An Interview With Steve Wozniak

A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for more than 30 years, Steve Wozniak has helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple’s first line of products, the Apple I and II, and influenced the popular Macintosh. Today, he’s here with us at Leadercast Live 2016.

Steve Wozniak Interview

How do you translate vision into action and making it happen? This happened almost accidentally. It wasn’t a vision of where computers would go. But of what computers would help us do.

There was a practical way he began to translate his vision. Here is what he did to translate vision to action:

Build it

Show it off

Give it away

What’s your leadership style? Steve tries to show off his techniques. He brought his designs and ideas and show them how to do it.

You also lead by praising and encouraging those you’re leading.

What’s the hardest thing about being a startup? You have a great idea. You don’t know if it will actually sell.

The hardest thing is dealing with the anxiety. Can you get the attention of people?

That could be the hardest thing about a startup.

What is it that is on the technology horizon? You never know for sure. Think about 3D televisions.

That seemed like the next big thing.

Right now, we have virtual reality coming out. Trying out virtual reality, shows you how real it can be.

How do we encourage people to unplug from technology? He doesn’t necessarily have the answer.

We tend to look at all the negatives. What happens if we look at the positives?

We moved from face to face interactions, reading paper newspapers to these interactions being on the screen or meeting with new people we would never have been able to.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

How do you know if you’ve had a great day? Feelings… His formula for life was that life is based on happiness and feelings.

H = S – F or Happiness equals smiles minus frowns.

So, the more you smile, the less you frown, the more happiness you have.

Another equation Steve lives by is H = F³ or Happiness equals Food, Fun, and Friends.

If there’s one piece of advice on to be a better leader, what would it be? It boils down to honesty.

Be open to ways of doing things differently. Be honest and willing to admit there are better ways.

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