In an interview late Wednesday night, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told Bloomberg News exactly what he thought about Steve Jobs. Known as Woz, Wozniak went on to wax poetic about the now-former Apple CEO, calling him the “best business leader of our time.”
While Woz acknowledged that he’s not personally close to the Apple CEO like he used to be, he does admire how Jobs has run the company and had nothing but positive things to say.
(MORE: Why Steve Jobs’ Resignation as CEO Isn’t the End of the World)
In the interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Woz briefly talked about Apple’s and Job’s design philosophy toward computing, which has distinguished the company from the competition:
“He just thinks very much about getting technology out of the picture. You know, from the very start until today, it’s how you make something seem like it’s not really a piece of technology in the way you have to learn all these complicated geek, techy steps to get things done… We’ve gotten closer and closer to treating a computer like it’s a human almost just speaking into our iPhones, touching them, they all have the senses of a human. And the thing is, Steve is going to go down in history as the most important technical leader ever.”
Woz also expresses some confidence that Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO, is capable of running a company as large as Apple. As for Jobs, like we’ve speculated, Woz thinks that “[Jobs] will watch the company for a while… for a company as large as Apple, corporate culture doesn’t change overnight. The quality of the people doesn’t change.”
MORE: Who Is Tim Cook and Can He Truly Replace Steve Jobs?
[via Bloomberg]
Erica Ho is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ericamho and Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.