I, Woz

theodp writes "In a Q&A session, Steve Wozniak discusses his forthcoming autobiography, how HP not only passed on his Apple design but also nixed his pleas to work on an HP computer, and the perks of being an Apple co-founder - free 65W AC adapters!"

Comments

Perks

[wirah]

Perks like... being stinking rich?

Woz and Jobs

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The combination of Woz and Jobs is exactly like Microsoft. You've got technical prowess underlying a massive bullshit machine. And beards and geeky glasses all around.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[tsa]

I'm not much of a Microsoft fan, and I wonder: does Bill Gates have the same status amongst MS fans as Steve Jobs has amongst Apple fans? Steve may be a massive bullshit machine, but no one can deny he has a near god-like status amongst Apple fans.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[MosesJones]

With only two differences

1) Paul Allen doesn't hold a technical candle to Woz
2) Bill Gates doesn't hold a visionary candle to Jobs

Without Jobs there would be no Apple, Woz would have stuck at HP and written printer drivers.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Gates & Jobs are grand bullshit artists, but I don't think Gates has the personality to achieve the same status as Jobs has. I suspect that if he did, the perception of Microsoft wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is now. The other interesting thing is that Jobs started out with questions like "How can I change the world?" while Gates' was "How can I make a lot of money?" Jobs & Gates might have both ended up at the same point, with the bank balances to prove it, but Jobs seems to have had a lot more fun getting there. Gates has been more single minded, but doesn't seem to have the love for his work that Jobs does.

I'd better disclaim myself: I am not an Apple or Microsoft share holder, and I've never owned a Mac or any other Apple product.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[CRCulver]

Without Jobs there would be no Apple, Woz would have stuck at HP and written printer drivers.

Even writing printer drivers can lead to great things. After all, it was a printer problem that spurred Richard Stallman towards development of GNU, which of course became the foundation for the later flourishing of Free Software and the open source development model. (Sam William's biography Free as in Freedom published by O'Reilly gives the whole story of the printer problem.) You don't need to hook up with a charismatic individual with a reality distortion field to change the world. If a controversial eccentric like Stallman can do great things from a hermit-like AI lab, then Woz would have had opportunities even without Jobs.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Farmer Tim]

Without Jobs there would be no Apple, Woz would have stuck at HP and written printer drivers.

So that explains why HP's printer drivers suck like a starving lamprey. But surely they could have found at least one other decent software engineer in the last 30 years...

Re:Woz and Jobs

[jeremywc]

I would argue that the Apple I & II made a larger impact on the computing world than emacs. :P

Re:Woz and Jobs

[AHumbleOpinion]

He created the specs for the Apple ][ case, without that the Apple ][ would have been as useful and popular as the IMSAI or other machines from the same time-period.

The Apple 1 was a kit. Moving to a non-kit was a fairly conventional next step. The case was a fairly paltry design compared to what went inside, ill-positioned keyboard, poorly implemented removable lid (easily worn if open too much), ... Sorry, I used Apple II, II+, and //e models for many years, there was nothing special about the case in it's day. It is merely nostalgic today looking back at it.

With the Mac he wanted to extend that to the software, not only the hardware... Well, he was ahead of time...

Xerox was ahead of its time. Steve was merely a good salesman that recognized something good when he saw it. Also the real design of the Mac came from the very talented engineers working at Apple, who like Woz, are overshadowed by the public face of a saleman.

All that said, a salesman is very useful. A company with a bunch of brilliant engineers but without a great salesman is likely to be a failure or a buyout target. But let's try not to confuse the hype machine with history.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[ucblockhead]

Without Jobs there would be no Apple,

That's like saying "without your left leg, you couldn't walk".

Re:Woz and Jobs

[386spart]

2) Bill Gates doesn't hold a visionary candle to Jobs

I don't think that's true really, they just had different visions. Bills vision from a while back has been "a computer on every desk and in every home" and that has certainly happened, and almost all of those computers are running Windows.

Jobs and Gates are different kinds of geniuses, but I agree that they are probably both much more rare than the Wozniak kind of genius. There are a lot of techies so skilled at something it feels like they can control it with their minds, but who - like Woz apparently - think about getting a job in a small room in a corporate concrete bunker rather than changing the world.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[LordOfTheNoobs]

And I was thinking it was more like `brilliance is useless without the motivation to utilize it'

Re:Woz and Jobs

[ConceptJunkie]

Jobs and Gates had different visions. Jobs wanted to transform the world and Gates wanted to be rich enough so women would talk to him.

But I kid the richest man in the world.

Both had that rare combination of a certain amount of technical skill, a type A personality (A+ is more like it) and a whole lotta luck.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Weedlekin]

"Xerox was ahead of its time."

It was the pure R&D outfit that Xerox funded which was ahead of its time, not Xerox itself.

"Steve was merely a good salesman that recognized something good when he saw it"

Which was more than Xerox did, hence the fact that more than one of the computer visionaries at PARC left to work for Apple.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[m0RpHeus]

I would argue that the Apple I & II made a larger impact on the computing world than emacs. :P I would argue that the concept of Free Software made more impact in the computing world than the Apple I & II.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[jeremywc]

I would argue that the concept of Free Software made more impact in the computing world than the Apple I & II.

That's a poor comparison. If we're talking about ideologies, then I would still maintain that the personal computer revolution had more of an impact on society as a whole than the free software movement.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[justthinkit]

Even writing printer drivers can lead to great things.

Andy Hertzfeld converted an apple printer into a scanner. More Apple brilliance. I saw the guy talk once...impressive in person as well, probably just as human/personal as The Woz.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[justthinkit]

they just had different visions

With apologies to BadAnalogyGuy, here goes...

Gates is like Tiger Woods: tenancious, win-at-all costs mentality and dominating his field.

Jobs is like Don King: promoter extraordinaire but not universally loved.

Woz is like Muhammad Ali: innovative, a hero to millions, able to perform miracles.

Ballmer is like Mark Cuban: mouthy, driven, get your kneepads ready.

RMS is like John Rocker: constantly in the media, but for the wrong reasons.

Phillippe Kahn is like Pele: brilliant, miles ahead of the competition, but peaked before his field did.

Linus Torvalds is like Phil Mickelson: "just having fun", happy to be number two, looking mighty good in 2006.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[bloobloo]

MS fans? I do not believe that you understand what you are saying.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Yer Mom]

Both Gates & Jobs are grand bullshit artists

Tsk, tsk. We Apple users pronounce it "reality distortion field".

Re:Woz and Jobs

[weg]

Woz would have stuck at HP and written printer drivers

Considering the quality of the driver for my HP 5652 Deskjet, this would not have been to HP's disadvantage..

Re:Woz and Jobs

[poot_rootbeer]

1) Paul Allen doesn't hold a technical candle to Woz
2) Bill Gates doesn't hold a visionary candle to Jobs

And it's because of these two reasons that Apple controls about 90% of the home computer market, and Microsoft, while profitable, remains little more than a niche player.

Or perhaps there's some other factors involved than raw technical and visionary prowess.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that the concept of Free Software made more impact in the computing world than the Apple I & II.

No way in hell.

It's 2006, and Free Software(tm) still has done essentially nothing to change the average person's life. No one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool technophile has even heard of it, and even fewer would be affected if it fell of the face of the planet. Sure, those $59 Linksys routers running Linux would cost $159 instead, but that's about it.

Only with the inroads made by Firefox are we starting to see a social impact being made by part of the Free Software movement... and that's only happening because Microsoft fumbled the ball on IE.

Nobody owes their life to fucking Emacs. The Apple II, on the other hand, stole fire from the gods. By treating a computer as a consumer-level device, it changed everything and it changed everyone.

It changed your path too, even if you don't acknowledge it.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[soupforare]

Writing printer drivers does lead to great things, like Macintosh' success.
Laserwriter + postscript = total win.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[stanmann]

And had xerox or HP had a visionary salesman such as jobs working for them, neither Apple nor Microsoft would be players in the market today.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Weedlekin]

Many things would be different if one historic fact was changed. If IBM had said to Gates "You licence your OS to us alone, take it or leave it", the entire clone sydrome would have been still-born, IBM wouldn't have lost their business computing monopoly, and we'd all be using descendents of CP/M, Macs, Amigas, or one of the other systems that were competing with one another in the early 1980s.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Gilmoure]

There are connections. Bill Gate's mom was on the national Red Cross board, along with a VP at IBM. When she heard that IBM was looking for an OS for a personal computer, she got MicroSoft in touch with IBM. Sometimes, it is who you know.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[What me a Coward]

I think Gates actually saw the PC as the device that allowed people to use the OS wereas Jobs saw the OS as the thing that lets people use the PC.

    It reflects on how both took their companies.

    MSconcetrated on making OS's and software for PC's and used licencing of them to make money bocoming large and sucessfull.

  Apple concetrated more on hardware and an OS to make it run so people could use the hardware. Then marketed the hardware to make a profit. However that model hasn't been quite the success that MS has been.

    Both are doing well all things considered though.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[What me a Coward]

True their would however still be the computer which woz was making before jobs even knew he was doing it.

    Woz might and probably would have without jobs marketed it later when it was ready and not looking like a pine box with a keyboard and screen to HP again and they probably would have went with it.

    Barring anything else he could have sold them as homebrew pc's to the kids on campus who would have bought them even if they still looked like pine boxes with screens. The demand would have driven Woz to either start his own company or find a partner to do it either way their would still have been the pc. It just would have taken different routes to get their.

    Also in that vien the apple without jobs would probably never have forced their software writers to another platform for not switching to writing buisness apps over games (one of the reasons Woz started making his PC to begin with). If the game developers hadn't been forced out of apple then apple today would probably have become the premier gaming platform in the pc world that every hardcore gamer would be playing on and apple gaming would be a multi billion dallar industry. Instead we have people gaming more on the pc and PC gaming is a multi billion dollar industry that apple has little part in.

  Sure things would be different without jobs but no apple pc? Not sure who came up with that name but im sure under one name or another the apple would have come along it just would have followed some different paths to it's destination.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[Hal_Porter]

The Apple II is your SAVIOUR! It died for YOUR SINS!

Re:Woz and Jobs

[What me a Coward]

Nice to see someone else to remembers the apple I,II,II+ and //e but were kinda dating ourselves lol.

    Well Jobs was good really at recognizing something good when his engineers like Woz saw it.

    Jobs at first didn't see anything in the mouse or the Gui until Woz and the other engineers went gaga over them wanting to know how they worked at that point Jobs pounced on it and went with it.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[sgt_doom]

I think you are right, but why distinguish between the two Steves, they are both exceptional people (although I've never met either so I can't comment how they stack up in the personality department.)

Re:Woz and Jobs

[noidentity]

"With only two differences"

You left one out:

3) No airborne chairs

Re:Woz and Jobs

[runderwo]

It's 2006, and Free Software(tm) still has done essentially nothing to change the average person's life.

Nothing, besides being responsible for the explosion of this thing we call the Internet and the World Wide Web. And for forcing Microsoft and other established industry behemoths like Cisco and Sun to produce a better product or to die.

No one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool technophile has even heard of it,

Plenty of people who aren't die-hard technophiles haven't heard of Nikola Tesla or Detroit Diesel. It doesn't change the fact that things would be a lot more expensive and inconvenient, and not necessarily in an immediately quantifiable way, if they didn't exist. The solution is not to join those who would continue to marginalize Free Software into obscurity, it is to educate people who have no clue about the systems that do the real heavy lifting to make their day to day lives easier.

Through this education, they can see the value of the invisible hand of Linux, of GNU, of Apache, of Perl, PHP, Python, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and countless other successfully engineered operating system and middleware products that lie there, just below the surface of the pretty application they are using, doing what they are designed to do and in doing so enabling people to lead more fulfilling lives.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[zachk]

And for forcing Microsoft and other established industry behemoths like Cisco and Sun to produce a better product or to die.


ahahaha!! are you serious!?

Re:Woz and Jobs

[runderwo]

If you think their products are bad now, just imagine how bad they would be without competition. And imagine how entrenched their lock-in schemes would be.

Re:Woz and Jobs

[zoomzit]

"Woz would have had opportunities even without Jobs."

I don't think Woz's life post-Apple bears this out. When Woz left Apple, he had his smarts and God-like IT status. With these two attributes, he should be more than able to do exceptional things. However, he really hasn't done all that much since then.

To answer the question of who is the better of the two Steve's I think you have to ask how each has done apart from the other. In this regard, Jobs has, and will continue, to make the bigger contribution to the world at large.

Limitations of autobiographies

[CRCulver]

It'll be nice to get an autobiography from Woz, but the problem with many autobiographies is that they show you just one side of a person, and in the tech industry that can be dull. I think that gossipy histories like Apple Confidental 2.0 are superior, as they present a whole range of viewpoints and better show a person in context with other historical actors.

Still, I'm curious if Woz will write anything about the challenges he faced at early Apple from rude coworkers. He wasn't exactly treated fairly by Jobs and the company in its fledgling days, and a personal perspective would be interesting.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[Moby Cock]

He wasn't exactly treated fairly by Jobs and the company in its fledgling days

That is the long standing rumour. As you say, it'll be interesting to see if this is actually the case. Hopefully he'll discuss whether his treatment (good or bad) was warranted in the context of trying to set up a big corporation. It is always advisable to treat people decently, but there are times when circumstance dictate ruthlessness.

I'm looking forward to reading Woz's take on it all.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[Anonymous Coward]

"He wasn't exactly treated fairly by Jobs and the company in its fledgling days"

Oh, I dunno. I think he Woz.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[Lussarn]

We can probably be sure Woz will be unfairly treated by Steve after releasing this book. Woz will give out some unfavorable info on Jobs like the color of his underwear. Steve will regard this as a "trade secret" and sue the pants of Woz.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[Moby Cock]

And then we'll see the colour of Woz' underwear :D

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[gEvil (beta)]

Last week's This Week in Tech podcast had about 5 or 6 people from the early Apple days doing a 30th anniversary episode, and Woz was among them (actually, Leo's had Woz on 4 or 5 TWiTs now). Anyhow, Leo asked him about this very thing. Woz responded that while he and Steve did have their occasional run-ins, Jobs seemed to have a great respect for Woz and his talents and never really flew off the handle towards him.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[Moofie]

"but the problem with many autobiographies is that they show you just one side of a person"

It's an AUTOBIOGRAPHY. You should proceed from the assumption that the story is told from the perspective, and with the preconceptions, of the subject.

Re:Limitations of autobiographies

[sharkey]

Steve will regard this as a "trade secret" and sue the pants of Woz.

He's only going to sue Woz's pants? Wouldn't it be more profitable to sue Woz himself?

From the article

[Wellington Grey]

I was in Boston once. I needed two AC adapters. I ran into this new Apple store. I went up to the counter, "I'd like two 65-watt AC adapters." I didn't say anything about who I was. And they bring them out. I say, "How much?" They say, "We are expensing it." I said, "Yeah, but how do I pay for it?" They said, "No, no, no -- we are allowed to give gifts to special people."

Man oh man, I'd love to know the criterion to get on that list.

-Grey

Re:From the article

[quokkapox]

Try being a regular 50-year old bearded guy who likes wearing a black turtleneck and jeans. I wasn't into Apple until some hippy college kid tried to get me to listen to what he was playing on this newfangled "iPod" thing. I had to smack him down with my WinCE PDA. Anyway, it's not a list you want to be on.

Re:From the article

[s0l3d4d]

If you badge number has only 1 digit in it, that's normally good enough for getting to that list. ;-)

Re:From the article

[lxdbxr]

I was in Boston once. I needed two AC adapters. I ran into this new Apple store. I went up to the counter, "I'd like two 65-watt AC adapters." I didn't say anything about who I was.

Obviously being the Wonderful Wizard of Woz does not protect you from getting crappy PowerBook adapters in the first place (on my third at the moment); or maybe he needed some extra ones for some bizarro project?

Re:From the article

[BenBenBen]

3rd here - 5th if you count the twice in a row that I tried reconditioned ones from eBay. They lasted around 4 months each, by the way, versus about a year for brand new ones.

Funny how the man who can probably afford the £65 (100 USD) each one costs doesn't have to.

Re:From the article

[ptomblin]

My first one (for my 15" TiBook) and my step-daughter's first one (for her 14" iBook) both had the same flaw (no strain relief where cords go into hard components) and both failed on the same week after about 10 months. Both of our free replacements have strain relief and both have lasted 3+ years. I since upgraded to a newer 17" AlBook and bought a used adaptor from a friend, so I have three adapters, which means I can leave one in my office, one in the TV room and one in the laptop bag.

The AlBook is nearly a year old and the battery life now sucks (barely get an hour and half out of it), so if I could I'd sprinkle adaptors all over the house and never use it unplugged.

Re:From the article

[kklein]

I used to do tech support for Apple (outsourced). The official policy (from Apple) was "If Woz calls, give him whatever he wants and don't ask any questions." And one day I got him on the phone, he read me a list of SNs for out-of-warranty PowerBooks he needed repaired (he does something with PBs and disabled kids--or at least did in 1995), and I sent him the appropriate number of Airborne Express boxes for them to be pulled into NY for repair. It was one of the coolest calls I handled, cooler than when Howard Stern called for his friend who couldn't speak English. Both guys, BTW, were really really nice.

Re:From the article

[TheRaven64]

The power adaptor connection on anything prior to the MacBook is a particularly poor design. A small amount of sheer force (such as putting the machine down plugged in on an uneven surface where the power lead is touching the ground) will cause it to be permanently deformed. At this point, the connection becomes intermittent, and it is a lot of effort to bend it back into the correct shape.

Re:From the article

[damien_kane]

So, then, my badge number (being 90000, as opposed to 00009) would get me on the list? Sweet...

Re:From the article

[elrous0]

Raising once again the eternal question "If Andrew Jackson were alive today, would he be able to get as many $20 bills as he wanted?"

-Eric

Re:From the article

[HardCase]

So, then, my badge number (being 90000, as opposed to 00009) would get me on the list? Sweet...

That's self-deprecating humor, I hope...

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

"...cooler than when Howard Stern called for his friend who couldn't speak English. Both guys, BTW, were really really nice...!

Well, with Stern allegedly scoring highly for "antisocial personality disorder" on DSM-IV (ie. an old skool psychopath), it's not surprising that he can turn on the ol' superficial charm at the drop of a hat. Similarly, a lot of high-level executives score very highly on the same scale

Just don't get between either of 'em and their goals: Then, you won't be a fellow human being, just a puppet, a cipher, a disposable and infuriating obstacle...

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

'0' isn't a digit in your world?

We have always been at war with Arabia.

Re:From the article

[ipxodi]

Why do I envision a sudden surge of phone calls to Apple support saying, "Hi, This is Woz. I need....."

Re:From the article

[Paradise Pete]

Man oh man, I'd love to know the criterion to get on that list.

I'll bet now that it's out that Steve sends him a bill.

Re:A not An

[NoName Studios]

Yeah, the summary totally had me fooled as well. How could they screw up spelling copmputer?

Re:A not An

[Bromskloss]

It's "A haitch-pee copmputer", not "An haitch-pee computer".

Man, what are you up to? I might as well go for "An ageing commuter".

Re:A not An

[trolleymusic]

H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is aitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H

Re:A not An

[The Grassy Knoll]

Actually, it's "An aitch-pee computer", not "An haitch-pee computer". See the wikipedia. What are they teaching in schools nowadays? .

Re:A not An

[ettlz]

God damn it! The correct spelling and pronunciation is "aitch"! A-I-T-C-H, see? One "h"!

Re:A not An

[The Grassy Knoll]

Or, better, this link...

Re:A not An

[tverbeek]

Not if you pronounce "H" as "aitch", Miss Doolittle. ("In 'Artford, 'Ereford, and 'Ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly hever 'appen," indeed.)

Couldn't we argue over something relevant - such as "WOHZ-nee-ak" vs. "WAHZ-nee-ak" - instead?

Power Adapters

[SillyWilly]

I'm not surprised free AC Adapters are a perk of founding Apple. Certainly my experience with my PowerBook has been that they need replacing every 12 months if not sooner.

Re:Power Adapters

[Solra Bizna]

They didn't suck before... my Clamshell used to go through about one of those yucky hockey puck adapters every two months, but then I found out that the old Lombard PowerBook adapters (conventional blocky kind) worked with it, and my first one of those has lasted me years with no sign of dying.

Now we have these newfangled death hook adapters...

-:sigma.SB

Re:Power Adapters

[rhesuspieces00]

My new fangled death hook adapter is going on 3 years now, without problem.

Re:Power Adapters

[Kadin2048]

Pray tell, which one is the "death hook?"

I have a while brick one, the one with the flip-out prongs that you can wind the cord around, and it's worked fine for several years.

I like the prase 'death hook' though. It has a certain ring to it. I don't know what it is, but I want one.

Re:Power Adapters

[rhesuspieces00]

The white brick is the one I am associating the "death hook" name with. I assume the death hook refers to the little tabs that fold out to wrap the wires around.

Apple's newest power adapters are identical to ours, except by the method they use to attach to the laptop. Instead of plugging in, they have a magnet that holds the connector in place. Maybe the parent was referring to those specifically...not sure.

Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[wiredog]

Step 2: Be Woz.

he woz different

[digitaldc]

"My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever."

I woz truly blown away by this statement.

Re:he woz different

[grumling]

"My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever."

I woz truly blown away by this statement.

Most real entrepreneurs want to make a product or perfom a service first, make money second. Money is what makes it all possible.

friends

[l3v1]

That's actually one of the nicest things Steve does for me: He makes sure I am always invited to the VIP guest area for the product rollouts. I appreciate that more than I can ever say.

I can appreciate one who knows what's most important in life, and one of those things is not forgetting who your friends are, and sticking by them all along. Even if it's just small things, which is the job of some secretary.

Re:friends

[x2A]

"Even if it's just small things, which is the job of some secretary"

He did say "makes sure I'm invited" not "makes sure he invites me", so it might be the job of some secretary :-p

Re:friends

[vhogemann]

I must agree with you.

I guess that's the difference, they really care about what they're doing, when Apple started it was not about making money... it was about making computers and changing the world!

It's as near as you get from a geek-fairy-tale =D

Re:friends

[elrous0]

Obviously you guys have never heard the story of how Steve Job screwed Woz over in the infamous Atari deal back in the early days (Woz himself tell the story on this Q&A page).

Woz was a good guy, the real deal. Jobs was a shark, focused mostly on how he could exploit people like Woz to make money.

-Eric

Re:friends

[bill_mcgonigle]

Woz was a good guy, the real deal. Jobs was a shark, focused mostly on how he could exploit people like Woz to make money.

I'm not rushing to Jobs's defense, but but I don't think we'd have Apple Computer today without the Yin and Yang of Jobs and Woz. They're both different and necessary talents.

Besides, Woz just lets Jobs think he exploited him - really Woz just wanted to do engnineering and exploited Jobs to do the business and marketing side.

Re:friends

[vhogemann]

From the article you linked:

This is old stuff, and it's best not to use it as an indicator of Steve today.

He seems to have forgiven Steve Jobs for this one. Everybody does stupid selfish things when young, can you throw the first rock?

Re:friends

[arose]

I'm not rushing to Jobs's defense, but but I don't think we'd have Apple Computer today without the Yin and Yang of Jobs and Woz. They're both different and necessary talents.

So what if we wouldn't have had Apple Computer? Someone else would have bought WIMP to the masses, maybe a bit later, maybe a bit different. And if not it would centainly be interesting to see how the Emacs like interface RMS had in mind would have turned out.

Besides, Woz just lets Jobs think he exploited him - really Woz just wanted to do engnineering and exploited Jobs to do the business and marketing side.

From grandparent's link:

You can see why I cried deeply when I found out the truth. I get hurt and cry very easily when people don't treat others well, or when the "right" thing isn't happening.

Re:friends

[Moofie]

If the end result is the same, so what?

Re:friends

[gfody]

Woz is an INTP, Jobs is an ENTP
It's a powerful alliance

Re:friends

[flink]

I can appreciate one who knows what's most important in life, and one of those things is not forgetting who your friends are, and sticking by them all along. Even if it's just small things, which is the job of some secretary.

No, no, no. What's important in life? "To crush my enemies, to see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

Hmm, nothing about friends in there...

Re:friends

[NetFu]

OK, if we're going to post bits of text from other sites, lets post the whole thing.

It is possible that between Woz, Jobs, and Bushnell, somebody isn't remembering it right. It was decades ago, after all.

Even if Jobs screwed over Woz, they were kids. I remember when I was that age, I did a few things that I am ashamed of today, some of them having to do with money. And, what I did back then has nothing to do with the kind of person I am today or have been for the past 15 years.

In other words, as you grow old you do in fact realize that people change. People can and do change.

Woz's Response To Jobs Question:

Q From e-mail:
I was in Barnes & Noble last night and stumbled onto a book by Gil Amelio which detailed his "500 days at Apple." I think his book was called "On the Firing Line." Anyway, given my interest in reading your comments in the wake of "Pirates," I looked up references to you. In one, he recounts your explanation of the Woz/Jobs friendship rift. He asserts that you told him that way back in the 70s, before the Apple I, you were working on something for Atari with Jobs. You did all of the work, and you and Jobs were supposed to get $1000. When you produced the product, Jobs gave it to Atari and came back to you with $300, saying all he got from them was $600. You didn't find out until the mid-eighties that Jobs actually did get $1000, and he ripped you off. Can you confirm this story?

WOZ:
I don't like to stir up old things that carry a negative note, but Steve was actually paid more like $3000 or $5000 or something. Nolan Bushnell, who paid him, gave the amount in a recent book, "Silicon Valley Guys." I was actually sort of thankful that Gil got it wrong, because it didn't sound as attrocious as it really was.

To clarify, this happened before Apple, when Steve and I were best friends with little to our names. Steve said we'd split it 50/50. If he'd just said that I could have $50 for doing it I would have done it anyway for the fun and honor of designing an arcade game.

You can see why I cried deeply when I found out the truth. I get hurt and cry very easily when people don't treat others well, or when the "right" thing isn't happening. Also, Steve doesn't remember the incident this way, so consider another possibility: that those saying the payment was large could be remembering it incorrectly. This is old stuff, and it's best not to use it as an indicator of Steve today.

Re:friends

[arose]

We know that Woz is a nice guy who can forgive, nothing has changed there. Why should we assume that Jobs has changed? The default is to assume he hasn't. We know he has become slicker though...

Re:friends

[elrous0]

Everybody does stupid selfish things when young

Most people continue to still do them when they're old too. And leopards rarely change their spots.

-Eric

Re:friends

[elrous0]

Did Jobs fuck your mom or something?

No, she's one of the few people he hasn't fucked.

-Eric

Re:friends

[elrous0]

That's what I love about /. Such thoughtful and erudite criticism, especially when someone criticizes Apple, Linux, or OSS.

-Eric

Hey Woz!

[MichaelSmith]

I see that you have a nice list of your friends web pages on your site which is great, including the link to Kevin Mitnick's site which is nice because he was in jail and everything but now it redirects to Kevin's new business which I don't have any problem with either, except that Mitnick has actualy spent time in jail for doing bad things to people and their systems and now seems to make money advising people how to steer clear of people like himself.

I'm not making any suggestions or anything, just pointing that out.

Re:Hey Woz!

[Josh teh Jenius]

FYI: The Minick story is about as tainted as any current discussion of Bush.

Not defending either, mind you. I usually like Wiki too. At this point, the Mitnick story is nothing but a 2600 PR stunt from the 90's, which is sad, becuase it really was a fascinating legal case, and a wonderful precursor to the PATRIOT ACT.

Read your history, kids.

Re:Hey Woz!

[Bromskloss]

FYI: The Minick story is about as tainted as any current discussion of Bush.

Not defending either, mind you. I usually like Wiki too. At this point, the Mitnick story is nothing but a 2600 PR stunt from the 90's, which is sad, becuase it really was a fascinating legal case, and a wonderful precursor to the PATRIOT ACT.

I don't get it. What's your point? Give us the _real_ story, then!

Re:Hey Woz!

[Code Herder]

Woz isn't squeeky clean either, with the whole blue box deal etc.

Re:Hey Woz!

[Josh teh Jenius]

Sorry for the false-start there, guys.

Let me say the following about our pal "free" Kevin:

a) As a hacker in recovery, I have a *very* tainted opinion here.

b) The suspension of Mr. Mitnick's Constitutional rights to due process were not justified.

c) The suspension of those rights, in the interest of protecting "national security", set a dangerous precedent.

The great thing about American law is that almost *everything* involved in the case is public record. If Google gives you grief, try Lexis Nexis.

Rather than spout my own inane opinions, I'll just suggest anyone looking for a solid term paper topic try "Kevin Mitnick: a precursor to the PATRIOT ACT?".

Only Kevin knows the "real" story, and like most hackers, he is far too egotistical to tell us the truth either. My interest in the case is not "w00t teh planet", but rather, the actions of our OWN judicial system, and their justification of those actions. Read the story. Find those facts. Then you tell me:

Who was the bad guy in this case?

P.S. Pro or con, agree or disagree, I'd love to read it if anyone takes me up on this.

P.P.S. As other posters have pointed out: Gates stole DOS, Woz was a "hacker", and the definition of that term has been totally destroyed by politics and media.

P.P.P.S. Seriously. You guys bitching about the misuse of "gay" have got NOTHING on the guys (like me) bitching about the misuse of "hacker".

Re:Hey Woz!

[heinousjay]

Seriously. You guys bitching about the misuse of "gay" have got NOTHING on the guys (like me) bitching about the misuse of "hacker".

You're pretty damn far off base there. I assume you're trying to be funny, but like most technical folk, you should lay off the comedy because it's just not a skill you have.

Re:Hey Woz!

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Maybe it's intentional, but Kris Gundersen's email link is wrong.

Re:Hey Woz!

[mgblst]

He doesn't list Steve Jobs as one of his friends. Maybe he will myseteriously stop getting those fancy invites to the VIP section??

Re:Hey Woz!

[Josh teh Jenius]

You are about to learn a deadly lesson:

Never argue with a bitter, underemployed hacker with nothing better to do than troll.

Both gays AND hackers have been UNFAIRLY IMPRISONED for following their own inherint natures. I see this is a PERFECTLY valid analogy.

The key difference of course: hackers don't get parades. In all honesty, neither get fair media exposure.

Re:Hey Woz!

[Hercynium]

The bottom line on Kevin Mitnick is this: Kevin was a criminal, Kevin was caught. Kevin was then denied several of his constitutional rights for an extended period of time. When the 'official' sentence was handed down, I believe he got fair treatment for his crimes - but his incarceration until then extended far beyond what I could consider reasonable justice.

While I do not support criminal activity, I do sympathize with injustice and prosecution under unreasonable laws, and I assume Woz would agree.

Admittedly, the facts I remember are fuzzy and may be wrong - but I'm open to being educated.

Re:Hey Woz!

[heinousjay]

I'm not arguing, especially not with a fanatic. If you really feel that way, your worldview is fucked and you should seek help. It's probably some part of the root of why you're unemployed.

Re:Hey Woz!

[Josh teh Jenius]

You raise a valid point.

Remembering that "hack" is not synonymous with "crime", just like "homosexual" is not synonymous with "stupid" or "foolish", please educate me.

Why is this an unfair analogy?

Re:Hey Woz!

[JimBobJoe]

which I don't have any problem with either

Which can't exactly be the case otherwise you wouldn't have made your post.

Mitnick brings a level, knowledge and sophistication to the field of information security which is truly unparalleled, thanks to his social engineering deeds (which many in the security industry understand and may have played around with, but not to the advanced level Mitnick did.)

Whether he makes money on his knowledge as a free man or gives it to the state/chairty because he's consulting from jail, his experience is irreproducible.

(Speaking of reproducing, Frank Abagnale (From Catch Me If You Can fame) also has experience as a masterful criminal applying social engineering, and has been able to turn that around and show companies what they need to know.))

If anything, IT people spend too much time listening to security eggheads, and not enough to the social engineering specialists who know where true weaknesses lie.

Re:Hey Woz!

[MichaelSmith]

If anything, IT people spend too much time listening to security eggheads, and not enough to the social engineering specialists who know where true weaknesses lie.

Oh absolutely, I just wouldn't want to have Mitnick as a friend.

Re:Hey Woz!

[JimBobJoe]

Oh absolutely, I just wouldn't want to have Mitnick as a friend.

What in his background suggests he would be a disloyal friend?

Re:Hey Woz!

[MichaelSmith]

What in his background suggests he would be a disloyal friend?

Social engineering is basically a con. You develop a relationship and proceed to exploit it.

Re:Hey Woz!

[JimBobJoe]

Social engineering is basically a con. You develop a relationship and proceed to exploit it.

I see your point (and I admit it didn't occur to me before) but the social engineering was heavily contextual.

I admit that I presume that he's reformed. Even if he isn't reformed, and I have the opportunity to befriend him (which I haven't) I wouldn't hesitate to do so. I'd keep your point in the back of my mind and watch out for information gathering situations.

Which would be, alas, ironic. Though he might have been a master at it, he is probably just as likely as anybody else in my life to use social engineering against me, but the fact that I would be wondering if he is and no one else isn't (thereby missing other dangers) is one of those funny security paradoxes.

Re:Hey Woz!

[ePhil_One]

Actually, Gates bought the rights to DOS from the Seattle Computing company for $50,000 - granted not a lot of money, but paying for something isn't stealing. He was just smart enough to know the value of what they had.

I would argue that Gates was quite generous in buying "QDOS", he threw enough money at the writer who had little chance of making half of that over the next 10 years with his product. What was valuable was contract with IBM, that Gates already had because Gary Kildall had refused to meet with IBM.

Parent is amazon aff spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at posting history, mod accordingly.

Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Actually Woz was the more important Steve, the one people liked, the engineer rather than the salesman, the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation, the one who decided not to make employees suffer under decades of on-the-job training while he developed the skills, the one who decided to do something more important, the one who was always welcome at Apple, the one person "at" Apple who doesn't need to care what Jobs thinks ...

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[hey!]

the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation

Um, we're being ironic here, right?

Woz and Jobs are definitely yin and yang, but they do have one thing in common: they know what's important to them. And that gives them a kind of power that verges on the spiritual. They don't, like most of us, blunder through the life taking the path of least resistance and rationizing their decisions after the fact. They have "purpose driven lives".

As to who is happiest of the two Steves, I'd have to say that while Jobs probably feels the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat more intensely, I'd much rather be Woz, because he seems to be the kind of person who can find find satisfaction in each day's work. The thing that makes Jobs a bit creepy is that if you ever had his attention, you'd always wonder if it was because he had a use for you in some agenda. Woz is the kind of guy who just wants to do what he's good at, like a Shaker furniture maker. Because his motivations are simpler, you'd naturally feel more comfortable with him.

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[amliebsch]

They don't, like most of us, blunder through the life taking the path of least resistance and rationizing their decisions after the fact.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but honestly, what is this: "I wanted to work on a computer at my company and they turned me down. When you think about it, every time they turned me down, it was fortunate for the world and it was fortunate for myself," if not rationalizing after the fact?

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing that really impressed me about Woz was that he answered an email I sent, unsolicited, and sent more than a cursory form mail response. He had jjust appeared on The Screen Savers a couple years ago and I thought, "waht the hell, I'll drop him an email and see what happens..." I just simply thanked him for his work and told of a couple ways that it had positively impacted my life and that I was appreciative. He responded with a very long email and related a couple anecdotes and was very open and witty. Seems like a genuinely good guy.

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

... the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation Um, we're being ironic here, right?

Originally at Apple he was delisional. Later at Next he was a royal f' up, or so they teach in business school with respect to failing to listen to customers. At Pixar he was in an industry where salesmanship and showmanship matter a whole hell of a lot. After decades of on-the-job training he finally got up to speed for Apple part 2, at least he learned to listen to customers, well more accurately his 3rd party developers who forced him to make Mac OS X backwards compatibile for example.

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[Noehre]

I could have sworn that I read this comment somewhere else....

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

I could have sworn that I read this comment somewhere else....

Unlike this or the other GP, which is the point ...

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[Admiral Ag]

It's unfair for people to slag off Jobs. Sure Woz is the more personally appealing of the two, and sure, he appeals more to the average /. reader, since he's the engineer type, but Jobs has done far more for the company, and is in many ways the more remarkable person.

Jobs is extremely good at getting the right people to do the right thing, and getting them to do it as best as they can. Like many bosses he's by all accounts somewhat of an asshole, but I guess most people in his position are a bit like that. He is the person who should take most of the credit for saving Apple.

Jobs' personal stamp is all over everything that Apple makes, particularly its consumer level stuff. It seems to me that some people here just don't get it. There's an old interview with Jobs floating around on the net where he accuses Microsoft of having no taste. That's sort of the point with Apple: it's not enough just to make stuff that works, it always has to be done with one eye on the aesthetics of the computer experience. Apple under Jobs has characteristically produced machines and software with a simplistic Zen-like design that attempt to be works of art (and in some cases arguably succeed). If you are the sort of person who only cares about what is quantifiable in technical terms, then you aren't going to really get Apple's way of doing things. That's why people like the iPod... it's just a cool piece of kit. Comparing it with other players on technical grounds alone misses the point. It's rivals are almost uniformly hideous and lack any sense of proportion or beauty.

I guess if you wanted to sum it up, Apple's philosophy is that a computer (or whatever they are flogging this week) should be an organic whole, not merely a prettified piece of technical equipment. The Apple aesthetic is a fundamental part of the user experience, and one which attracts a following. That's Jobs' doing for the most part.

If you don't like that sort of stuff, then fair enough, but to me it seems that it is akin to the difference between someone who is incredibly technically proficient with the guitar, but has no real sense of what makes good music, and someone who has both.

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[podperson]

It seems to me that both Steves were important, and either alone wouldn't have achieved nearly as much.

On his own, Woz would have had a happy, successful career with HP and we'd be having CP/M vs. UNIX flamewars (both with, maybe, windowing interfaces for command lines).

Woz contributed a great deal to the early Apple (obviously) including designing the Apple I, the Apple II, and the floppy drive controller that made Apple a billion dollar company. But his involvement in the Lisa and Mac were negligible -- and that's where the true impact of Jobs lies. Without someone with the right combination of technical acumen, user-centered thinking, taste, charisma, and arrogance, the graphical but fundamentally unusable (no draggable icons or overlapping windows, three mouse buttons just to operate menus) and prohibitively expensive Xerox PARC GUI may well have become a forgotten dead end (just as Englebart's earlier demonstrations of prototype GUI had not found much fertile ground), and computer usability would probably have taken ten or twenty more years to move forward.

The problem for Woz, I think, is that producing computers became too complex for just one brilliant guy to figure out. As soon as that happened, Jobs's qualities came to the forefront. Is Woz a nice guy? Sure -- but very few nice guys are able to herd a bunch of brilliant, creative people towards a shared goal.

In a later post, you compare Jobs to MacArthur (why MacArthur of all people?) and suggest that unlike Jobs, MacArther was a genius. Both are leaders and not foot-soldiers. As to who is or isn't a genius -- choose your yardstick.

Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...

[name773]

i get their way of doing things, but i also see that it lacks utility.

your point about music is a good one, but a computer is a machine...

Re:A not An

[Fozzyuw]

LOL, Got to love that movie "My Fair Lady" with the British gutter language, cockneay I think it's called?

Or perhaps they're just from France? Since they never pronounce their "H"'s either, and that's actually proper way.

Actually Woz has the god-like status ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Actually Woz has the god-like status, Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ...

Re:Actually Woz has the god-like status ...

[Bromskloss]

Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ...

We must fight the empore!

Re:Actually Woz has the god-like status ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ..."

We must fight the empore!

Won't work. He'll just toss some free bread, errr - I mean free iPods, into the crowd and they will turn and cheer and bow. You'll just get yourself crucified along the Infinite Loop.

Re:Actually Woz has the god-like status ...

[tsa]

Manna from heaven! Maybe that's the thing. Bill Gates has nothing to toss.

Re:Actually Woz has the god-like status ...

[online-shopper]

so give him a salad

Re:A not An

[ettlz]

It's definitely supposed to be "an HP"

As I remember, more like [(hp)]...

Re:A not An

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Actually, it's "An aitch-pee computer", not "An haitch-pee computer". See the wikipedia. What are they teaching in schools nowadays? ."

The h is silent!!

Thanks

[Ed Almos]

Thanks, Woz.

Ed Almos

Re:Woz + Jobs, RMS + MIA?

[dwandy]

If a controversial eccentric like Stallman can do great things from a hermit-like AI lab, then Woz would have had opportunities even without Jobs.

The question for me isn't "has RMS done a lot for free as in freedom?" but rather, "how much more could RMS have done as the thinker behind someone charismatic?

I do wonder how many people see RMS like a train-wreck: sure, they can't help but to look, but it doesn't change their lives/opinions/etc.

Re:A not An

[SkyDude]

"The gun is good. The penis is evil. Go forth... and kill!"

Yes, but many a penis shoots only blanks.

I disagree

[jocknerd]

Woz, was and is a brilliant engineer. But there are hundreds like him. But there aren't many like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs IS Apple. Look what they did without him. 12 years of absolutely nothing. Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh. Then he started NeXT which was a decade ahead of its time. Then he brought Apple back from near extinction. Can you think of another corporation that can yield such influence over an industry while having less than 10% market share? Oh, and somewhere in his spare time, he bought a little animation studio and turned it into a force.

Re:I disagree

[jocknerd]

Proof that Steve Jobs owned Pixar:
http://news.com.com/Pixar+goes+to+Hollywood/2009-1 026_3-6030125.html

Smoke that!

Re:I disagree

[Lord Kano]

Hell, I can't stand Jobs and even I know that the Pixar deal will be enough to make him dirty filthy stinking rich as the largest single stockholder in Disney.

LK

Re:I disagree

[wish bot]

Twisting things that may be quite innocent into your own fantasy conspiracy does not qualify as a valid discussion. It is rightly - and should be - flamebait. Even your sig shows how little you either understand or care about the real story.

Re:I disagree

[Funkcikle]

Poor old Woz, though. How long now has he been trundling out the same old anecdotes and "When I was at Apple..." stories? He really needs to get himself involved in something REALLY serious and demanding.

Of course, he has an autobiography to promote but the sad fact is that the story of his life has been circulating for years now via oral tradition. Here is a sneak preview!

Chapter One - Me and my friend Steve
Chapter Two - My friend Steve sucks
Chapter Three - My friend Steve is cool
Chapter Four - Did you hear about the really cool disk drive controller I invented?
Chapter Five - More on that drive controller...
Chapter Six - Chapter Five in diagram form
Chapter Seven - THE WOZ and THE FUTURE - my plans for disk drive controllers and free computers for children
Chapter Eight - Resume and references. Available for work on anything! Please! Just give me a chance!

Re:I disagree

[HuguesT]

Actually he was rich just like you describe *before* going to Disney.

Re:I disagree

[supertoad]

i think it's pretty telling that even in a thread about woz, the majority of the posts are about jobs

Re:I disagree

[dubbreak]

Look what they did without him. 12 years of absolutely nothing.

The switch to power pc from the old motorola happened during that time, that's pretty major (they would have died w/o it). At that time slapping in a new proc and porting your os wasn't so trivial.. oh and the processor didn't exist yet, it was being co-developed with ibm. If I crack open a book I can find a nice list of things that were produced in that time.

There was plenty of developement that didn't see the light of day during that era though, the OS pink for one, based off the mach kernal iirc (they started playing with mach in '88) but some stuff did come out. They didn't produce "nothing", else they would not be here today. Although they did waste billions on many projects that didn't see the light of day or were not successful (newton anyone?).

Re:I disagree

[Lord Kano]

True enough, but he's in a whole new league of rich now.

LK

Re:I disagree

[DAldredge]

"According to Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered $100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design, and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $500 (rather than $5000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $250. [7]"

http://www.google.com/search?q=steve+wozniak+jobs+ split&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&r ls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/hackers/steve-wo zniak/

"When Steve Jobs worked at Atari, the company was working on creating the arcade game Breakout, which required 80 Integrated Circuits (ICs). The less ICs there were, the cheaper the games would be to produce, so Nolan Bushnell (Atari's president) offered $100 for every IC that could be knocked out of the design. Jobs brought Woz the challenge, and over four days and nights at Atari they put together a design that only required 30 ICs. Bushnell gave Jobs his $5000 bonus, which Jobs "split" with Wozniak by telling him it was a $700 bonus, giving him "half," or $350. Woz was delighted, but years later found out the truth. And cried."

Jobs, current CEO of APPLE, made the decision to sell Apple stock when he could have sold other stock to cover his taxes on the vesting. Jobs can say apple is going to do great but his actions show that he doesn't really believe it.

Re:A not An

[ettlz]

Yes, but many a penis shoots only blanks.

Well then we won't have to worry about poisoning the Earth with a plague of men, as it once was.

Re:A not An

[SkyDude]

ooouch.....

Link does not lead to Mac Buds

[Unski]

I followed your link seeking to share my mac experiences with my prospective mac buddies over at MacBuds and was distressed to find myself not in receipt of said website. I feel like my faith in the Internet has been shaken and I am now consulting with my nearest local Apple reseller as to where I can find a website for special people such as myself.

Please refrain from playing with the tender sensitivities of us Macintosh owners as we are not like you. I will now commune with my brethren - without mere words - to warn them of this.

Re:Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[elrous0]

Step 3: Hook up with a meglomaniacal business shark with enough charisma to attract a cult following.

-Eric

Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Woz, was and is a brilliant engineer. But there are hundreds like him. But there aren't many like Steve Jobs.

I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman.

Steve Jobs IS Apple. Look what they did without him. 12 years of absolutely nothing. Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh.

Jobs is the PR face of Apple and the Mac. The brilliant innovation started at Xerox and continued with the very talented engineers at Apple. Jobs is merely a good saleman who recognized a good thing when he saw it at Xerox. Like Woz, the Xerox and Apple engineers who deserve the real credit are overshadows by the PR face.

Then he started NeXT which was a decade ahead of its time.

Actually in business school they study NeXT as an example of how to royally f' up.

Then he brought Apple back from near extinction. Can you think of another corporation that can yield such influence over an industry while having less than 10% market share?

Actually what saved Apple were the big developers say "NO" to Jobs and forcing Jobs to put backwards compatibility into Mac OS X. Jobs return and the surrounding PR machine was like the Microsoft cash investment, it was reassuring, it bought the Apple engineers some more time.

Oh, and somewhere in his spare time, he bought a little animation studio and turned it into a force.

Again salesmanship, again a PR face overshadowing the real talent, ... Also note in this is an industry where salesmanship has a pretty heavy influence.

Jobs is like World War II's General MacArthur. "I" rather than "We", camera crew filming his wading ashore and dominating the newsreels, ... Of course Jobs differs from MacArthur in that Jobs is not a genius.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[Gorshkov]

Of course Jobs differs from MacArthur in that Jobs is not a genius.

Believe me, neither was MacArthur.
He did a *brilliant* job rebuilding Japan after the war, but as a general?

I constantly go back & forth between him and Monty as to who was the most incompotent, egomaniacal, self-sentered and overrated generals of WW II.

And let's not forget a little detail like almost starting WWIII (more than once) in some place called Korea ......

MacArthur was a disaster that found a place to happen.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Really? They study how to "f' up" by starting a company that produces brilliant, ground-breaking technology that runs on mulitple platforms and has some of the best developer tools ever seen, then selling the company for half a billion dollars? Please tell me how I can "f' up" like that.

Simple, ignore your customers, ignore your third party developers, produce things that your target market can't afford, and then get really really lucky and be able to salvage your assets through the sale of the firm. Producing brilliant products is not enough, lots of companies do so and fail due to poor management. And on the flip side mediocre products succeed wildly due to good management.

Selling a firm is not necessarily a sign of good management, it is more often a sign of poor management, of untapped opportunity or poor excution. In other words an opportunity for a better management team. Given Next's failure in it's own business I think the poor management case is more applicable. If someone other than a cofounder of Apple was running Next they would not have found themselves running Apple. Next benefited from this fluke of history, Apple was buying Jobs and the associated PR machine and salesmanship as much as it was buying Next's technology. Jobs' was like the Microsoft investment, it was reassuring and bought the Apple engineers the time they needed. Jobs also benefitted from Apple's deep pockets, individual product failures were easily survived, unlike at Next.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Believe me, neither was MacArthur. He did a *brilliant* job rebuilding Japan after the war, but as a general? I constantly go back & forth between him and Monty as to who was the most incompotent, egomaniacal, self-sentered and overrated generals of WW II.

MacArthur succeeded far more often than he failed. Chinese involvement in Korea was a relatively rare failing. MacArthur was able to go on the offensive when he was only tasked with more of a defensive strategy while Europe was dealt with, he was able to take islands with a numerically inferior attacking force (quite the contrast with Monty), his casualty rate was relatively low, etc. Was he an egotistical prima dona who deserved to be fired for being insubordinate to civilian authority, abosultely, but that does not change the fact that he was able to out think and better utilize opportunities (terrain, position, etc) than his opponents.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[meburke]

My Dad knew General MacArthur personally, and suffered the consequences of that knowledge: He was shot at the battle of Agno Crossing, shot again and captured the day after Cristmas, survived the Bataan Death March (only, he says, because he was an officer) and spent 44 months in Japanese prison camps. Dad only expressed one criticism of MacArthur: MacArthur would not listen to views or acknowledge information that contradicted his own views or opinions. That is why the original conflict in the Phillipines was such a mess, and MacArthur's reputation is forever diminished in my mind by the hardship he caused American soldiers.

On the other hand, MacArthur was part of a system, and once the necessities of the system overcame the individual idosyncracies of the persons responsible for operating the system, he contributed something valuable to the final outcome.

The same is true of Steve Jobs: A business is a system. It requires certain talents and abilities in order to function. Sales without a good product will not survive, but an outstanding product without Sales will not survive either. In this case, the system provided both parties with what they wanted. They got to do what they wanted, they were rewarded for it, and (presumably) they both got satifaction and felt good about themselves from doing it. But without giving the system what it needed to function, neither would have been successful.

Mike

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[Swift2001]

MacArthur was right for so long, he fell into the trap of thinking he would be right forever. He conquered more of the world's surface than Alexander, by the island-hopping technique. Would have saved a lot of Marine's lives if Halsey had done that. Inchon was a brilliant success, but it could have ended up on the beach, too. And then, he was sure the Chinese wouldn't intervene. Jobs has made huge mistakes. As has Gates, if you want to look at it. But I don't think you do.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[sgt_doom]

Outstanding post on MacArthur!!!

My great-uncle also survived the Bataan Death March (aviator/officer type) and had a very unfavorable opinion of MacArthur - as did many, many others - contrary to popular opinion.

MacArthur ignored the intel that the Japanese forces were massing for an invasion of the P.I., just as he ignored the intel that warned of the Chinese massing to cross the Yalu in Korea.

I've no problem understanding his being the cousin to that other MacArthur (and crooked bastard - selling phony insurance policies during the Great Depression) who founded the MacArthur Foundation....

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

... by the island-hopping technique. Would have saved a lot of Marine's lives if Halsey had done that.

That is a bit unfair to Halsey. He did not have the options to bypass or to conduct maneuver warfare that MacArthur had. He had some very small rocks sticking out of the Pacific that had to be taken.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[Dolly_Llama]

That is why the original conflict in the Phillipines was such a mess, and MacArthur's reputation is forever diminished in my mind by the hardship he caused American soldiers.

Don't discount the enemy. The original war plan (Plan Orange), called for the Phillipne garrison to hold out for up to six months until relieved by a naval movement with fresh troops and supplies. The problem in this bit of planning was the Japanese sinking the Pacific fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. MacArthur and the US Army in the Phillipines did as well (and better) than could have been expected of them given the situation.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman.

Italicized for truth.

Dell is a company founded by a brilliant salesman and a lousy engineer.

Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

"I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman."

How about you both agree on exceptional people being not common? (Which is one of the things making them exceptional in the first place...)

No, you're missing a small but important point. "Exceptional" is with respect to a particular segment of the population, not the population as a whole. If we take a headcount of the top 1% of engineers and a headcount of the top 1% of salesman you will find a far smaller number of engineers.

Unquestionably, "I, Woz" is the best title ever!

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Without a doubt, "I, Woz" is the best title ever. Pure genius!!

I wonder if the Woz himself thought of it or someone else?

Re:A not An

[Bill_Mische]

Cockney...which isn't the "British gutter language" but the white working class accent of London.

Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[Danathar]

What can anybody say? He's like the Mother Teresa of Geekdom. The man does not seem to have an evil bone in his body. Although woz would probably not like it, there should be some sort of Nerd/Geek cannonization....

St. Woz!

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[Maximum Prophet]

So, how long before he goes to work for Google?

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[Jonboy X]

...there should be some sort of Nerd/Geek cannonization...

There tend to be aerodynamic problems with nerds flying through the air, to say nothing of fitting them into the cannons in the first place.

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[Danathar]

Uhh....wrong definition number....try again

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[Jonboy X]

Uhh....wrong definition number....try again

Ohhh, the great-GP was referring to making someone a saint. That would be "canonize", with one 'N'. That makes a lot more sense, now that I think about it.

BTW, there are clinics for people with sarcasm deficit disorder (or "SDD") like yourself. It worked for me, and it can work for you too.

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[An ominous Cow art]

I agree. I heard him speak at the 5th HOPE a couple of years ago. Great guy.

I have to admit I was disappointed to find out that he drove a %^&*ing Hummer, though.

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[poot_rootbeer]

Although woz would probably not like it, there should be some sort of Nerd/Geek cannonization....

I wouldn't like to be shot out of a cannon, either.

Some Geeks might, but I'd imagine that only applies in smaller circuses, where there's few enough that the same guy who bites heads of chickens also has to perform as an acrobat...

Re:Not go gushing about Woz but.....

[sharpestmarble]

How about being a star at Nerdvana?

Free Adapters

[jan.Tol]

Would they have made him pay for a Nano?

Switch to narcissism

[cerebis]

LANAP but if you ask me, Jobs is a perfect case study for clinical narcissism.

It's not a totally uncommon condition in people that achieve great things after striving for many more years than a more rational person might, but not everyone thus afflicted has the necessary talent to accompany them in that struggle.

Clearly, people seem to attribute most of Jobs success to Jobs well publisized/marketed degree of talent for design and foresight. These are the two skills that seem to have the most cacher when persuing "god of the industry" status.

However the skill that benefitted him the most by far, the skill he has always had right from the beginning, is the ability to deeply excite other people about his ideas. Enough that he could convince some of the absolutely best people in their various fields to leave the pleasant, comfortable jobs and work for him.

These people were time and again totally crucial the success of his business ventures. The ventures were not always successful in their own right, but always ended up with at least some great IP that could be mated to another idea.

Jobs.

[Kadin2048]

I don't get your point. You deride Jobs for being only a "salesman," however his success proves that he is a salesman of rather exceptional caliber. If he was just average, then there would not be any way for him to have succeeded as well (and as regularly) as he has been able. Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple again -- that's a pretty remarkable track record. Salesman, engineer, guru, call him whatever you want, his results speak for themselves.

As for the comparisons to MacArthur; well, there are a lot worse people to be compared to. I'm not sure if you meant that to be derisive or not, but if you did, I take it you've never been to Japan.

Re:Jobs.

[AHumbleOpinion]

I don't get your point. You deride Jobs for being only a "salesman," however his success proves that he is a salesman of rather exceptional caliber. If he was just average, then there would not be any way for him to have succeeded as well (and as regularly) as he has been able. Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple again -- that's a pretty remarkable track record. Salesman, engineer, guru, call him whatever you want, his results speak for themselves. As for the comparisons to MacArthur; well, there are a lot worse people to be compared to. I'm not sure if you meant that to be derisive or not, but if you did, I take it you've never been to Japan.

Apple, part 1: Successful as a salesman, a PR master. The engineering success belongs to others, the Xerox and Apple engineers who are overshadowed by the PR machine.

Next: A classic failure. Failed in its products and market, and in its weakness was bought out. The price was a little above the salvage value since Apple was also buying Steve for PR value. A fluke of history for Next. Steve, like the Microsoft investment, made for good press and bought Apple time.

Pixar: The movie industry, showmanship and salesmanship have a disproportionate value.

Apple, part 2. Successful in spite of Job's instincts. For example 3rd party developers *forcing* Apple to incorporate backwards compaibility into Mac OS X. To Jobs' credit, he learned from his mistakes at Next and actually listened to customers / 3rd party developers. Or perhaps he was really reigned in by the board, under more adult supervision at Apple than he was at Next. Personally I think he has learned some lessons, hence my on-the-job training comment. He also benefits from the deep pockets generated by his predecessors. Errors are more tolerable than at Next.

The comparison to MacArthur is in the context that they were both egotistical and took an unfair share of the credit, hence the "I" vs "We" allusion. Men who love the media attention. Beyond that, MacArthur accomplished a lot more, absolutely.

Re:Jobs.

[Swift2001]

"Initially making the iPod a firewire device." That was a great idea -- on the Mac. In fact, if the dopes of the Windows world would adopt firewire, you'd be able to see how much faster and trouble-free it is. Sometimes the market makes mistakes. And all of this crap about, "The iPod saved Apple's ass" gets very tiresome. The iPod exists on the boundary of content and computing power. That's where the future of computing is. Get over it.

Woz at the computer history museum

[ripcrd]

I watched a great speech by Woz on Google Video that he did at the Computer History Museum. He mentions that he had just finished writing his book. In an hour and a half, he takes us from boyhood to about the time of the first Mac. very interseting, even if I'm not a macaddict. I've always respected Woz from my time spent with the Apple II+ and II GS back in grade school.

Re:An Homage to Woz

[Richard_at_work]

I will agree with that, read both the two books over a 2 week period and I came away with the thought that Nigel and Ozzie was Jobs and Woz :) Very good series, and I await the next installment (hoping there is one of course).

It'd be cool to have his influence

[Milton Waddams]

Once in a while, though, if a computer doesn't work with a cellphone I have, I loan my cellphone to some engineers and they'll make sure the next operating system version works with it.

It'd be cool to drop some hints like "I'm not too fond of Finder..." or "Wouldn't it be great if Safari had really good ad-blocking features?!" and have them implemented in the next OS revision! It'd also be cool to have loads of money...

Re:It'd be cool to have his influence

[Lord Flipper]

It'd be cool to drop some hints like "I'm not too fond of Finder..."

Funny you should mention the finder. I was on a LISTSERV thing a couple years back, and was in a discussion (very heated) between fanboys [Jonathan Frakes, another guy with an Apple radio show, etc], on the hyper-defenmsive pro-Apple side, and me and one other fellow on the emperor-has-no-clothes side.

So, i posit that the Finder should taken behind a corrugated tin shed and shot. All the aging fanboys wanted my arse in a sling. it got real testy. The other Apple-isn't-infallible guy entered the fray on my side, and while they just bullied his ass into the RFC ground, I bailed.

Five minutes later there's an email from Woz in my Eudora Inbox. "I'm with you ~flipper, I'm afraid to even ask the Finder to do two things at the same time."

It was off-the-record, but so what? What a gas. The whole deal reminded me of that scene in an old Woody Allen movie where Woody and Diane Keaton are in line to see a movie, and Woody says his piece about Marshall McLuhan's "message, or point", and some intellectual cuts him to 'shreds', whereupon Marshall McLuhan steps out from behind a movie ad 'standup' and says, "actually, Woody's point is valid."

Heheh, okay, you had to be there. Woz, regardless of who he worked for, is just one of the Good Guys. You know? He teaches kids, he got stock options for under-appreciated Apple engineers, and he sends little emails that make people think, "OK, I'm not crazy."<laughs>

Re:A not An

[clickclickdrone]

Cockney...which isn't the "British gutter language" but the white working class accent of London

More correctly, a cockney is someone born within earshot of Bow Bells Church (approx within a 3 mile radius) in the East End.

Re:Unquestionably, "I, Woz" is the best title ever

[sconeu]

If Jobs had co-written it, it would have been "iWoz".

I thought that was step 4

[wiredog]

But it's a different meme anyway.

Re:Unquestionably, "I, Woz" is the best title ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he is paying homage to another science guy.

Isaac Asimov, who wrote a book intitled "I, Robot" and then later wrote an autobiography "I, Asimov"

Re:Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[Admiral Ag]

Now now... everyone knows that... There's no step 3.

Re:A not An

[Minwee]

I thought the British gutter language was called "American English".

Re:Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[Moofie]

Well said.

repeat

[mgabrys_sf]

That's a reprint of an interview done by the San Jose Mercury News over 14 days ago.

"Woz"ing with personality...

[layer3switch]

Hmm.. the "Woz" i've read about since I was kid was extremely quite and shy guy at Apple. Lately (give or take 4 - 5 years), it seems, Woz was holding back a lot back in the days.

Live it up, Woz. Have a corona light on me.

Re:Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[whiteranger99x]

Dont forget to put the frickin lasers on their heads.

Re:Step 1: Invent the Apple I

[What me a Coward]

"Behind a desk pointing an angry finger"

  "Yelling" No one get's over Jobs!!!! No one!!!!!

  Now get back to work before i hit you with my IMallot!!!

living in the past versus inventing new wonders

[peter303]

As much as I admire Woz's contributions, he left the scene a quarter century ago while Jobs continues to pull new (megahit) rabbits out of the hat. Woz would be a more pleasant neighbor and guy to hang out with, but Jobs still fires the imagination.

Aitch beatch

[chia_monkey]

You people are crackin' me up with all this "aitch pee" computer stuff. Every time I read "aitch" I keep thinking Snoop is gonna come in screamin' "beatch!"

All this of course while HR is standing right behind me. Thanks guys...

Pith Helmet

[drewness]

Wouldn't it be great if Safari had really good ad-blocking features?!

Have you tried out Pith Helmet? It's not Apple official, and it asks for a $10 registration fee now and then if you haven't registred (but doesn't cripple itself if you don't ever pay), but it does a really good job.

Re:Pith Helmet

[Milton Waddams]

I did try it out but I found that Safari became unstable. I installed SafariBlock which is free and it works well enough. You have to reload a page for blocks to come into affect but it doesn't crash Safari :)

Re:A not An

[Paradise Pete]

Now, I love grammar enforcement, as much as the next Nazi, but you must enforce _proper_ grammar, and in this case, you are wrong.

Why, do I feel like, I am tripping, and stumbling, as I read, your post?