The Human Behind the Genius - a16z Podcast
## Metadata
- Author: **a16z Podcast**
- Full Title: The Human Behind the Genius
- Category: #podcasts
- URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b5ad3458-08e3-475d-8d64-4ca8314ccb26
## Highlights
- The Motivation Behind Apple's Early Days
Key takeaways:
• Alex's motivation for starting Apple was to help others have access to technology, not to make the biggest business in the world.
• Alex's experience teaching middle school for eight years helped him learn how to make learning fun and understandable.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I had the privilege of talking to Alex yesterday and he told me this story about you from the very, very early days where when you were younger, you basically told your dad, hey, dad, I Want to have a computer someday. He said, because at this time, this is true. He said, you're crazy. Computer costs as much as that house. You told him, well, dad, we'll live in an apartment. You seem to really, really just want a computer at that time. To your point earlier, starting Apple was not about building one of the biggest businesses in the world. Wanting a computer and wanting other people to have that. I'm curious just to know from a personal perspective, what did you see back then? Was it truly just like a personal need for this device or I want to dig into that early was brain and hear your perspective on what was going on in those early days?
Speaker 3
A lot of great things come personally. I learned even I taught the middle school in elementary school for eight years straight full time, full time, like every hour of the day up to seven days a week, no press allowed. It's not a big story, but I learned that it was less important that you're speaking facts and knowledge from your mouth. Knowledge was less important than the motivation of my students to learn. Had to find ways to make it fun, make it understandable. That's when I decided, you know what, wanting something is even more important. ([Time 0:01:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f7017e37-eac7-4e10-bd5d-98d6ace2df41))