"You're a Woz. You need a Jobs."

http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/the_woz.html

by brett • 19 years ago

8 9 19 years ago

damienkatz.net

brett• 19 years ago

Today I remembered seeing this on reddit after the last round of YC apps.

The reddit comments: http://programming.reddit.com/info/pzaq/comments

ecuzzillo2• 19 years ago

Does every pair of founders consist of a Jobs and a Woz?

Off the top of my head: Apple: Jobs, Woz

(pattern match below)

Viaweb: PG, rtm

Google: Sergey, Larry

Reddit: Alexis, Steve

Paypal: Thiel, Levchin

It seems not uncommon that the Jobs, if this theory is correct, can also hack, unlike Steve Jobs. I don't know for sure of any counterexamples, but I'm also not very sure of the theory.

Edit: GRR! Does this use markdown [now](now.com) too?

Edit 2: Good, it doesn't.

Alex3917• 19 years ago

"Does every pair of founders consist of a Jobs and a Woz?"

I think our school system is very much designed around this idea of "give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man HOW to fish and you'll feed him for the rest of his life."

Almost everything we learn in school is a HOW question. Hacking is a HOW question. To the extent that school focuses on WHAT questions, it's busy work like memorizing the places and dates of historic battles. WHO, WHY, WHEN, and WHERE are barely touched touched on at all, and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of questions that don't fit into this paradigm.

But there are other questions that aren't how questions. They aren't taught in school, which leads some to believe that they aren't important or don't require intelligence or that they don't even exist.

Success in a startup is partly a HOW question, but it's more than just that. After all, the point isn't knowing how to manipulate tools, but rather making something people want.

I think the reason why MBAs (deservedly) get a bad rap is because they don't know how to answer the HOW questions, but they also don't know how to answer any other questions either.

So I'd say it's not really an answer of one hacker and one non-hacker, but rather that both put together cover the full range of human thought.

ecuzzillo2• 19 years ago

Well, my point was more that I could think of a number of examples where one guy did the vast majority of the talking, and no examples (in my very limited knowledge) where the two founders were close to equal.

herdrick• 19 years ago

From what I understand, Jobs could hack, too. It's only standing next to Steve Wozniak that makes him seem unhackerly.

Constantine• 19 years ago

Well he is right of course, Woz needs a Jobs, or at least someone who is significantly part Jobs to get anywhere, designing cool things is definitely an enviable ability, but without someone to focus that ability you have the worlds smartest garbage man.

far33d• 19 years ago

looking at the "product" page, it looks like he could still use a jobs. or at least a description of what the problem he's solving is.

zkinion• 19 years ago

"Business" is almost always about how you present yourself/your ideas. Jobs is a genius at presentation. I thought I was great at presentation,

It's helpful to think ahead and prepare multiple pitches, including the elevator pitch, the casual pitch, and a full blown presentation, including difficult questions that will probably rise up. Some questions will be difficult, and are more of a test of the presenter than the actual idea. This shows the amount of thought and foresight a presenter puts into the plan, as well as the dedication.

fireandfury• 19 years ago

Yeah Woz and Jobs were a great combo. It amazes me how well they matched.

It seems harder to identify a good "Jobs" type person. Good presentation skills... Couldn't you just get a smooth talking MBA type? An MBA that is good with technology? A smooth talking engineer with an MBA?

"You're a Woz. You need a Jobs."

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