12 Amazing Lessons from Steve Jobs to Guy Kawasaki: My Summary from TEDxUCSD Keynote

Steve jobs and Guy Kawasaki: Am a big fan of both of them, not because they were successful, but for simplicity and depth they had in everything they did in life.

Guy Kawasaki also claims to be one of the only people to work for Steve Jobs twice and survive. He acknowledges that working for Steve Jobs was not easy, but also says it was one of the best experiences of his life.

I stumbled upon this YouTube video where GK was scheduled to give a speech on the topic of 'enchanting customers' at Silicon Valley Bank's CEO Summit. Moved by Jobs' passing, Guy changed his speech at the last minute to '12 Lessons I Learned From Steve Jobs that Can Be Applied to Entrepreneurs'. The speech is just under half an hour in length. I want summarize the main points here, hope it helps

1. Experts are clueless

A-Listers, analysts, gurus--they cannot help you as entrepreneurs. Whether it's one person's opinion or many, in the end it's just that--an opinion. As Guy puts it: "Steve Jobs did not listen to experts. Quite the contrary; experts listened to him."

"As an entrepreneur, you're gonna have to figure things out for yourself. Don't rely on others."

2. Customers cannot tell you what they need.

“You can ask customers how to evolve something … but they cannot tell you how to leap,”

If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can only describe their desires in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said they wanted was better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machines.

3. Biggest challenges beget the best work.

 But you can't deny the fact that solving their problems makes you better. Jobs was notorious for his attention to detail and excellence. This was a huge challenge for those working with him, but it also brought out their best.

Lesson: Challenge your team, and don't back down from challenges extended to you. You may even be surprised of what you're capable of.

4. Design counts.

Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionist—a perfectionist Beyond: Thunderdome—and lo and behold he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.

No one wants a black plastic laptop, they are oppressed to have it, if they had a chance, they'd go for Macbook Air :)

5. The action is on the next curve:

Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?

Think of how the ipod replaced the Walkman. Or how iPhone replaced Blackberry. Or how the iPad replaced...

What did we even use before the iPad?

Great innovation occurs when entrepreneurs try to jump the curve.

If all of the ice harvesters stuck to their job, no one would gone towards the factories, and the refrigerators, you'd always have to go beyond your existing curve to make the REAL change.

 6. Big graphics. Big font. 

"This is the key to pitching. Just do this, and you'll be better than 90% of the people using PowerPoint."

It’s probably contrary to most of your PowerPoint presentations. You’re 8, 10 or 12, right? And you’re going to read your slide and you’re going to put up a competitive matrix and there is going to be your column and your competitor’s column and guess what your column is going to be completely checked off and your competitor’s column is going to full of holes. And that’s going to be in a 8 point font and no one can read it.

7. "Work" or "Doesn't Work" is all that matters.

In future speeches, Guy changed this point to: Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence.

When iPhone first came out, third party apps were not permitted. Security was a major issue, so was quality of experience, etc. In essence, Apple said: 'We're doing this for your own good'.

Six months later, Apple reversed its position completely and opened up the iPhone for developers. How do you think that turned out for them?

Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari web apps to “there’s an app for that.”

Lesson: Be flexible when needed.

8. "Value" is NOT equal to "price".

Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.

Companies like Apple, McKinsey, and Mercedes are built on the premise that customers will pay a high price for high quality.

So ask yourself: What is the perception of value for my company's product or service?

9. A players hire A+ players.

it’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.

Lesson: Hire the best. If possible, hire people who are better than you.

10. Real CEOs DEMO

Steve Jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone, and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon their vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe.

It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?

11. Real entrepreneurs, SHIP

For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?

12. Some things need to be believed to be seen. 

When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition.

People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s okay. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds.

Heres the YouTube Link: