Learning from Bill Gates & Steve Jobs

It's been almost two years since I wrote this post comparing the approaches to presentation by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Since PowerPoint 2007 has been out quite a while now I wondered if Bill Gates' visuals and delivery have improved along with the software. So I watched this entire Bill Gates presentation recently (twice). Now, I like Bill Gates a lot. He's a nice guy and he's certainly a great philanthropist. My friends at Microsoft tell me he's a pleasure to talk to one-on-one. I'm sure that's true, but mastering the large keynote presentation on stage still eludes him. His keynotes are not terrible, they are just very average and unremarkable. His style is "normal" and "typical" and his presentations are largely unmemorable as a result. Bill Gates is a remarkable man, why can't his presentations be remarkable too? Every time Bill does one of these "PowerPoint presentations" he legitimizes and validates this tedious style of presenting with slides.

I am not suggesting that Bill Gates change his presentation style (though I'd pay my own way to Redmond and work for free to help Bill with his next presentation). He's been doing it "the Microsoft way" for a long time and the world keeps on spinning. The point rather is that you and I cannot present like Bill under any circumstance. I don't care if you are pitching to investors or presenting a paper at a conference filled with stuffy, pedantic anthropologists, there is no excuse for tedium. We can still learn a lot by examining the different approaches taken by Bill and Steve.

Bill needs to be stickier
Remember that the Heath brothers found that sticky messages have six key attributes in common: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. Bill has more credibility than you or I will ever have; he's one of the most famous people on the planet. But his presentations are usually weak in the other five areas. They are rarely simple (though the topics are not overly complex), his visuals are cluttered, he speaks in abstractions with few if any surprises and little emotion (Steve Ballmer, on the other hand, gets high marks for emotion VIDEO).

Bill & Steve redux
You may say that comparing Bill's presentations and Steve's keynotes is apples & oranges, that it's not fair to compare Bill's talk about technology trends to Steve's product introductions. If Bill were talking about the intricacies of insurance premiums and actuary tables, you may have a point. But in this May 16th presentation by Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman is talking about "technology megatrends that will shape the future of business and society." The audience included CEOs from top technology-related companies and the thousands watching on the webcast. There is no reason that this talk about "the future" and "business" and "society" had to be a bullet-point filled snoozer. (See more presentations by Bill Gates.)

Bill's "voice" vs. Steve's "voice"
Steve's tone, pace, and the words he chooses all come together to make his "voice" conversational and natural. Steve appears comfortable, smiles, and uses humor just the right amount. He's relaxed so the audience is relaxed. Bill appears less comfortable and his speech is more vague and filled with abstractions. Bill also uses more jargon and terms like "...rich capabilities," "rich fonts," "...working together in a rich way," "...use these tools in a rich way," and "...watching something rich like learning about an election." (See the rich transcripts of Bill's May 16th CEO Summit 2007. Watch the webcast of Bill's presentation.)

Bill's slides vs. Steve's slides
Both Steve and Bill use slides to complement their talks. Steve's visuals are a big part of his talk. The visuals are necessary not decorative. The visuals do not overpower him but they are an important component of the talk not just icing on the cake. Steve uses the slides to help him tell a story and he interacts with them in a natural way, rarely turning his back on the audience (monitors in front show the same onscreen image). Steve uses the huge backlit screen behind him in the same spirit at least that George Lucas uses his screen: to help tell a story. Lucas uses actors, visuals, and effects to convey his message, Steve uses visuals and his own words and natural presence to tell his story. In Bill's case the slides are not only of low aesthetic quality (though this may be a matter of taste) they simply do not really help Bill's narrative very much.

It's not the slides, it's the way they are used
But the biggest difference is not the fact that Steve's slides are simpler with fewer elements and fewer bullet points, the biggest difference is in the way they are used. If you want to appreciate the difference you have to watch both presentations (Steve, Bill). The difference is that Steve's slides flow smoothly with his talk. Bill's slides aren't really necessary; they are more of an ornament or a decoration off to the side. Bill would have been better off just pulling up a stool and sharing his ideas and then answering questions that audience members could have submitted before the talk so that Bill could select which ones he'd answer.

Bill's slides
Below are most of the slides Bill used in his CEO Summit presentation.

Steve's slides
Below are just a few (Steve uses far more slides) of the slides Steve used in his August Special Event keynote on the Apple campus (watch video).



 

If your ideas matter
Bill's topic/subtopic bullet point style is very common, very bland, and rarely effective. He can get away with it, but you and I can't. I am not saying that solid presentation skills will make you successful, but do not dismiss remarkable presentation skills as something soft, fluffy, and superfluous. Why aim to be successful in spite of your presentation skills? Why not allow your presentation skills to be an advantage that helps you make a difference and spread the word about your cause? If your ideas matter, then the presentation matters, right? You don't have to use slideware for every presentation, but if you do the visuals should seem part of "the show" not something "over there" off to the side.

Looking for a photo of Bill
Speaking of Bill Gates, if anyone owns the rights to a high-rez image of Bill Gates presenting at Live or CES, etc. I am still looking to get a Bill Gates image for the book. (There are some good CC ones on Flickr, but my email inquiries seeking permissions have been met with silence--I suspect people rarely check their Flickr email?) If you have an image that you took and would like to share please send me a note here with your terms and conditions. Much appreciated!

Comments

[Luis Villa]

alludes->eludes.

I'm pedantic only because I love the blog... :)

[Thomas]

"apples & oranges"... pun intended? :D

[Garr]

eludes.

Do'h! Thanks Luis! :-)

[Garr]

> "apples & oranges"... pun intended? :D

Yep, you got me Thomas :-)

[Michael Sporer]

To me, the most compelling part of Steve's presentation was the side view of a PC vs. the same view of the iMac. The pics stand on their own merits. In my school's graphics lab, we have 2 rows of PC's right next to 2 rows of iMacs. The difference is astounding.

[Chris]

I looked forward to seeing how Keynote-esque PowerPoint 2007 would become. After all, Keynote left PowerPoint in the dust visually since version 1. I was disappointed to say the least. You have a few new features I find helpful (the layers management is a huge plus), but I find the ribbon interface annoying and confusing, and visually PowerPoint is still way, way behind Keynote. Just comparing the themes in Keynote to the themes in PowerPoint show that Apple is operating in an entirely different league. And the layout tools in Keynote are vastly superior.

Steve Jobs was right when he said, many years ago, "The problem is that Microsoft just has no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way." And it's so true - their culture just isn't focused on design and elegant simplicity, and Gates' slides illustrate this point perfectly.

Sadly an e-learning publishing tool I use is PowerPoint only, otherwise I'd use Keynote for all my work. Thank heavens for Parallels/Fusion.

[Stefan Constantinescu]

I'm sorry, but I enjoy a Bill speech as much as I enjoy a Jobs speech. There is no problem AT ALL with these two styles being different.

I love Bill's "rich" vocabulary and at the same time enjoy Steve's marketing style.

I don't think you did these two men justice by not talking about their background. Jobs is not and never was an engineer, Gates never was a marketeer.

Marketeers don't like engineers because they use jargon and likewise engineers don't like marketers because of their vague vocabulary that says absolutely nothing.

[BE]

Both speakers and presentations are quite good. But I think the comparison is a bit unfair. It is indeed as comparing apples and oranges; both are superb, but distinctively different. A fair comparison would be to ask what kind of slides and presentation Jobs would have chosen if he had to deal with the same topic as Gates. May be the slides would not have been that different after all.

Let me also add that "Presentation Zen" is great! Always something to learn. At the same time I must admit that I still find the bulletpoint-presentation useful, especially when I only have an hour or two to prepare a lecture, and the content/substance is much more important than the design/package.

[Robin Wauters]

Great post. I worked for a tech mag when he introduced Windows Vista in Brussels to an audience of MS partners and developers.

We recorded the whole thing, it still gets many views on YouTube, and he gets flamed a lot in comments too:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JDfRvcjBQlM

[Faysal Sekkouah]

A very interesting observation about Steve Jobs' signature black, blue & white wardrobe:

Ever notice how the Black, blue & white slide backgrounds blend with his clothes?

Genius design strategy?

Thanks for the superb & inspiring blog. Really looking forward to your book. We're also publishing a presentation book soon in the Korean market - very small focus on visuals though.

[Chris]

"Why not allow your presentation skills to be an advantage that helps you make a difference and spread the word about your cause?"

Amen, brother. I just attended a presentation last week: powerful 21st century ideas, really lame 20th century presentation.

[Diego]

I agree with Chris about the difference between engineer and marketeer style. The slides here are a perfect example of this. The amount of info in Bill's slide is huge compared to those of Steve's. In Bill's slides I can see many products and a strategy for the future, plus some analysis of the marketplace. In Steve slide I can see one single product, and one key feature of it.

So, we have speeches that are either very low or very high on the info the present. They are not comparable directly and they serve different purposes. If you talk to developers, so certainly want to be high on info and complexity, as developers like to push their brains. If you talk to iSheps, you probably want to stay as low on info as possible, and let people fill the blanks with whatever they like.

[Baby Milo]

Very interesting comparison of the two speakers.

[chguy]

Garr -

Looks like you are on Wall Street Journal. A blog there has quoted your article and agrees with your sentiment

Great going

Kiran

[Esko Mulder]

I guess Gates never wanted to be great presenter, he was, after all, a nerd with passion to computers, not humans.

As a reminder to all blog readers, I would like to point that not everyone has passion to presentations (as we do!). CEO still have to do them, because they are... after all CEOs.

Great example and writing anyway!

[Toru]

Garr,
your posts are on the Japanese net news "ZDNet Japan" as a news.

http://japan.zdnet.com/news/itm/story/0,2000056188,20357670,00.htm

This article are just a short summery of this post. I hope they'll posts more of your articles for Japanese readers...

[RedRat]

I have seen Gates being interviewed and he has the same problem there! He sounds tedious even when discussing his philanthropic works. His wife, Melinda, is far more articulate and forceful.

Between Gates and Jobs, my guess is that Gates is probably the most intelligent of the two. It may well be that too much intelligence gets in the way of a presentation that is interesting and informative. I remember in my old college days of taking organic chemistry, my prof was terrible, he could not bring himself to generalize. Every time he tried to do that, he would follow up with 20 exception. From a pedagogical standpoint, he sacrificed accuracy for precision (or is it the other way?). The same with Gates, too much information may be getting in his way.

[Tom Kuhlmann]

Like always, your posts are informative and rich in examples. The only thing I'd add is that sometimes people want bullet points and the type of look you see in Gates' presentation.

Personally, I prefer the way Jobs does it, but there are many times I hear people complain that they can't get the info from the slides.

I think the key is that there are some great ways to present and create presentations, but many times it's not an either or as much as it is what works best for the audience and presenter. Jobs's slides really fit his style. Perhaps Gates might feel like the Jobs style slides don't fit the way he presents.

[Karen Anderson]

Commenting simply on the slides themselves: The Microsoft slides are ghastly. There is not a graphic design instructor on the planet who would be willing to admit to having a student who designed those slides. And I don't think it's a matter of trendiness or taste -- the Microsoft slides are visually distracting, confusing, and even... depressing.

I don't think you need to compare Gates' slides to Jobs' presentations to come to that conclusion. At a recent Web Trends conference I attended in Seattle, a Microsoft VP's slides were noticeably less attractive and less effective than those of speakers from several other, much smaller, companies. It really does make you wonder.

[N. Gonzalez]

"Jobs is not and never was an engineer, Gates never was a marketeer.

Marketeers don't like engineers because they use jargon and likewise engineers don't like marketers because of their vague vocabulary that says absolutely nothing."

Steve Jobs doesn't market anything. He shares his excitement about great products. I'm not sure what Gates is up to but he isn't conveying passion for what his company is producing.

And I can assure you that Steve's technical knowledge is formidable. His ability to refine feature sets, keep product development focused, and rally engineers to do great work is evident in the products that come out of Apple. If all it took was a group of engineers cranking out code or HW more companies would be doing it. Clearly knowing what to build is as important as knowing how to build it.

[G. Blanston]

Why are you picking on anthropologists? What anthropologists have you known? At my university, for example, the anthropology classes are among the most popular, usually having higher enrollment numbers than business classes. Hardly stuffy, it would seem. It seems the key is to make information/data available in a more interesting and user-friendly way without sacrificing the importance of the message. Knowing your audience is important as well; thus being pedantic would probably be a good thing at an anthropology conference.

[Garr]

Of course. What I said was there is never an excuse for tedium. There are no boring topics.

[Dan L]

Presentation Zen,

Just want to shout out a thanks. I am a pastor of students and your thoughts and ideas are helping me be a more effective communicator to the students that I get the privilege to teach each Sunday morning.

Thanks!

[M Crawford]

Is it just me or do other people find those shiny-happy-people corporate stock photos on a brown background somewhat ... well ... nauseating?

[Gerry Quach]

Diego, you are missing the point. The whole idea is that you don't try to cram an entire encyclopedia onto a single slide. You are supposed to keep the slides clean and simple -- the slide is there for enhancement and support only, the real star of the show is the speaker, i.e. you.

Steve Jobs' presentations pack just as much information and detail as Bill Gates' ones do, it's just that he does it without using overly complicated and confusing slides.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs' presentations are entirely comparable.

Presentation slides are not meant to be filled with dozens of sentences and diagrams to be read verbatim word-by-word by the speaker -- yet many people still fail to grasp this simple nugget of wisdom.