's like Darth Vader. He not Luke Skywalker. He's the bad guy."

"No he is not," Zuckerberg defended. "Bill Gates ran one of the most mission-driven companies I can think of. Microsoft had a great mission. To put a computer on every desktop and in every home."

He added "There are companies that define themselves by their way of doing things, like the HP Way, and there are companies that define themselves by making a concrete change in the world. Microsoft did that. It was an incredibly inspiring company."

Bill Gates "is one of the greatest visionaries that our industry has ever had," Zuckerberg said.