Steve Wozniak knows the importance of communication, especially when it comes to building a business. After all, he co-founded Apple with one of the tech world’s all-time great marketers and communicators: Steve Jobs.
Jobs has long been considered a “genius” at marketing and selling Apple products, most of which were designed and engineered by Wozniak during the company’s early days. But in a recent talk with CNBC, Wozniak said that his close partner is not always a marketing and communication expert. And those were skills Jobs had to develop on his own to make up for not being a particularly skilled computer engineer himself.
“He learned a lot of marketing principles because he wasn’t really capable, technically, you know, like computer hardware and software.”Wozniak talks about Jobs. “He has to find other areas to make himself important.”
Last year, on the online reality show “Unicorn Hunters,” Wozniak and others evaluated investment offers from tech startup founders. But Wozniak has said that he is sometimes “surprised” by how ineffective communication is for some entrepreneurs.
He said: “We’ve seen a lot of sales pitches that are crude and stammering, they lose their ego, and that doesn’t help when you’re convincing investors.”
Steve Wozniak
Last year, Wozniak noted that when the two founded Apple, “Jobs’ personality changed from being a fun-loving friend to someone serious about building a world-changing company”. Wozniak also says that a big part of that transition was that he watched Jobs “develop his communication skills.”
“Be the primary communicator and the main business decision of everything. He’s very good at it.” Wozniak said.
Wozniak says that Jobs’ communication and sales skills helped Apple successfully market user-friendly products like the iPhone. Wozniak says: “You have an easy-to-understand technology product in your hand and the average person won’t be confused by it. You don’t have to understand technology to use it.”
This skill ultimately differentiated Jobs from the rest of his generation of contemporaries. In a 2020 interview, Bill Gates said he was “very jealous” of Jobs because he was a person with a natural ability to speak in public. Gates called Jobs a “genius,” especially for his ability to inspire everyone, from customers to employees.
Steve Jobs has top-notch communication and sales skills.
It is possible that Jobs inspired his employees to do great things, because he was a notoriously difficult and demanding boss. Former Apple employee Guy Kawasaki wrote in 2019 that working for Jobs “Sometimes frustrating and always scary, but it has motivated many of us to do the best work of our careers.”
And according to Wozniak, Jobs was not a born communicator. In 2020, Wozniak said in a podcast that Jobs’ relentless, intense efforts to become a successful communicator and leader stemmed from a desire to be remembered as an important historical figure. . And that drive pushed him to develop the right skills for it.
“Sometimes motivation, wanting something, is a lot more important than having actual skill.” Wozniak said.
Refer CNBC