Steve Wozniak Knows the importance of communication, especially when building a business. After all, he co-founded Apple with one of the tech world’s greatest contacts and marketers of all time: Steve Jobs.
The late Jobs was always advertised as “genius” For a method of marketing and selling Apple products, which was designed and built by Wozniak in the company’s early days. But Wozniak says CNBC Make It That his partner wasn’t always an expert in marketing and communications—those were skills that Jobs had to develop to compensate for not being a particularly skilled computer engineer.
“He learned a lot of marketing principles because he wasn’t really capable of, you know, engineering computers [and] “Software,” says Wozniak of Jobs. “He had to find other areas to make himself important.”
Last year, Wozniak began appearing on the online reality show “Unicorn Hunters,” side by side Former US Treasury Secretary Rosie Rios And singer Lance Bass and others. At the presentation, he and other judges made on-field investment bids from founders of tech startups, and Wozniak says he is “sometimes surprised” at the ineffectiveness of some entrepreneurs’ outreach.
“We’ve seen a lot of presentations that have been kind of rough and come off, and they’ve been kind of losing themselves, which doesn’t help when you’re pitching to investors,” he says.
Of course, you may have spoiled Wozniak after spending years working with Jobs. Last year, Wozniak pointed That when the two men founded Apple, Jobs’ “persona” changed from a fun-loving friend to someone who is serious about building a world-changing company. Wozniak now says an important part of that shift has been watching Jobs “develop his communications.” [skills]. “
“Being the main communicator and the main commercial decider of things. He was very good [that]’ says Wozniak.
Wozniak says Jobs’ skills as a communicator and salesperson helped Apple market products like the iPhone as easy to use. A smartphone, Wozniak says, was something that applied to Jobs’ life: “A tech-savvy product in your hand that the average person wouldn’t get confused about. You didn’t have to know technology. [to use it]. “
This skill ended up separating Jobs from the rest of his generation of tech icons. In a 2020 interview, Bill Gates said he was ‘very jealous’ of jobs to appear as such as a natural public speaker. Gates called Jobs a “genius,” especially in terms of the way he can inspire people – from customers to his employees.
But according to Wozniak, that wasn’t actually normal. In 2020, Wozniak told the Distinguished Guy Kawasaki podcast that Jobs’ intense and unrelenting drive to become a leader and successful communicator came from his desire to eventually be remembered as a significant historical figure — and that drive led him to develop the right one. the necessary skills for this.
“Sometimes motivation, wanting something, is much more important than having real skill,” Wozniak said.
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