Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Believes Indian Techies Are 'Too Predictable' To Innovate

According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Indians tend to lack a certain creativity when it comes to tech innovation. Why does he say this? Well he believes it’s a product of both our culture and our education system.

In an interview with Times of India, Wozniak also said he doesn’t believe any big tech advances will come from India.

“What is the biggest tech company here, Infosys maybe? I just don’t see that sort of thing coming out of Infosys and I have done keynotes for them three times,” he said.

When asked why he believes that, what the critical missing link is, Wozniak said he believed the culture difference is to blame here. “The culture here is one of success based upon academic excellence, studying, learning, practising and having a good job and a great life,” he lamented. “For upper India, not the lower. I see two Indias. That's a lot like Singapore study, study, work hard and you get an MBA, you will have a Mercedes but where is the creativity?” 

“The creativity gets left out when your behaviour is too predictable and structured, everyone is similar. Look at a small country like New Zealand, the writers, singers, athletes, singers, athletes, it's a whole different world."

Wozniak also had some sage words for how coding is taught in schools. He says children only get to a stage of “symbolic reasoning” at around age 12, which is why you can’t teach algebra until then. “Programming can be taught only when you are ready for algebra. The real advantage of learning how to code is that you learn how to solve large problems with a lot of steps. The steps add up to a solution. That’s true of everything in life.”