Steve Wozniak

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Stephen Gary Wozniak (born August 11, 1950), known as simply Woz, is an American electronics engineer, programmer, philanthropist, and technology entrepreneur.

In 1976 he co-founded Apple Inc., which later became the world's largest information technology company by revenue and largest company in the world by market capitalization.

Through their work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs are widely recognized as two prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution. In 1975, Wozniak started developing the Apple I into the computer that launched Apple when he and Jobs first began marketing it the following year.

He primarily designed the Apple II in 1977, known as one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers, while Jobs oversaw the development of its foam-molded plastic case and early Apple employee Rod Holt developed the switching power supply.

With computer scientist Jef Raskin, Wozniak had major influence over the initial development of the original Apple Macintosh concepts from 1979 to 1981, when Jobs took over the project following Wozniak's brief departure from the company due to a traumatic airplane accident.

After permanently leaving Apple in 1985, Wozniak founded CL 9 and created the first programmable universal remote, released in 1987.

He then pursued several other business and philanthropic ventures throughout his career, focusing largely on technology in K–12 schools.As of November 2019, Wozniak has remained an employee of Apple in a ceremonial capacity since stepping down in 1985.

Early life

Stephen Gary Wozniak was born on August 11, 1950, in San Jose, California.: 18 : 13 : 27  His mother, Margaret Louise Wozniak (née Kern) (1923–2014), was from Washington state, and his father, Francis Jacob "Jerry" Wozniak (1925–1994) of Michigan,: 18  was an engineer for the Lockheed Corporation.: 1  Wozniak graduated from Homestead High School in 1968, in Cupertino, California.: 25  Steve has one brother, Mark Wozniak, a former tech executive who lives in Menlo Park. He also has one sister, Leslie Wozniak. She attended Homestead High School in Cupertino. She is a grant adviser at Five Bridges Foundation, which helps at-risk youths in San Francisco. She once said it was her mother who introduced activism to her and her siblings.

The name on Wozniak's birth certificate is "Stephan Gary Wozniak", but his mother said that she intended it to be spelled "Stephen", which is what he uses.: 18  He has mentioned the surname “Wozniak” being Polish.: 129–130

In the early 1970s, Wozniak's blue box design earned him the nickname "Berkeley Blue" in the phreaking community.

Wozniak has credited watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions while in his youth as a source of inspiration for his starting Apple Computer

Personal life

Wozniak lives in Los Gatos, California. He applied for Australian citizenship in 2012, and has stated that he would like to live in Melbourne, Australia in the future. Wozniak has been referred to frequently by the nickname "Woz", or "The Woz"; he has also been called "The Wonderful Wizard of Woz" and "The Second Steve" (in regard to his early business partner and longtime friend, Steve Jobs). "WoZ" (short for "Wheels of Zeus") is the name of a company he founded in 2002; it closed in 2006.

Wozniak describes his impetus for joining the Freemasons in 1979 as being able to spend more time with his then-wife, Alice Robertson, who belonged to the Order of the Eastern Star, associated with the Masons. He was initiated in 1979 at Charity Lodge No. 362 in Campbell, California, now part of Mt. Moriah Lodge No. 292 in Los Gatos. Today he is no longer involved: "I did become a Freemason and know what it's about but it doesn't really fit my tech/geek personality. Still, I can be polite to others from other walks of life. After our divorce was filed I never attended again but I did contribute enough for a lifetime membership."

Wozniak was married to slalom canoe gold-medalist Candice Clark from June 1981 to 1987. They have three children together, the youngest being born after their divorce was finalized. After a high-profile relationship with actress Kathy Griffin, who described him on Tom Green's House Tonight in 2008 as "the biggest techno-nerd in the Universe", Wozniak married Janet Hill, his current spouse.

On his religious views, Wozniak has called himself an "atheist or agnostic".

He is a member of a Segway Polo team, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks, and is considered a "super fan" of the NHL ice hockey team San Jose Sharks.

In 2006, he co-authored with Gina Smith his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. The book made The New York Times Best Seller list.

Wozniak has discussed his personal disdain for money and accumulating large amounts of wealth. He told Fortune magazine in 2017, "I didn't want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values ... I really didn't want to be in that super 'more than you could ever need' category." He also said that he only invests in things "close to his heart". When Apple first went public in 1980, Wozniak offered $10 million of his own stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do.

He has the condition prosopagnosia (face blindness).

He has expressed support for the electronics right to repair movement. In July 2021, Wozniak made a Cameo video in response to right to repair activist Louis Rossmann, in which he described the issue as something that has "really affected me emotionally", and credited Apple's early breakthroughs to open technology of the 1970s.

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Career

After being kicked out of the University of Colorado Boulder in his first year for hacking the university's computer system, Wozniak returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969.

Wozniak enrolled at De Anza College in Cupertino in June of 1971, before moving to Berkeley, California, where he was an undergraduate engineer. 1 : Using punch cards and just 20 TTL chips donated by an acquaintance, they named it "Cream Soda" after their favorite drink. A newspaper reporter stepped on the power supply cable and blew up the notebook, but Wozniak said it was "a good prelude to my experimentation with the Apple I and II computers five years later." He was employed at Hewlett-Packard (HP), where he created calculators, before focusing on Apple. He dropped out of Berkeley and befriended Steve Jobs at this time.

Wozniak was introduced to work by Fernandez, who attended Homestead High School with Jobs in 1971. Wozniak and Jobs became friends when they both worked at HP during the summer, where Wozniak, too, was employed on a mainframe computer.

Wozniak's first business relationship began later this year when he read an article entitled "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" from Esquire's October 1971 issue and began to build his own "blue boxes" that allowed one to make long-distance phone calls at no charge. Wozniak's employees, who supervised the sales of the blue boxes, were able to sell two hundred of them for $150 each, splitting the difference with Wozniak. "There wouldn't have been an Apple" if it hadn't been for Wozniak's blue boxes, Jobs told his biographer that "there wouldn't have been an Apple."

Jobs was employed by Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California, in 1973. He was supposed to design a circuit board for the arcade game Breakout. Atari's Atari chip was worth $100 (equivalent to $610 in 2021) for each chip that was not removed from the machine, according to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Jobs had no idea of circuit board technology and had to sign an agreement with Wozniak to divide the fee evenly between them if Wozniak and Wozniak to split the bill equally among the two companies if Wozniak were to reduce the number of chips. By using RAM for the brick representation, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50 percent. Woz's prototype could not be used because of the fact that this prototype had no scoring or coin controls. Regardless, workers were given the full benefit. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari paid them only $700, and that Wozniak's share was still $350 (equivalent to $2,100 in 2021). 147–148, 180 Wozniak was unaware of the full $5,000 reward (equivalent to $30,500 in 2021) until ten years later. Wozniak said he would have told him about it and had claimed he wanted the money but not surprised him.

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Wozniak started designing and building the Apple I, the Apple I, in 1975. Wozniak was largely working to impress other members of the Palo Alto-based Homebrew Computer Club, a local group of electronics hobbyists interested in computing, with the Apple I. The club was one of many key centers that sparked the home hobbyist period, effectively creating the microcomputer industry in the next few decades. Unlike other custom Homebrew designs, the Apple had an easy-to-achieve video capability that attracted a crowd when it was announced.

Wozniak had completed the Apple I computer's basic layout by March 1, 1976. 5–6 He alone created the computer's motherboard, circuit board designs, and operating system. When working there, Wozniak first presented the scheme to HP, but the company denied it on five occasions. Wozniak, who was initially skeptical, was later advised by Jobs that even if they weren't successful, they should still be able to build and sell naked printed circuit boards of the Apple I. 4–6 : 35–38 Wozniak was advised by Jobs that even if they weren't successful, they should at least say to their grandchildren that they had owned their own business. Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator, while Jobs sold his Volkswagen van to raise the funds needed to build the first batch of the circuit boards.

: 4–6 : 35–38

Jobs and Wozniak, 1976, founded Apple Inc., as well as administrative manager Ronald Wayne, whose involvement in the new venture was short-lived. After Jobs came from Oregon and told Wozniak about his time in an apple orchard there, the two decided on the term "Apple."

After the company was established, Wozniak, a work of the Homebrew Computer Club, took a one-day visit to the Apple I. 39-40 Paul Terrell, who was opening a new computer shop in Mountain View, California, was impressed by the machine's completely assembled version. Terrell, 66, told Jobs that he would order 50 units of the Apple I and pay $500 (equivalent to $2,380 in 2021) per unit on delivery, but only if they were fully assembled, as he was not involved in buying plain printed circuit boards.

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The pair created the first boards in Jobs' parents' Los Altos home; first in his bedroom and later (when there was no space left) in the garage. Wozniak's San Jose apartment was packed with monitors, electronic equipment,, and computer games that he had created. The Apple I sold for $666.66.66. Wozniak later said he had no idea about the correlation between the number and the animal's number, and that he paid the price because he liked "repeating numbers." Later this year, Terrell sold their first 50 system boards to them.

Jobs and Wozniak were given substantial support in November 1976 by a then-semi-retired Intel product marketing manager and engineer named Mike Markkula. ten Wozniak resigned from his role at HP and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple, at Markkula. The Apple I was identical to the Altair 8800, the first commercially available microcomputer, but there was no provision for internal expansion cards on Wozniak's Apple. With expansion cards, the Altair could connect to a computer terminal and be programmed in BASIC. Compared to the Apple I, it was a hobbyist machine. Wozniak's prototype featured a $25 CPU (MOS 6502) on a single circuit board with 256 bytes of ROM, 4K or 8K bytes of RAM, and a 40-character by 12-row display controller. Apple's first computer lacked a case, power supply, keyboard, and display; all components that had to be supplied by the user. Apple I computers were only produced in total about 200 units.

Wozniak created the Apple II, the first personal computer with the ability to display color graphics, and the BASIC programming language was built in to complement the Apple I. Wozniak discovered a way to bring colors into the NTSC system by using a US$1 chip, but he claims he had no idea how it works. Jobs proposed that the Apple II should have two expansion slots, but Wozniak wanted eight. Wozniak threatened Jobs that he "go get him another computer," during a tense debate, they decided to go with eight slots. At the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II. In May 1977, Wozniak's first article on the Apple II appeared in Byte magazine. It became one of the world's first highly acclaimed mass-produced personal computers.

The Disk II floppy disk drive, which was released in 1978 specifically for use with the Apple II series, was also designed to replace the slower cassette tape drives.

Apple made it public to instant and significant financial results in 1980, earning Jobs and Wozniak, both millionaires. The Apple III, Apple II's advised replacement, was a commercial failure and was scrapped in 1984. According to Wozniak, Apple's hardware failures accounted for 100% hardware defects, and that the main reason for these failures was that the Apple III "was engineered by Apple's marketing group, not unlike Apple's previous engineering-driven projects.

Wozniak, along with Jef Raskin, who conceived the machine, was influential in the early design and development phase of the original Macintosh's development process. The "Macintosh 128k" would be the first mass-market personal computer with an integrated graphical user interface and mouse. With the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to support vector graphics, the Macintosh will also enter the desktop publishing market. In a 2013 interview, Wozniak said that "Steve [Jobs] took over the initiative in 1981 because I had a plane crash but wasn't there."

The Beechcraft Bonanza A36TC, which Wozniak was piloting but not licensed to operate), crashed soon after takeoff from the Sky Park Airport in Scotts Valley, California, on February 7, 1981. The plane stalled while boarding, but it recovered and crashed into an embankment after crashing. Wozniak and his three passengers, en-fiancée Candice Clark, Jack Clark, and Jack Clark's girlfriend, Janet Valleau, were wounded. Wozniak sustained serious facial and head injury, including missing a tooth, and then suffered for the next five weeks from anterograde amnesia, preventing the inability to produce new memories. He had no recall of the accident and didn't recall his name when he was in the hospital or doing other activities until he was released. Apple II computer games would later help him regained his focus. According to the National Transportation Safety Board's report, premature liftoff and pilot inexperience were likely causes of the accident.

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After recovering from the plane crash, Wozniak did not return to Apple immediately, citing it as a valid excuse to return. "Coming out of the semi-coma was like flipping a reset switch in Woz's brain." It was as if he'd recovered the courage he had had when he was eighteen before all the computer mania began. Woz found that he had no interest in engineering or design when he was born. Rather, in a strange way, he wanted to start fresh.

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Wozniak re-enrolled at UC Berkeley to complete his Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences degree, which he started in 1971, with 1981 being the first to complete. Although his name was well known at this time, he enrolled under the name Rocky Raccoon Clark, which is the name on his diploma, but he did not complete his electrical engineering or computer science degree until 1987.

Wozniak formed Unuson, an abbreviation of "unite us in song," which sponsored two US Festivals, not as initials. The festivals, which were initially intended to celebrate changing technologies, ended up as a technology exhibit and a music festival, as a mash-up of music, computers, television, and people. Wozniak said that if the 1983 festival went well, he would avoid attending rock festivals and return to building computers. Wozniak returned to Apple product development later this year, desiring no more of an engineer's role than that of an engineer and a motivating factor for the Apple workforce.

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He created the Apple Desktop Bus, a proprietary bit-serial peripheral bus that became the basis of all Macintosh and NeXT computer designs in the 1980s.

Apple's corporate leaders, including Steve Jobs, increasingly abused the Macintosh's iconic cash cow Apple II series, beginning in the mid-1980s. The Apple II division, other than Wozniak, was not invited to the Macintosh introduction function, and Wozniak was seen kicking the dirt in the parking lot. Although Apple II products made up 85 percent of Apple's revenues in early 1985, the company's annual meeting in January 1985 did not discuss the Apple II division or its employees, which was a common occurrence that enraged Wozniak.

Wozniak continued to be a part of Apple's success, but he felt that the company was preventing him from being who he wanted to be, and that it was "the bane of his life." He loved engineering, not administration, and said he missed "the fun of the early days" in engineering. Wozniak left Apple early 1985, saying that the company had been going in the wrong direction for the past five years" as other talented engineers joined the company. He then sold the majority of his stock.

The Apple IIe, a Macintosh computer that enabled compatible Macintosh computers to run Apple IIe and use some Apple II peripherals, was available well into the late 1980s, but it wasn't until May 1995 that it was discontinued entirely; the Apple IIe card, which allowed compatible Macintosh computers to run Apple IIe applications and use some Apple IIe peripherals, was discontinued entirely.

Wozniak founded CL 9 in 1985, which introduced and introduced the first programmable universal remote control to market in 1987.

Wozniak's second lifelong goal was never intended to teach elementary school due to the crucial role teachers play in students' lives. He did eventually teach computer classes to students from the fifth to the ninth grades, as well as teachers. The unuson continued to promote this by giving additional teachers and equipment.

Wozniak invented Wheels of Zeus (WOZ) in 2001 to "help everyday people find everyday activities more efficiently." He joined Ripcord Networks, Inc.'s board in 2002, alongside Apple alumni Ellen Hancock, Gil Amelio, Mike Connor, and Wheels of Zeus co-founder Alex Fielding in a new telecommunications venture. He joined Danger, Inc., the company behind the Hip Top, later this year.

Wheels of Zeus was closed in 2006, and Wozniak founded Acquicor Technology, a holding company for purchasing technology companies and developing them, working with Apple alumni Hancock and Amelio. He was the chief scientist at Fusion-io from 2009 to 2014. He joined Primary Data in 2014 as the company's chief scientist, which was founded by several former Fusion-io workers.

The San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, is the annual pop culture and technology convention. SVCC (SVCC) is a monthly pop culture and technology show. Wozniak and Rick White co-founded the convention, with Trip Hunter as CEO. Wozniak, as well as Marvel legend Stan Lee, announced the annual festival in 2015.

Wozniak founded Woz U, an online education technology service for students and employees in October 2017. Woz U was listed as a school with the Arizona state board as of December 2018.

Wozniak, who joined Apple as an active employee in 1985, has chosen not to resign himself from the official employee list and continues to represent the company at events or in interviews. Apple gives him a stipend for his work in 2006, which was estimated to be US$120,000 per year. He is also a shareholder of Apple. He had been friends with Steve Jobs until his death in October 2011. Wozniak, in 2006, admitted that he and Jobs were not as close as they used to be. Wozniak said in a 2013 interview that the original Macintosh "broke" under Steve Jobs, and that it wasn't until Jobs were gone that it became a success. Jobs had been fired out of Apple Lisa, and Jobs used to joke about the Lisa company's "idiots for making [the Lisa computer] too costly," he said. According to Wozniak, a cheaper computer was used to compete with Lisa, Jobs and his new team's new one, "weak," "lousy" and "still at a reasonable price." According to Wozniak, "He made it by chopping the RAM down and requiring you to swap disks here and there." "The Macintosh's eventual success was attributed to people like John Sculley, who was planning to develop a Macintosh market when the Apple II went away."

Wozniak also revealed the launch of Efforce, a new company led by him at the end of 2020. Efforce is described as a marketplace for funding environmentally friendly programs. To redistribute the income to token holders and enterprises listed on the website, it used a WOZX cryptocurrency token for funding and blockchain. The WOZX cryptocurrency token increased 1,400% in the first week of trading.

Wozniak co-founder Alex Fielding and co-founder Privateer Space were among the 2021 pioneers of space debris to address the problem of space debris. On March 1, 2022, Privateer Space unveiled the first version of their space traffic monitoring software.

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