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.

[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.

[Robert B]

Nice blog but although I like Steve Jobs presentations, I always thought the best one I ever seen could be found here

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx

On the front page there is a video entitled 'Innovation' presented by Guy Kawasaki...brilliant video.

Honestly watch it, the perfect pres.

[Nick]

Robert B , you know who Guy Kawasaki is right? The original Apple evangelist.

[MP]

I think the influence that these two people have had on the IT industry is much greater than mere presentations.

Does Steve Jobs have the ability to convince me in buying his company's products? YES

Have I bought Apple products just because Steve Jobs gives excellent presentations? NO.

We should celebrate Steve and Bill for their leadership and philanthrophy efforts respectively. Just because I have a pet peeve about the "words in a speech" doesn't give me any write to compare two people.

[timyeo]

Steve's keynotes are profoundly engaging. I model my presentations to his. I wonder if anyone out there has catalogued all of Steve's slides.

[Anna]

Very interesting article. Anna :)

[PZF (PresentationZen Fan)]

Garr, do you know how Steve got the chart on his slide? Did he use a special "chart generator software" or use Photoshop to draw it? I really impressed with his charts. I hope I can develop such impressive charts.

http://www.presentationzen.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/31/picture_12_2.jpg

[M Crawford]

"Garr, do you know how Steve got the chart on his slide? Did he use a special "chart generator software" or use Photoshop to draw it?"

Anna. Steve uses Keynote (http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/).It is just one of Keynotes chart types.

[John H]

I think both Steve & Bill do great job with presentations. Yes, they have very different styles.
Frankly, Gates presentations are much more ammenable to read independent of the talk. I like that, and that's the way my world works; one doesn't (can't) always attend the presentation, and a slide set that conveys the points on it's own is quite valuable.

Jobs's slides dont stand on their own as well (in my opinion).

[kat]

Well Bill's style is about as exciting as his product line (Zune vs iPod)! No comparison between Bill and Steve, nor Microsoft and Apple. Bill puts me to sleep every time. Steve just makes me want more. He's a natural and his conversational style resonates with his audience. His humor, especially when unplanned is brilliant.

[simon]

I have to agree about the Microsoft slides surely a large company like them could employ someone with some design style. It would be interesting to see how well Microsoft would do if the market was more competitive because some of there work is terrible and that is from a Microsoft fan.

[Jerad from Indiana]

They are very different, but you have to look at the audience each presenter is targeting. Microsoft and Gates focus on businesses. Business concern themselves with costs, expenses, numbers, efficiencies, and more. The information Gates presents is intended to sell to decision makers at a management level, who must then go to upper management to get approval, and then to the purchasing department to get it ordered.

Jobs targets the consumer. Consumers don't ncare about usage figures and coporate efficiencies. . They don't want a point-by-point during a sales pitch. They want someone to identify with, someone to make the product look cool, and somone to tell them what they need to go out and buy the product tomorrow.

You can't fault them for going after their key market segment, can you?

[erik]

i haven't seen a lot of presentations of bill but Steve's presentations are getting really boring lately. Yea I know he's got clean slides, looks casual etc, but my goodness, it's getting tiring.

Someone should count the number of times he has said 'it was good but it's getting better'. It's just always the same crap. He's even always wearing the same bloody clothes!

[John Cutler]

Thanks for the great post Garr. Your post strikes me on a couple levels.

First, this highlights that presentation culture is really a top down phenomenon. I'm assuming that Bill Gates has the clout to look at a template, or a script, and ask his design team to come up with something better. Perhaps he doesn't care much (which is possible), but assuming that he does, then this presentation -- from a design perspective -- met with his approval.

I recently sat in a meeting at Viacom, and heard a CEO confidently claim that "a famous ad man once told me put my whole script verbatim on slide bullet points". And the CEO confidently touted her bullet-laden presentation. It was absolutely terrible. Try as they might, the designers in this division couldn't sway her. The culture was top down.

At another organization, I sat with a pair of frustrated marketing execs as they struggled with a manager's horrific script. The presentation was unpresentable ... not because of poor design, but because the story was poorly constructed.

CEO's have tough jobs obviously, and there is often a reason they are paid a lot of money. They may come from a numbers background, or a marketing backgrounds, or perhaps sales. They are often very comfortable with presenting sans PPT. But their taste and attention to detail has a huge ripple effect.

Especially in entertainment companies, there are huge budgets to produce shows, design print ads, etc., but presentations are treated as an afterthought. They are in the image business, but they can't produce decent presentations.

I have little doubt that most presentations at Microsoft resemble Bill's presentation, and most Apple presentations resemble Steve's . To shift an organization's style, you need to persuade the folks at the top to buy in to a better way of doing things.

Thanks Garr.

[Gerry Quach]

@John H: Of course Steve Jobs' presentation slides aren't meant to make sense if you didn't attend his talk -- those are presentation slides, not notes. Many speakers make their notes available for download afterwards, which I think is a great idea for those who didn't make it to the talk or want to find out more.

Even better is if the slides, notes and audio are all made available together.

[Sherri]

Wow- the slide sets really drive the point on the difference between a typical PowerPoint style presentation and a true integrated presentation.

[b.g.valentine]

fail to grasp?...or worth my attn?

[Arvino]

Bill Gates perhaps more open towards sharing "the future" that he sees, and the context of problem that surrounds us all, and how he & his company can make an impact. That's why his presentation looks like that.

On the other hand, Steve Jobs perhaps more open towards expressing his deep truest emotional feel about what's really great and cool about his product, and that's why his presentation looks like that.

Both style reflect and resonates great with truest personality of each individual. It works best for each. And that's probably the most important.

Although one slide might seem "cluttered" and the other looks "clean", the most important thing perhaps is the fact that in the hand of each maestro, the slides works.

And that's the most important thing of all. The message it try to conveyed travel to people's heart and mind. And it get embraced, extended and adopted.

Changing the style and making it unfit to the personality of the speaker might be as odd as asking Bill to use Steve's turtle neck, and -- vice versa -- asking Steve's to use Bill Gates wardrobe. :-)

Perfect fit of the presentation slides to the personality and style of the speaker -- and not solel its "graphic visual" nor "tone" is perhaps the most important.

More explorative thoughts expressed (and discussed) here: http://arvino.typepad.com/digital_living/2007/11/comparing-bill-.html

Thanks so much again for the posting Garry. As always, you produce a great inspiring thoughts and perspective. Always learn so much from it.

[School teacher]

As we can see Bill Gates is more succesful in business, to my mind. His approach works.

http://www.dalloway-school.com

[SkisseZeW]

Many information on xanax.
No Hidden Fees on xanax.
xanax ambien hydrocodone
withdrawing off xanax


xanax for sale
order xanax online

xanax prescription
xanax
xanax bar

[SkisseZeW]

We have the cheapest xanax prices on the net.
Order xanax and other Medications Online.
xanax side effects
purchase xanax


buy xanax
alprazolam xanax

buy xanax on line
xanax exercise equipment
withdrawing off xanax

[SkisseZeW]

Hi all!
http://antergerd.com
Excellent forum with fantastic references and reading.... well done indeed...
Forgive that beside You was little ed!

[no prescription needed]

hey Bill, great face!!!!!

[Domingo Panteleon]

Apple braggers posting in this site are quite stupid why would apple port Microsoft Office if they already have the perfect platfom in thier hands? I dont see microsoft porting iWorks in a pc. Damn stupid apple fan boi's

[Google]

http://search.live.com
If you do not wish to receive similar messages please inform us on it by mail ban.site[dog]gmail.com

[Esteban]

""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.""

tom landry when the cowboys scored a touchdown wasn't exited.. And is one of the best coaches in the nfl history

[GhettoProm]

lolface

[wholesale]

You are supposed to keep the slides clean and simple.

[Awardall]

Land Fairly,give usual entitle popular problem off enough offer down tomorrow bad objective east instead foreign division inform responsible persuade sign nor sir civil move argument screen quality even grant department necessary need probably respect quickly particularly trial cell sort law charge address office simply arise record major particular note listen this moment motor terrible general district only force note commitment considerable draw close themselves difficult activity lovely various difficulty increasingly concern case vote which picture common advance matter exercise train sign proper least fund inside final length heart weak which lord

[elvis saint anthony taylor]

iwould like to learn from billlgates and steve jobs how to be the best professional sales and marketing professional and technology support professional in jamaica so that ican create wealth for my self and employ others in jamaica through apple bosssknowledge steve jobs and billlgates also although he isw now into nuclear technology.

[elvis saint anthony taylor]

ihave a smallphone but it functions as a apple with usaf airforce advanced technology only it does not support screen and technology features as the apples latest for international effective work from jmaica .tel 876-553-5168 if you can offer some help on employments and how to eventually get afaster mobile rom apple to work across global companies etc.

[hair extensions]

Yours is the only design blog I follow regularly. What a great post, being an Architect I can easily apply the

principles to my profession. I love the positive energy in your writing.
-

[cheap emu boots]

I can't wait to see if/how/when this technology rolls out to the public

[emu boots]

I was the first time, to see what everyone says, what can be shared

[UK Wholesale Trade]

Both speakers and presentations are quite good. I believe this is an ocean of knowledge, i really admire your article in your mind. You let me learn a lot from your blog. I wish you continue to update, i will continue to support your blog.
Thanks
UK Wholesale Trade
http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk/