Who is the best presenter: Jobs or Gates?

cramar · Apr 6, 2007

Never seen any of those mega-media presentations (don't know if there are podcasts available), but was just wondering who is better at wowing the audience, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? Who is the better speaker? Who is better at using technology to support their presentation? How do they compare to Al Gore's presentation?

cwa107 · Apr 6, 2007

Jobs, no question. And it's not because I'm an Apple-fanboy either. Gates comes off as socially-awkward most of the time. It was especially amusing to see him walk off the set of the Daily Show before his interview was over.

RiDE · Apr 6, 2007

No questions... Jobs is better... The link below is proof!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_irlGRO9Ls

baggss · Apr 6, 2007

I have to agree here. Gates may be the worlds richest man, but socially he falls short of my oldest daughters geek 16 year old boyfriend.

RiDE · Apr 6, 2007

Agreed... It's great to have brains, but "street smarts" and some savvy social skills are truly priceless.

Carol247 · Apr 6, 2007

His computer brain swept him into a social world in which he's uncomfortable. Must be hard on him to have to perform against his natural personality. Bet he sweats it every time. Poor guy...

caribiner23 · Apr 6, 2007

Seen 'em both live.

They don't talk about Steve Jobs' "Reality Distortion Field" for nothin'.

AnthonyJK · Apr 7, 2007

Gates.

dtravis7 · Apr 7, 2007

Jobs without a doubt, and as CWA107 said, even if I did not like Apple one bit, I would still vote for Jobs. Real showman.

Steve Balmer is funny if you don't mind getting ringing ears when he screams and yells! :spook:

Developers, Developers!! I JUST LOVE this company.

voiceofra · Apr 7, 2007

Jobs, without a doubt.
As it was said before, when Gates speaks, all you can picture is the geek that spent his afternoons in his basement, coding, playing Ultima Online, is totally socially inept - bordering on socially retarded - and completely uncomfortable in front of anyone.
Melinda didn't marry him for his warm, relaxing personality. She married him for his money.

mac57 · Apr 7, 2007

When I read the title of this post I literally said to myself "is this a joke?". Is there any real question here? Its Jobs by a country mile!

In my job, I have to present to customers a lot, and I work hard at doing it well, so I think I know whereof I speak - having watched Jobs in action I can honestly say he is superstar presenter. Polished, excellent stage presence, a little bit of schmaltzy acting thrown in... he is just excellent.

Now Billy, on the other hand, ... well, he is kind of like his company and their products (imagine that!)... sort of boring, too earnest, no real pizazz.

One man's opinion!

cramar said:
Never seen any of those mega-media presentations (don't know if there are podcasts available), but was just wondering who is better at wowing the audience, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? Who is the better speaker? Who is better at using technology to support their presentation? How do they compare to Al Gore's presentation?

TheCustomer99 · Apr 7, 2007

I've never seen Gates do a presentation, so I'm gonna go with Jobs. Whenever I think of Microsoft presentations I think of Steve Balmer's monkey dance or him covered in sweat screaming "Developers, developers, developers!" I'd say Jobs is better than Gore simply because Jobs has friends (South Park reference).

cwa107 · Apr 7, 2007

dtravis7 said:
Jobs without a doubt, and as CWA107 said, even if I did not like Apple one bit, I would still vote for Jobs. Real showman.

Steve Balmer is funny if you don't mind getting ringing ears when he screams and yells! :spook:

Developers, Developers!! I JUST LOVE this company.

Oh man, and the Steve Ballmer/Monkeyboy video is just a classic. That man definitely needs an extended stay at a psych ward to get his meds regulated.

cwa107 · Apr 7, 2007

Carol247 said:
His computer brain swept him into a social world in which he's uncomfortable. Must be hard on him to have to perform against his natural personality. Bet he sweats it every time. Poor guy...

Yes, I feel plenty bad for him - especially with all that money he's swimming in. Must be hard to keep your head above water. :spook:

Cherokee · Apr 7, 2007

Bill Gates can put Windows to sleep without pushing any buttons.

cramar · Apr 10, 2007

Well it's overwhelming! Jobs gets the vote by at least 10 to 1!

I remember many years ago (maybe at the time of Windows 3.1), at a technology seminar the presenter said he was at a Toronto computer show a few years previously and Gates was the keynote speaker. Time came and he didn't show. The organizers frantically searched and found him locked in his hotel room hacking away at a keyboard. He got an idea and had to explore it--totally unconcerned that he had a major address. This fellow said Gates travelled with full computer equipment (before laptops) just in case he got a brainstorm night or day.

cwa107 · Apr 10, 2007

cramar said:
Well it's overwhelming! Jobs gets the vote by at least 10 to 1!

I remember many years ago (maybe at the time of Windows 3.1), at a technology seminar the presenter said he was at a Toronto computer show a few years previously and Gates was the keynote speaker. Time came and he didn't show. The organizers frantically searched and found him locked in his hotel room hacking away at a keyboard. He got an idea and had to explore it--totally unconcerned that he had a major address. This fellow said Gates travelled with full computer equipment (before laptops) just in case he got a brainstorm night or day.

I'll bet he either just forgot or didn't feel like coming (typical of his personality disorder). Gates never was much of a technologist - I'd be surprised if he remembered how to program.

fleurya · Apr 11, 2007

cwa107 said:
I'll bet he either just forgot or didn't feel like coming (typical of his personality disorder). Gates never was much of a technologist - I'd be surprised if he remembered how to program.

Are you kidding? I must say Jobs can present much better than Gates, but talking in front of a bunch of people doesn't have anything to do with other skills.

I don't know if this would be true now, but back in their prime, I would put any amount of money on Gates being able to program circles are Jobs. While Gates was busy writing programs, Jobs was busy practicing his presentation skills and getting programs written by scaring the life out of his programmers. Naturally, when you become CEO of a company as large as Microsoft, or Apple for that matter, chances are you have nothing to do with programming, but I would still put money on Gates over Jobs.

Not that there's anything wrong with that; management is all about delegation and having the right people working for you. Gates could definitely use some help in the presentation department. He should just hire some great speaker and give him a bogus VP title just to have on hand for major product announcements.

cwa107 · Apr 11, 2007

fleurya said:
Are you kidding? I must say Jobs can present much better than Gates, but talking in front of a bunch of people doesn't have anything to do with other skills.

I don't know if this would be true now, but back in their prime, I would put any amount of money on Gates being able to program circles are Jobs. While Gates was busy writing programs, Jobs was busy practicing his presentation skills and getting programs written by scaring the life out of his programmers. Naturally, when you become CEO of a company as large as Microsoft, or Apple for that matter, chances are you have nothing to do with programming, but I would still put money on Gates over Jobs.

Not that there's anything wrong with that; management is all about delegation and having the right people working for you. Gates could definitely use some help in the presentation department. He should just hire some great speaker and give him a bogus VP title just to have on hand for major product announcements.

Oh, I wasn't comparing Gates to Jobs in terms of technical capabilities. I'd tend to agree that Jobs isn't much of a technologist either. But if you look at Microsoft's major products (including DOS and BASIC), they were derivatives of other existing products that were either purchased or copied.

Zoolook · Apr 11, 2007

Jobs has amazing presentation skills, no doubt about it. I have to do a lot of presentations at work to sell projects to people who don't want to pay for them and have watched his talks and picked up a few pointers. He's particularly good at the follwing:

- Tell 'em what you're going to show
- Show it
- Tell 'em what you showed 'em

It keeps people focused on your message, rather than have them think of ways to bring it down. When Gates gives a presentation, you immediately wonder what's going to go wrong - when Jobs does it, you always think you've just seen the best thing ever.

In fact, one of his best ever presentations has to be the original iPOD and also the original iBook. They were both low-key in front of a handful of journalists and industry insiders. Search YouTube, one poster named Peestandingup, has a bunch of his presentations.