I recently read Steve Wozniak’s autobiography, iWoz, which contains some suggestions on living a fulfilling life. While reading it, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address which had similar, self-reflective thoughts. So I thought it would be fun to compare both, and come up with a distilled version of Woz and Jobs’ life philosophies.

What Steve Jobs Wants You To Know

Here are the main points of Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address:

1. Connecting the dots. You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

Jobs talks about various things he did over the course of his life that made no sense at the time, but in retrospect, they connected. He dropped in on a typography class in college that later helped in developing the fonts for the Macintosh. You have to have faith that whatever you do, it will somehow prove useful in the future. I think he is basically saying, don’t let the lack of a clear plan stop you from doing “outside the box” things.

2. Love and loss.

Jobs says he was lucky to discover his love when he was twenty: creating and working for a technology company. But he experienced loss when he was fired from Apple. He had to decide if technology was truly his life’s purpose. Jobs decided it was, and went on to run NeXT, Pixar, and return to Apple, to greater success than before.

Jobs is adamant that the only way to be truly satisfied in life is to do great work, done by loving what you do. He repeats twice his advice on how to achieve this: Don’t settle.

3. Death.

Jobs had a brush with death in the form of pancreatic cancer, which he thought was terminal. Luckilly, it turned out to be cureable. He turned this harrowing experience into a positive:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

What Steve Wozniak Wants You To Know

Here are the main points from the last chapter of iWoz, “Rules to Live By”:

1. Believe in yoursef. Don’t waver. As an inventor, you have to see things in gray scale.

Woz believes the vast majority of people think in black and white terms, making decisions based on mass media or their friends’ points of view. When blinded by “dogma,” new ideas aren’t recognizeable or even understandable.

Woz says this type of prejudice is against the spirit of invention. And Woz’s advice to beating it is to believe in yourself: don’t listen to others when deciding what to pursue. You won’t generate a truly original idea.

2. Inventors are artists, and artists work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not on a committe. Not on a team.

Woz isn’t fond of the corporate environment, claiming that anything revolutionary designed by committe would be turned down and never be created. But he goes one step further in saying that engineers are their most capable when working on their own projects alone, not even on projects suggested by a team. When Woz says alone, he means truly alone.

My comparison

Although both Woz and Jobs are portrayed as contrasting personalities (Jobs the cut-throat businessman, Woz the uber-nerd), their life philosophies are more similar than different. Here are my thoughts after comparing the advice from both:

1. Follow your own bliss. Do what you love.

I’m reminded of all the old adages, don’t live someone else’s life; don’t follow the crowd. Even if you’re not an inventor or artist, you can find something you love and pursue it. Sure, the vast majority of us need to hold down a day job to pay the bills, but in your free time, do what you love, even if only to provide balance to your life.

2. Both are believers in the “loner” approach.

Woz thinks people don’t do their best work when toiling on someone else’s idea. Jobs mentions the dangers of “dogma” or being satisfied with the status quo. Jobs says “Don’t settle,” while Woz says “Don’t waver.”

Once you figure out what your life’s passion is, you should have plenty of motivation and be able to work on it alone. But whenever your drive falters, remember…

3. Both have contemplated death.

Woz was in a plane crash after which he was hospitalized and suffered from amnesia. I’m sure this affected his views on mortality, although he doesn’t explicitly mention it in his book.

So remember that we all die. This should give you additional motivation. Even if you believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, your time to influence the world around you is limited to your time here on earth.

What Jobs and Woz Want You to Know

In conclusion, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak share a rather isolationist and iconoclast view of life. Neither subscribes to external motivations in the form of money, religion, or societal status. Fullfillment and satisfaction is a personal achievement, contained within the self.

So here’s my final distillation of Jobs and Woz philosophy on life:

Find your life’s passion: what you love to do. Decide on it alone, and work on it alone. And live each day as if it were your last.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like pretty good advice to me.

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