The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

SCENE 2Answer the One Question That Matters Most

You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology—not the other way around.

—STEVE JOBS, MAY 25, 1997, WORLDWIDE DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE

In May 1998, Apple launched a splashy new product aimed at shoring up its dwindling share of the computer market, which had sunk to under 4 percent. When Jobs unveiled the new translucent iMac, he described the reason for building the computer, the target market, and the benefit customers would see from buying the new system:

Even though this is a full-blown Macintosh, we are targeting this for the number one use consumers tell us they want a computer for, which is to get on the Internet simply and fast. We’re also targeting this ...