http://heisenbergschemistry.com/2012/06/14/handedness-and-the-one-who-knocks/
http://www.science20.com/chemical_education/chirality_beyond_breaking_bad-96265
Jesse and Walter are mirror opposites of each other. Remember Walter's hs lecture about mirror opposites and chirality? That's he and Jesse. Jesse and Walter are both geniuses, but they took different paths in life, one tuned out education and the other became a teacher. One became Cap'n cook and the other Walter White; however, that got reversed and the other became Jesse Pinkman and the other Heisenberg. One is the left hand and one is the right hand. He also sees Jesse as his only successful student, and the meth business as his only successful endeavor. Walter always had grand plans for himself, hence, Gray Matter technologies. His career as a chemistry teacher was also probably fueled by hubris: "Gee, I'm a genius. If I were to teach hs chemistry, I'd probably be the greatest teacher ever and produce brilliant students and that could be my great contribution to humanity.". Fail.
After Gray Matter became a success without him, he knew he'd never be able to top it, so he found a new challenge with teaching, but he failed and all he had left was the car wash, which serves as an ironic device and more chirality, because he has has two jobs that are the opposite of each other, one making things clean, and the other making things dirty. Were he to kill Jesse, he would be killing one of his only two successes in life, the other being the meth empire, which he never killed, he just "changed" it into barrels of money. Funny, he was also trying to "change" Jesse Pinkman again, into someone else, and get him to leave town...always the chemist.