Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder
1. Wozniak's fascination with computers began when he was a child. He recently spoke about a childhood dream of building a 4-kilobyte computer for himself, though when his dad heard of the idea he scoffed, claiming it would cost as much as a house. Wozniak countered that he would forgo a house, and instead settle for an apartment as long as he could have his computer.2. During Wozniak's early stints at HP, Atari and Apple, he became known for coming up with hardware designs that utilized as few parts as possible. He explained his motivation for keeping part counts down when recently interviewed for the book Founders at Work: "When you are a startup or an individual on your own, you don't have very much money, so the fewer parts you have to buy, the better. When you design with very few parts, everything is so clean and orderly you can understand it more deeply in your head, and that causes you to have fewer bugs. You live and sleep with every little detail of the product."
3. The impetus behind Wozniak and Jobs forming Apple was their realization that a lot of computer enthusiasts wanted to tinker with the devices but didn't want to get their hands dirty doing things like soldering. The original vision was to simply sell enthusiasts pre-made boards for them to drop their chips into, making it easier to build their own computers.
4. When Wozniak realized his early design for a personal computer could be mass marketed, he took the idea to Hewlett Packard where he worked in the calculator division. Since he had signed a contract stating that HP would own all his inventions, he had to first pitch it to them. They were intrigued by his concept, but didn't see a fit for it in HP's product line -- thinking it wasn't scientific enough for high-end users, and it would rely on too many parts not produced by HP. When Steve Jobs secured a $50,000 order for 100 Wozniak-designed boards to be built, Wozniak circulated paperwork through several divisions of HP via its legal department, all of which signed off as being not interested in doing the job.
5. Wozniak and Jobs also pitched their boards to Commodore, which also passed. Commodore was making hardware with more chips but more limited functionality (for instance, they could only produce black and white images vs. Wozniak's new board that could produce color). Wozniak recalls being told of internal discussions at Commodore involving their engineers dismissing the Apple board, claiming black and white was the way to go to keep their units as cheap as possible.
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6. Wozniak recently shed light on how he and Steve Jobs came up with the name Apple. He said that he and Jobs had been brainstorming more technical, descriptive company names, but Jobs thought up Apple one day, possibly hearkening back to his days doing summer work at a local apple orchard. They agreed it was a good fit, since it symbolized their goal of making the Apple computer a fixture in the home, as common as a piece of fruit. (Wozniak recalls asking Jobs if the name would be a problem since Apple Records already existed. Jobs dismissed the concern, saying it was a different type of company.)
7. A few years after Wozniak's 1985 departure from Apple, Wozniak founded another company named CL 9, which produced the very first universal remote control.
8. Wozniak's current venture is Acquicor, a company he founded with other Apple alumnus Ellen Hancock and Gil Amelio for the purpose of acquiring start-up new technology ventures and developing them.
9. He is an aficionado of lasers, and claimed to own one of the very first blue laser pointers, created custom for him before they could be mass-produced due to the high cost and difficulty in making them.
10. Wozniak is a big fan of practical jokes. He is infamous for prank calls and pranks like leaving pens that shock those who pick them up. Most are well-known, but he continues to think up new ones, saying that he recently began placing warning labels in strange public places, such as the one he affixes to toilets on airplanes that reads: "Do not flush over cities."
Sources: www.tech-mit.edu; Wikipedia; www.foundersatwork.com; Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
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