Why Elon Musk is the person most like Steve Jobs today
Many aspiring technologists and entrepreneurs have tried to follow in his footsteps, but Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who was a very close friend to Jobs, says there's one CEO that best embodies Jobs and his ideals: Elon Musk.
Wozniak recently spoke with National Geographic's Julie Frazier about a new mini series called "American Geniuses," with the first episode focusing on Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Frazier asked Wozniak who is fulfilling Jobs' role today. Here's what he said:
Well, to me, there are always probably a million people that have the same ability to look forward that Steve Jobs had, but which ones are really right now turning them into products that are changing our lives and I look at Elon Musk in a lot of ways, pursuing industries that everyone could say every one of them just for some reasons don't make any sense from solar to the SpaceX to the Tesla automobile; fine products.
Wozniak continued to say that what makes Musk similar to Jobs is in the motivation behind the products their companies create. Both Jobs and Musk created revolutionary products that solved a problem they both experienced: Musk saw the need for an electric car that was big enough for a family to drive, and Jobs thought cell phones before the iPhone were terrible.
As he put it:
I love fine products, fine technology products whether they're smartphones, whether they're computers and that Tesla car is just so incredible a thinking because who in history would have thought that you should make an electric car large for a family size car. Well, where did it come from? Elon Musk has a large family.The iPhone came with every little detail handpicked by Steve Jobs so it would work well for him. When one person with that kind of a mind is in control of a product, that's when you get the exceptionality.