Engineering icon and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discussed secrets to making successful startup partnerships work with Globant creative speaker James Taylor and Globant chief executive Martin Migoya at the CONVERGE+ event.
According to Wozniak, building a startup required "business thinking" as well as plans on making money and distributing products and creations globally, in addition to engineering an inventive thinking.
Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Jobs, said that the company had initially adopted an engineering perspective later modified into a marketing organisation.
Jobs also had a "tremendous business drive", leading to the success of the world's most valuable tech firm. Job's marketing and application principles had inspired "people to want these things", he added.
— Globant (@Globant) September 17, 2020
“Wanting things is sometimes more than ability, academic ability, skills and what you know. If you want something and want to do it, you will find the path, and Steve had that," he told the audience.
Creative Destruction In Tech Industry Requires 'Being On The Same Page' - Wozniak
When asked by Mr Taylor about ways to innovate or disrupt traditional tech models, Wozniak explained that startups must determine differences in creativity, engineering and inventing.
Inventors also began projects alone but progressed to launching demos and real-time trials to test ideas, leading to increased confidence from investors.
But the key to Apple's success was selecting a team that was "always interested in doing the same thing [and] reaching the same goal", which boosted passion among staff despite having different project duties and talents.
"The important thing is that everybody recognises the same end goal, and we’re going towards this, and we believe in it, because we’re doing good for the world. We believe it has a purpose. Nothing can motivate you like that, and if you have somebody who’s like, ‘My goal is to come here eight hours a day and make money’… that’s not where the real great things, the disruptive ones that really turn the world over and go in a different direction, that’s not where they come from," he explained.
Humans Central to Development of AI, Made To 'Augment' Capabilities - Globant's Migoya
Speaking on the role of artificial intelligence, Wozniak concluded that "people should be more important than technology" and that it was important to consider individual and end-user roles in a creative project.
Mr Migoya added that AI could sell items, influence others or improve personal abilities, but that the latter was the "only one that should prevail in the long-term".
Speaking on backlash against media networks, Migoya added that computers were invented to "augment human capabilities, not exploit weaknesses", citing surveillance capitalism documentary Social Dilemma.
— Globant (@Globant) September 17, 2020
The first CONVERGE event was hosted online on 17 September amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and featured several acclaimed speakers on emerging and disruptive technologies such as Michael Feathers, founder and director at R7K Research and Conveyance, Brian Elliot, vice-president of Slack, Tan Le, founder and chief executive of EMOTIV, Guibert Engelbienne, chief technical officer and co-founder of Globant and numerous others.
The IT and software development giant, which operates in 16 countries globally, also revealed its Augmented Coding tool, allowing programmers and developers to build software with fewer errors, boosting efficiency and productivity.
