Steve Wozniak

He hasn’t been actively involved in running Apple for decades, but Steve Wozniak — popularly known as Woz, and the man who engineered Apple 1, the first home computer with a keyboard and screen — still gets questioned about the tech giant that he co-founded with close friend Steve Jobs way back in 1976. Woz, who was barely 25 years old when he joined Jobs and Ronald Wayne to start what has emerged as the world’s most valuable company, takes questions with patience, even when everyone he meets asks the same things. “So how was Steve Jobs? Do you miss him? Do you regret not being with Apple? Did Jobs overshadow you?” — he answers each one with humility and outright honesty. “I designed a computer, but Steve (Jobs) is the one who made it into a product,” he says. Pankaj Doval and Surojit Gupta caught up with Woz — who wore his customary sneakers with a business suit — for an in-depth interview on the sidelines of the ET Global Business Summit in New Delhi.

Q: Can you recall your first meeting with Steve Jobs? What was it like?

Sure. It was five years before Apple (was started) and I was building a computer of my own design because the parts had been given to me. The chips had been given to me. A friend who was helping me build it, down the street, said, ‘You should meet Steve Jobs, he went to high school, he is into electronics and pranks’.

I was a known prankster myself. So, Jobs came over and we met on the sidewalk and we talked about things we had done — pranks and philosophies on life. It was during the counter-culture days in the San Francisco area. We talked about different types of counter-culture. And so, I took him to my house.

He did not have any albums. But I had record albums — I had every Bob Dylan album up to that day… words and interviews. I showed him the lyrics to the songs — amazing poetry and fantasy, sometimes just words to express feelings. And so, we became Dylan fans. We went to a lot of concerts together, we drove around, we played pranks together, we experimented with technology and devices that I built. The two of us played a couple of amazing pranks, and some that did not quite come off. Once we went late at night to try and break into the janitor’s shed so we could attach some wires and pull them so the sprinklers could be turned on the parents during graduation [ceremony]. But we didn’t quite get into the right part of the building.

Q: When you started Apple as college buddies, did you ever imagine that it would become the company as it exists today, the world’s most valuable company?

A: Apple had two starts. Both were based on products that I had totally designed and that I owned. The Apple 1 was not really designed as a computer — it was hastily converted into one. I had given it to everyone at our club before Jobs even knew that it existed.

He came to town, I took him to the club where I was a hero, showing off my computer every two weeks, and showing off the formula for the personal computer. And Jobs said we should start a company — not to build a computer but to build one small part of it called the PC board. This was because we had no money.

Eventually, we ended up building complete computer boards with all the chips and making a little bit of money. Before we ever shipped that product, I had designed my Apple 2 computer, [and] totally owned it. It was going to change the world and it was going to make Apple into a big company. It turned out to be Apple’s only successful product and made all of Apple’s money for the first ten years. That’s how important it was. We knew we had a big product. I wouldn’t start a company with anyone else but my friend.

Q: When did you last speak to Jobs before he passed away? What did you guys talk about?

A: That was a little before his death. He was going back to the early days. He had been reminiscing. He really did remember those early days fondly. He never treated me with the disrespect he would treat other people because I came at a different point in his life and I was also a key engineer in his life and success. He said that he wasn’t going to live much longer, and I thought he was being metaphorical — we never live as much as we want to. I thought he was just sick and tired, and wanted to take time off and rest. And so, I told him, ‘you are not judged by what you don’t do when you are gone, but you are judged by what you do while you are here. You are one of the finest technological leaders of our time. You created great products, and you changed my life’.

Q: Did you meet him?

A: I did not meet him in person. Over time, we were in two different categories of the world — he was a businessman, and I was just an engineer-inventor.

Q: Do you ever regret leaving Apple?

A: Never ever once. I have made all the right decisions in my life. I have never left Apple, I am still with Apple. I am the only person who has had a paycheck every week since the first day we started the company. I have a small token salary even now. There were a couple of times I wanted to do some startups. At one time, I wanted to go back to college and get my degree. And then I left Apple. I got my degree, I put on a concert, and then I came back to Apple as an engineer pretty quickly. That was 1983. Then in 1986, I wanted to do a startup to make a universal remote control. I started this great project and I loved doing it. But I did it while I was at Apple. I showed Apple what I was doing. I would never do anything that would compete with Apple. I am under some employment contract with Apple

Q: How much do you earn from Apple now?

A: See, I never look at money and bank accounts, [and] I never like to deal with money. I think my accountant said that what I take home is under a $100 a week. It’s small, but I want to be loyal.

Q: What keeps you busy these days?

A: I constantly follow technology. I try and buy some of the products to be familiar with them. I like new things like electric cars. I do a lot of speaking because I want to inspire young entrepreneurs, people who think ‘what can I do, what could I do to be greater?’. I can’t give a formula for success but I can give a lot of examples that inspire people.

I also have Woz U now, set up last year. It’s an online university for technology and it’s going to be hugely successful. The idea is that you can learn the important things that apply to technology work and not have to learn other little stuff that does not interest you.

I also run two companies — one was Fusion-io, a notable leader in changing data centres from hard disks to solid state disks. It went public as fast and as big Apple did. I didn’t make any money. Then, there was a spin-off called Primary Data Optimse storage and it recently folded. I also put on the Silicon Valley Comic Con and the Tokyo Comic Con.

Q: Do you think Jobs overshadowed you?

A: Of course. I never wanted to be seen by anyone. I never got to promote myself. But his whole life Steve wanted to be an important person and one of the routes to being important was to be in charge of a company. I was not non-political. I did not want to go near business where people cheat and lie and try to manoeuvre for position. I only wanted to be an engineer creating great hardware and software.

My philosophy was well understood when I was 20 years old, even before we started Apple. At first I wouldn’t accept the big money until it was clear that I would do only the engineering. I wouldn’t have to do business because it is a part of life that I don’t like. Limelight I don’t care. Steve wants it and he gets it, and he deserves it. He did not have much to do with Apple in the first 10 years until he returned, not until the iPod actually.

The iPod and iPhone changed the world and those were his Apple tools. Until then, he had done the marketing of the Apple 2 computer. I designed a computer but Steve is the one who made it into a product. Steve is the one who told the world why they needed a computer, and helped out in marketing. He made a lot of mistakes trying to build his own computers, and eventually we lost the whole computer.

Q: Do you miss Steve, your friend?

A: Extremely. The days I miss the most are the days before Apple started, five years before Apple started.

Q; Why?

A: I don’t know. Young kids having fun, I don’t know, the greatest memories in my life.

Q: How important is coding and should it be taught to children, particularly in India?

A: Coding is very important. It doesn’t need to be taught before 12 years. I say this because there is a thing called cognitive development, the way your mind perceives the world, then assimilates, and moves on to new ways of seeing the world and structuring how data works. You don’t get to a stage of symbolic reasoning until you are 12 years old. Some people get there early, but most people at 12, and that’s why algebra can’t be taught till you are that age. And 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.

Q: Who is the new-age tech leader who resembles Steve Jobs? Who do you admire?

A: I don’t follow tech leaders much. Elon Musk has a vision that will change the world.

Q: Do you think he comes close to Steve Jobs?

A: I don’t know him personally so I can’t comment on his personality and compare to Steve Jobs. As far as values and vision are concerned, I think he is a lot more concrete. He comes up with new ideas that are possible with technology and engineering. Steve Jobs didn’t have that feeling for engineering. He had the feeling for how people lead their lives. Comparing them is apples and oranges but they were both outstanding leaders with vision.

Q: What is the future of technology?

A: Technology is not how we change our lives but it’s how we can make things simpler. All the apps that are being created for mobile products help us but we are getting to a point where there will be a plateau. Then things will change drastically and improve. Imagine, in future, every car in the world can be electric, no gas cars anymore. What an amazing step that is. How could that happen? A lot of people believed it couldn’t happen, they said the same things about personal computers.

Q: What are your views on India? Do you think a global tech company can emerge from here?

A: I am not an anthropologist and I don’t know the culture of India well enough. I don’t see those big advances in tech companies. 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.

Q: What is the missing link here?

A: The culture here is one of success based upon academic excellence, studying, learning, practising and having a good job and a great life. 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, it’s a whole different world.

Q: Do you still invent?

A: I don’t have time. When I was inventing, I was so good. Every project was A+, magic was pouring out of my brain but I kept at it 20 hours a day, sleeping and waking up in the middle of the night with solutions. I had so much in the brain, you could feel the stress, and it was too much to keep doing forever.

Q: How would you like to be remembered?

A: That I did not change with wealth, that I did not seek wealth. That I care about people who need help and I try to help everyone I can. That I am a caring and good family person.

