"I awoke one night in Quito, Ecuador, this year and came up with a way to save a chip or two from the Apple II, and a trivial way to have the 2 grays of the Apple II be different (light gray and dark gray) but it’s 38 years too late."
This is how you know you love your work. When you're still thinking of new things you can optimize, even four decades later.
Why is that cool? There's no doubt that Woz brilliant. However, I wish he had a second act. That he would come out with some sort of cool wearable or something else.
Steve Jobs kept trying to invent the next big thing. Apple II, Macintosh, NeXT, iPod, iPhone. For some reason, engineers often don't think like this
One of the things i admire about Woz is that he had the self-awareness not to lust after a second act. He has neither the insecurity to need to do it, nor the arrogance to think that he could do it.
He gave the world a superb, decisive work of engineering, then left the stage to other performers while he went to teach future generations.
I wouldn't call wanting a second act ego. It's about contributing and working on interesting problems. Elon, for example, made some money on PayPal but that's not what he really wanted to do. Once you become successful it opens doors. The guys at Google didn't want to be an advertising company, they probably want to just work on Google X all day. Anyway, the Woz already made a dent in the universe. He's certainly entitled to relax if that's what he so chooses.
Read about Woz' history. He had had a plane crash, that (at least temporarily) borked his memory circuits. One can only speculate on what he would have done if that hadn't happened.
Which is not to say he definitely would have - but don't count the missing 2nd act against him.
> Steve Jobs kept trying to invent the next big thing.
What did Steve Jobs invent actually?
He was just the marketing guy who got all the innovation credit. Still does actually... There's no movie about Woz (in fact they made him look like a bumbling idiot in the first run, and now a comedian will play him in the second run). There's no movie about the iPhone team. Nobody knows who did the real inventing behind anything Apple.
Moments like this from Woz give an insight to how some of the greatest engineering geniuses tick.
~~
Great moment showing Woz's genius and humanity:
> In 1973, Jobs was working for arcade game company Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.[10] He was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50 by using RAM for the brick representation. Too complex to be fully comprehended at the time, the fact that this prototype also had no scoring or coin mechanisms meant Woz's prototype could not be used. Jobs was paid the full bonus regardless. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[11] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.
Being an engineer myself, I agree with you absolutely. Not having seen "Jobs (2103)", but based on the clips, it looks horrible how Wozniak was presented there.
There's that general problematic trend in modern societies:
"The public figures of society today are actors, singers, sports figures, top models, and so-called famous people. This fashion is strongly imposed by the media. In film, scientists are often presented as nerds or as evil."
> There's no movie about the iPhone team.
At least here a lot of engineers tell what they did:
However it's still clear that a lot of what was done was directly decided by Jobs. So he is rightfully credited as the designer of the iPhone, in the sense of "the final result of all the smaller inventions."
I'm sorry you seem to be a really confused. Steve Jobs was always trying to build the ideal team. He knew it took great teams to build great products. He built the iPhone team. He built the Macintosh team. He built the NeXT team.
By the way, what's the point in telling the story about Jobs ripping off Wozniak? It's irrelevant to the point we'recdiscussing. This brings up another great Jobs quality. He had extreme focus. He wouldn't run into the weeds. Seriously, you converted the money to 2014 dollars? The point of the discussion isn't to assassinate anyone's character, or to determine which Steve you like the best. That's a nerd fight for another day.
Anyway, hopefully more engineers and founders will go on to have second and third acts like Jobs and Musk. I think engineers seem to have a harder time because they don't understand the importance of building teams.
It's clear from your multiple posts in this thread that you have some sort of star-eyes for Jobs, and nothing I say will persuade you otherwise.
With that said, I do feel you are giving awfully too much credit to someone who never actually designed anything in his life. Sure, he was at the helm of each of the companies that ended up producing good results, but do you actually believe Jobs himself was directly involved in the day-to-day decisions and engineering of each of the products? Absolutely not, he's busy running the company. The true unsung hero's at Apple and NeXT were the engineers, and their direct management team. Jobs may have been good at assembling a good management team and motivating them, but the management team are the ones who are good at assembling the right engineering team with the right motivation. I mean, Jony Ive should get more credit than Jobs for the iPhone, because he was and is the end-all-be-all of design for the product. Who recruited him? Not Jobs, it was Brunner.
Was Jobs great? Sure. Was he any more great than any of the modern great tech CEO's (Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Larry Ellison, Jonathan Schwartz, etc...)? Nope.
(btw, it's still 7% even in 1973 dollars. Jobs took home 93% without doing a thing while Woz got no credit, and no profit)
No one is trying to raise anyone to Sainthood here. However, Jobs certainly had enough repeated success that it's really hard to say that he just got lucky. I certainly wouldn't put Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Schwartz in the same category; Sun was sold for less than Skype.
Larry and Bill definitely ran great companies. And Bill does have a second act. He's trying to change the world on a larger scale. Good for him, and the world.
Anyway, you're still missing the point. Caught in some endless loop. Your version of Mighty Mouse vs Superman.
Comparing Steve Jobs to Larry Ellison is ridiculous, so it's obvious you've got no idea what you're talking about or you're de-valuing the role of a founder/executive to the point where they're just some figurehead.
Jobs built both Apple and Pixar, two companies with enormous influence in their respective fields. Those companies have organizational structures that are radically different, each one optimized towards their business and core ethos.
Ellison built Oracle, an interchangeable enterprise software company, and a World Cup team. Impressive but not nearly the same league.
A nit-pick -- Jobs bought Pixar, then let them do their thing with minimal oversight. Pixar was great because they were great. They just needed funding.
> Ellison built Oracle, an interchangeable enterprise software company
You may view Oracle as simply interchangeable and expendable, but in their respective space they dominate. They don't sell "sexy" products to consumers no, but as we've seen with all consumer-faced companies -- their time comes and goes -- while enterprise is constant.
Do you even know Ellison's story? It's far more inspirational than most other tech titan CEO's. It's the rags to riches story, and now he owns an island, world class sailing team, one of the world's largest yachts, and one of the largest enterprise-space companies in the world. Really the cliche "American Dream"
It's funny how you pick and chose parts of history to make your point.
Jobs did not found Pixar -- he bought the company (under a different name then changed to Pixar) from Lucas Film. He was not the CEO, he was chairman of the board and famously had very little to do with their day-to-day activities -- he really just let them do their thing. He almost sold Pixar multiple times because they were not the home-run company he had hope for, until Toy Story. He slowly bought shares back from employees and the actual founders until he owned almost 100% of the company (making his total investment $50 million). Then he sold the company off to Disney.
Jobs was the check book for Pixar -- he didn't make them great, they were great all along. They just had no product and no capital for a long period of time. He gave them the chance to succeed, and for that he should get credit. But he wasn't some sort of creative mastermind genius that turned Pixar into what is became.
In any regard, we've gone into the weeds. As I said multiple posts ago, I'm never going to change your mind. Apple sold products you like as a consumer, and therefore you like the person at the helm. Personally, I think there are far better businessman examples all over, some I've mentioned already, others are like the guy in Napa Valley, CA making $2 billion a year selling wine corks.
Steve Jobs, by any definition, founded Pixar. He bought a team of people from Lucas Film and some technology, most of which had to be extensively re-worked.
The technology he bought was for rendering hardware. The company, under his specific direction, went from producing hardware and software to feature films.
Your hand-waving dismissal of the role Jobs played in Pixar is staggeringly ignorant.
Many accounts from the key people on the Pixar team credit Jobs with his important decisions and his hand in creating the culture that Pixar has today. I'm presuming you haven't ready any of those. "It's funny how you pick and choose", or in your case flat-out ignore.
How does making money have anything to do with being a better businessman? How does $2B in sales compare to a titanic company like Apple that's pulling down $40B per quarter? Not very well.
Steve was someone I threw out as a person who had multiple acts. I threw out Elon as an example on this page too. We are not trying to solve who the best business man is? After all, what would any of that have to do with the Woz? If you want to compare a $2 billion business to one of the most valuable companies in the world, we could be here all day.
By the way, I based my claim that Jobs was CEO of Pixar based on the co-founder of Pixar, and other facts I found on the Internet. Can you provide some facts to show that I'm wrong?
If we take it back to the original point - it was that the true innovators were the engineers hidden away at Apple; Woz was/is one of them. Before Job's passing, he made some very famous exclamations of things Apple would never do.
1) Never will have a small form factor tablet
2) Never will have a large form factor phone
3) Never will produce "cheap" plastic-component phones
4) Never will embrace NFC
Towards the end, as we can very clearly now see, Jobs stood in the way of his team and innovation. Every single one of the things he said Apple will never do, they have done. And as we can see, they have been very successful with each line item. In fact, they've sold more iPhones now than ever during his tenure.
Jobs could put together a management team -- but he couldn't produce a product. During his first tenure at Apple, the company produced some of the worst garbage the world has ever seen from a modern company. It wasn't until his second chance that his management team finally got the right engineers hired. Like I said earlier, Jony Ive wasn't even a Jobs hire - Ive almost left apple when Jobs returned!
His management team were the ones that put together the engineering team and production teams -- and ultimately turned Apple into what they are today. People like Woz deserve the credit Jobs takes and gets.
As we can clearly see you have no idea how Jobs worked. He was extremely passionate about his beliefs, but as many have said, again and again, he would be completely opposed to an idea one day and the next he'd be telling you about how that was the best thing ever. He knew when it was time to re-evaluate his opinions.
He said Apple would never make a phone. They did. He said "never" many times, and many times Apple went and did exactly that.
Learn your history.
Yes, pre-NeXT Steve Jobs wasn't as good at directing products, but he did create the Macintosh. Post-NeXT (and Pixar) he had a much better sense of how to build teams and create products, those years were not squandered.
Dismissing someone because of failures is ridiculous. Bill Gates shipped Windows 1.0, an abortion of a product, and Windows 2.0, which was nearly as useless. It was only with Windows 3.0 they finally got traction and that went on to become the dominant operating system in the world.
Thanks for finally giving me a link. Unfortunately, it confirms that I'm right and you're wrong. Steve Jobs is listed one of the founders. Please see the Founders box on the right-hand side.
In addition, read the paragraph containing this line:
"He also began then for the first time to take an active direct leadership role in the company, making himself its CEO. "
There is an alternative point of view perhaps: Macintosh, NeXT, iPod and iPhone don't have just Jobs in the team of designers, there are many people that did the bulk work of engineering for which a single product was, perhaps, their main achievement. I agree that ability of Jobs to 'detect bullshit' was crucial in many products btw.
Another immense ability of Jobs was his "taste." Whoever followed enough about Jobs can easily recognize how much his "taste" hugely influenced anything where he was involved.
I believe the first universal remote was a couple of years before from Magnavox or Phillips and Woz invented the "programmable" remote a couple of years after this.
I'm consistently impressed by the sincerity and humility that comes through in what Woz says and writes. Not only is he a great engineer, but he just seems like a really great guy.
Though it might be attributable to bad writing/editing on the part his co-author, iWoz is by far the worst, most disappointing book I've read this year. It is essentially a 300-page 'humblebrag' about how smart he knows he was as a kid, how he's still kind of a kid, and what qualifies as bad things other people do versus pranks I pull. Read it for the interesting facts (in between reminiscences of the middle school science fair) and historical perspective, not for the writing or, as far as I can tell, to glimpse Woz's real character.
This is the polar opposite of how I feel about Woz's book. I started reading it after first reading the Jobs biography, in which I found the parts about Woz to be the most fun to read. I never finished the Jobs biography after getting iWoz. If the book reads like a "humblebrag", it's because it WAS a humblebrag...Woz decided to write it after apparently being frustrated with how Jobs was getting all the credit for Apple's early innovations...and in my opinion, Woz was 100% entitled to shout from the walls his amazing accomplishments.
I'm surprised you say that the book doesn't provide insight to Woz's real character. If anything, one of the book's shortcomings is that it reads as if an overexcited kid wrote it...but that seems to be Woz's actual character. You didn't find it at all interesting to read about Woz's insecurities, and how he basically created the Apple I as a means to have something to initiate small talk about with Homebrew club members?
One of the best chapters was when Woz explained getting through the trauma of his airplane crash. Other descriptions of the incident are considerably more darker, but Woz approaches it as you'd expect an engineer to.
(1) Agree that he has the right to brag. (2) I'm sure his character is much deeper and more interesting than what I perceived just by reading the book, without knowing him personally– that is what I mean.
As I said, I'm inclined to attribute the issues I have either with the writer, editor, or some dynamic in between. If the whole thing was presented in a 45 minute long lecture, I'd have been pretty excited. As an autobiography, I was disappointed. (Thanks for the thoughtful reply by the way– if I didn't have to run I'd try to give a more thorough exposition.)
I really enjoyed iWoz book - even so much that I wrote directly to Steve to thank him for writing it. It's warm and inspiring book and especially the last chapters about following your passion really made it for me.
Unfortunately no, I don't know of any other biographies of Woz that I could recommend. It's the only thing holding me back from saying "don't read this" in my previous comment.
I just want to add that I couldn't get past the first third of the book for the same reason. It felt like every chapter was another "humblebrag" event and the pranks weren't really that funny to me either.
I'm sure Woz is an amazing guy though. I would love to learn more about one of the giants from just before my time if anyone has another book they could recommend.
You've got to read iWoz in the context of the times it refers to. Jobs and Woz started out as a couple of naive, idealistic young hippies. Only one of them really changed.
A biography of Woz is never going to read like a glossy, romanticized biography of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Andrew Viterbi, Elon Musk or whoever. That's not who he is. He's... well, he's Woz. It takes all kinds, especially his.
yup, an absolutely amazing read, having recently finished reading it, I have even more respect for the guy and his work. I am really hoping the new jobs movie puts him in better light than what the last movie did.
When you read responses like this it's impossible not to be in awe of the guy. He's a great role model for newer generations both in his passion for his work and his top-notch personality.
Fantastic to see how humble he is with his response. He could have easily said "that's how it was done back then and it was really the best thing out there" but, he didn't. The stuff of legend.
Hi, I've been trying to figure this out for a while, and it's a hell of a thing to get Google to understand. Can someone explain why the rail is referred to as "-5v" instead of its opposite simply being called "5v"?
Because it's 5V below the "ground"/0V rail which most things are referenced to. It's very inconvenient to keep referring to the 17V rail and the 10V rail above the 5V return rail, so you call those 12V, 5V and 0V. The majority return current is in the 0V rail. The -5V rail supplies (conventional) current which also returns to the 0V rail.
"I awoke one night in Quito, Ecuador, this year and came up with a way to save a chip or two from the Apple II, and a trivial way to have the 2 grays of the Apple II be different (light gray and dark gray) but it’s 38 years too late."
This is how you know you love your work. When you're still thinking of new things you can optimize, even four decades later.