WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take all the 00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:04.179 source material, the biographies, the patents, 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:08.039 the wild stories, and we put it all together 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.539 to build a complete picture for you. And today, 00:00:10.699 --> 00:00:13.500 we are really focusing on one individual, the 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:17.199 technical genius who actually laid the foundation 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:19.620 for what is now the most valuable company in 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:23.039 the world, but who, you know, consistently chose 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:26.379 the joy of invention over corporate power. We're 00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:28.739 talking about Stephen Gere Wozniak. Exactly. 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.000 And the one fact that just it sets the stage 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:34.679 for this entire conversation is this. Wozniak 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:37.759 officially, permanently stepped away from his 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:40.560 active role at Apple way back in 1985. Right. 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:44.840 But right now, today. He is still an Apple employee. 00:00:44.899 --> 00:00:47.700 He's on the books. Yeah, he has this ceremonial 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:49.920 status. He gets an annual stipend. I think back 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:52.960 in 2006, it was something like $120 ,000 a year. 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:55.179 Wow. And you shouldn't think of that as, you 00:00:55.179 --> 00:00:56.840 know, just some kind of golden parachute. It's 00:00:56.840 --> 00:00:59.539 really it's a physical symbol of his entire relationship 00:00:59.539 --> 00:01:02.219 with technology. He built the machine, but he 00:01:02.219 --> 00:01:04.400 just refused to be trapped by the corporation 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:06.659 you need to run it. So he's like the ghost in 00:01:06.659 --> 00:01:11.260 the machine. The ultimate symbol of the company's 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.200 engineering soul, kept on purely for goodwill. 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:16.640 That's a perfect way to put it. Absolutely. So 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:19.219 our mission with this deep dive is to look past 00:01:19.219 --> 00:01:21.659 that dominant Steve Jobs narrative. We're going 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:24.019 to go right into Wozniak's mind, tracing the 00:01:24.019 --> 00:01:27.879 specific technical wins, the unique non -corporate 00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:30.079 philosophy that drove him, and all the surprising 00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:32.599 things he's done since leaving Apple. And we've 00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:35.909 pulled from everywhere. biographies, patent filings, 00:01:35.909 --> 00:01:38.390 his own interviews. We're trying to understand 00:01:38.390 --> 00:01:42.530 how this philosophy of simplicity and fun and 00:01:42.530 --> 00:01:45.209 just pure accessibility became the accidental 00:01:45.209 --> 00:01:47.849 bedrock of the entire personal computer industry. 00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:49.890 We're looking at the foundational engineer, the 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:51.549 person who only built things because he wanted 00:01:51.549 --> 00:01:54.049 one for himself and they just didn't exist yet. 00:01:54.230 --> 00:01:56.049 Okay, so let's unpack this blueprint of was. 00:01:56.450 --> 00:01:59.209 We have to start where it all began, San Jose, 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:02.319 California. 1950. Right. And there's a funny 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:04.239 little detail right on his birth certificate. 00:02:04.359 --> 00:02:07.519 It actually says Stefan with an A -N. Yeah, just 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:09.580 a little administrative inconsistency. He's always 00:02:09.580 --> 00:02:12.060 used Steven. So, you know, that's what we'll 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:14.039 stick with. And the environment he grew up in, 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:19.699 it was the perfect incubator. His father, Francis 00:02:19.699 --> 00:02:22.199 Wozniak, everyone called him Jerry, was an engineer 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:25.009 for Lockheed. A huge deal. So he was surrounded 00:02:25.009 --> 00:02:27.530 by electronics by problem solving right from 00:02:27.530 --> 00:02:30.250 the start. But Wozniak's interests, they were 00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:32.990 always so much broader than just, you know, military 00:02:32.990 --> 00:02:35.550 contract work. That's right. He wasn't just fiddling 00:02:35.550 --> 00:02:38.889 at his dad's workbench. Pop culture was a massive 00:02:38.889 --> 00:02:41.909 driver for him. A huge driver. He loved the Tom 00:02:41.909 --> 00:02:43.990 Swift Jr. books. Which, for anyone who doesn't 00:02:43.990 --> 00:02:46.509 know, were these super popular books in the 50s 00:02:46.509 --> 00:02:49.090 and 60s about a young inventor who was always 00:02:49.090 --> 00:02:51.330 solving these high -tech problems. And he was 00:02:51.330 --> 00:02:54.289 a massive Trekkie. A huge Star Trek fan, went 00:02:54.289 --> 00:02:57.169 to the conventions. He saw that direct line from 00:02:57.169 --> 00:03:00.750 science fiction's biggest ideas to what you could 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:02.610 actually build in the real world. So you have 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:04.889 this combination of rock -solid engineering principles 00:03:04.889 --> 00:03:07.449 from his dad mixed with this. wild imagination 00:03:07.449 --> 00:03:10.710 from sci fi. It's the perfect recipe for a revolutionary 00:03:10.710 --> 00:03:13.629 inventor. But before he built the first personal 00:03:13.629 --> 00:03:17.180 computer, he was deep in this other scene. The 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:20.759 counterculture tech of the 1970s. Phone freaking. 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.479 Phone freaking. This is where you see that mischievous 00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:26.360 technical brilliance just explode. He got a nickname 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:29.379 Berkeley Blue because of his skill in building 00:03:29.379 --> 00:03:32.620 these infamous blue boxes. So freaking was basically 00:03:32.620 --> 00:03:35.599 hacking the phone system, right? Yeah. In 1971, 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:37.939 there was this huge article in Esquire magazine 00:03:37.939 --> 00:03:41.180 called Secrets of the Little Blue Box. And it 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:43.590 laid it all out. It explained how the phone network 00:03:43.590 --> 00:03:46.430 used these specific audio tones to route calls 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:48.990 internally. Frequencies that, you know, people 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:50.210 weren't supposed to be able to make themselves. 00:03:50.610 --> 00:03:52.509 But Wozniak could. Yeah. He read that article 00:03:52.509 --> 00:03:55.169 and just he built a device that could perfectly 00:03:55.169 --> 00:03:58.370 mimic that 2600 hertz tone. A perfect digital 00:03:58.370 --> 00:04:01.289 replica. And it could trick the entire AT &T 00:04:01.289 --> 00:04:03.509 switching system into giving him free long distance 00:04:03.509 --> 00:04:06.509 calls to anywhere in the world. Pure analog hacking. 00:04:06.669 --> 00:04:09.729 And this this little hobby leads directly to 00:04:09.729 --> 00:04:12.139 his first business partnership. With Steve Jobs. 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:14.300 Yep. They had just been introduced by a mutual 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:17.300 friend, Bill Fernandez. Wozniak had the technical 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:20.500 genius to build this flawless little box. But 00:04:20.500 --> 00:04:23.060 it's Jobs who immediately sees the dollar signs. 00:04:23.259 --> 00:04:25.180 He sees the commercial potential. Instantly. 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:27.240 They form a partnership right then and there. 00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:30.279 Wozniak builds the devices, and his were known 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:32.480 for being incredibly high quality, very stable, 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:35.699 and Jobs handles the sales. And they sold a lot. 00:04:36.110 --> 00:04:39.009 The sources say around 200 of them for $150 each, 00:04:39.230 --> 00:04:42.110 and they just split the profits. It wasn't about 00:04:42.110 --> 00:04:45.850 getting rich, not at that point, but it was formative. 00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:48.850 It was their proof of concept. Jobs himself said 00:04:48.850 --> 00:04:51.329 later, and this is a quote, if it had not been 00:04:51.329 --> 00:04:54.050 for Wozniak's blue boxes, there wouldn't have 00:04:54.050 --> 00:04:58.069 been an apple. Wow. So that was a test run. It 00:04:58.069 --> 00:05:00.069 gave them the confidence that Wozniak's brilliant 00:05:00.069 --> 00:05:02.610 little engineering solutions could actually be 00:05:02.610 --> 00:05:04.560 turned into a product people would buy. It was 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:07.459 their first shared experience, turning this slightly 00:05:07.459 --> 00:05:10.060 illicit hobby into a real commercial product. 00:05:10.259 --> 00:05:12.639 And it defined their roles perfectly from day 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:15.459 one. Was the architect, Jobs the salesman. So 00:05:15.459 --> 00:05:18.720 while he's mastering this underground tech, he's 00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:20.860 also trying to get through college. And he had 00:05:20.860 --> 00:05:22.920 a bit of a rough start there. He did. He actually 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:24.540 got expelled from the University of Colorado 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:27.579 Boulder in 1969. For what? For hacking their 00:05:27.579 --> 00:05:30.600 computer system, sent them a bunch of prank messages. 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.079 So he had to re -enroll at a community college. 00:05:33.729 --> 00:05:36.230 before eventually getting to UC Berkeley. But 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:39.310 even then he was working as an engineer. He had 00:05:39.310 --> 00:05:43.069 a great job at Hewlett Packard HP designing calculators. 00:05:43.170 --> 00:05:45.290 And that's so important. It gave him access to 00:05:45.290 --> 00:05:47.610 the best components to structure design principles. 00:05:47.750 --> 00:05:50.230 And it was all happening at the same time as 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:52.470 his friendship with jobs was growing. You can 00:05:52.470 --> 00:05:54.449 see his whole philosophy of minimalist design 00:05:54.449 --> 00:05:57.170 in his earliest projects. I'm thinking of the 00:05:57.170 --> 00:06:00.350 cream soda computer from 1971. Yes. He built 00:06:00.350 --> 00:06:02.310 that with Bill Fernandez. And the whole point 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:05.009 was to use as few parts as possible. They built 00:06:05.009 --> 00:06:08.360 a working computer with only 20 donated. TTL 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:10.980 chips. And TTL chips. Transistor. Transistor 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:13.420 logic. They were the basic building blocks back 00:06:13.420 --> 00:06:16.079 then. Using just 20 was an incredible feat of 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:18.660 efficiency. He even called it a good prelude 00:06:18.660 --> 00:06:21.500 to the Apple Lion 2. It forced him to think about 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:23.879 getting the maximum function out of the minimum 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:26.579 number of components. It was his signature move. 00:06:26.899 --> 00:06:29.079 But we can't study it today because it was destroyed. 00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:32.100 Tragically, yes. A reporter was visiting and 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:34.060 accidentally tripped on the power cord, fried 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:37.199 the whole prototype. It's just gone. a footnote 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:40.019 but the next gig he took on is maybe the most 00:06:40.019 --> 00:06:42.399 famous story of them all and it really shows 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:44.579 you everything you need to know about his dynamic 00:06:44.579 --> 00:06:49.959 with jobs the atari breakout job 1973. this is 00:06:49.959 --> 00:06:53.379 where wozniak's technical genius just slams right 00:06:53.379 --> 00:06:56.120 into jobs's financial hustle so jobs is working 00:06:56.120 --> 00:06:58.420 at atari and they need a circuit board for their 00:06:58.420 --> 00:07:01.720 new arcade game breakout and atari makes this 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:05.470 offer A huge bonus, $100 for every single chip 00:07:05.470 --> 00:07:08.149 they can cut from the final design. $100 a chip. 00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:11.069 That's a massive incentive. So Jobs, knowing 00:07:11.069 --> 00:07:13.370 Wozniak is the king of minimalist design, he 00:07:13.370 --> 00:07:16.189 brings him in, promises to split the fee 50 -50. 00:07:16.350 --> 00:07:18.850 And Woz just goes into a trance. He works for 00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:21.589 four straight days, hardly sleeping, and he dramatically 00:07:21.589 --> 00:07:24.269 reduces the chip count. He cut it by 50 chips. 00:07:24.589 --> 00:07:27.899 50? how did he even do that his big breakthrough 00:07:27.899 --> 00:07:31.720 was using ram random access memory to store the 00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:34.180 data for the bricks on screen instead of needing 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:37.959 a separate complex logic chip for Every single 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:41.100 brick. It was a genius bit of compression. Okay, 00:07:41.139 --> 00:07:44.500 so 50 chips removed at $100 a chip. Atari pays 00:07:44.500 --> 00:07:48.500 out a bonus of $5 ,000. Which today, you know, 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:52.199 adjusted for inflation, is over $35 ,000. It's 00:07:52.199 --> 00:07:54.740 a huge amount of money. But that's not what Jobs 00:07:54.740 --> 00:07:58.180 told Wozniak. No. Jobs went to Wozniak and told 00:07:58.180 --> 00:08:01.759 him Atari only paid them a bonus of $700. And 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:05.040 he gave Woz his half. 350 bucks. That is just 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:07.259 unbelievable. It's such a classic story. And 00:08:07.259 --> 00:08:08.759 it really gets to the heart of their dynamic. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.220 It does. But what's even more fascinating is 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:14.019 Woz's reaction when he found out about it a full 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:15.939 decade later. He wasn't even that angry, was 00:08:15.939 --> 00:08:18.019 he? He was dismayed, you know, disappointed by 00:08:18.019 --> 00:08:20.360 the deception. But he said that if Jobs had just 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:21.860 told him he needed the money, he would have given 00:08:21.860 --> 00:08:24.220 it to him anyway. OK, let's just pause on that. 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:26.439 Yeah. Because for anyone else, finding out your 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:29.100 business partner basically stole over $4 ,000 00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:33.320 from you. That's a friendship ender. A deal breaker. 00:08:34.340 --> 00:08:37.600 But Woz just says, I would have given it to him. 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:40.080 It's because the money was never the point for 00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:43.519 Wozniak. The win for him was solving the puzzle. 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:47.100 The victory was cutting 50 chips. That was the 00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:49.340 reward. The elegance of the solution. Exactly. 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:53.059 Jobs understood that Wozniak valued the engineering 00:08:53.059 --> 00:08:55.700 challenge way more than the cash. And he, well, 00:08:55.779 --> 00:08:59.019 he exploited it. It just confirms that deep philosophical 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:02.399 split that defined their entire history. Wozniak 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:05.059 builds the engine. Jobs builds the car company 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:07.240 around it. And that purity of motivation, it 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:09.340 just flows directly into the creation of Apple. 00:09:09.460 --> 00:09:10.960 I mean, the whole reason he designed the Apple 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:12.940 wasn't to get rich. No, not at all. It was for 00:09:12.940 --> 00:09:15.240 street cred, basically. He wanted to impress 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:17.899 other members of the Palo Alto -based Homebrew 00:09:17.899 --> 00:09:20.039 Computer Club. And the Homebrew Club was everything 00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:22.779 back then. It was the absolute epicenter of the 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:25.679 microcomputer revolution. A bunch of hobbyists 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:27.639 who believed computing power should belong to 00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:29.779 the people, not just, you know, giant corporations. 00:09:30.509 --> 00:09:33.389 Right. And Wozniak's design, which he finished 00:09:33.389 --> 00:09:36.730 in March of 76, it stood out because he had figured 00:09:36.730 --> 00:09:38.769 out how to do video on the cheap. That was the 00:09:38.769 --> 00:09:41.509 game changer. And it was all him. The sources 00:09:41.509 --> 00:09:43.710 are clear on this. He designed the hardware, 00:09:43.950 --> 00:09:46.769 the circuit board, the operating system. It was 00:09:46.769 --> 00:09:50.889 100 % his baby. Before he even thought about 00:09:50.889 --> 00:09:53.509 starting a company, though, he was intensely 00:09:53.509 --> 00:09:57.169 loyal to HP, his employer. He offered the Apple 00:09:57.169 --> 00:09:59.269 I designed to them five separate times. Five 00:09:59.269 --> 00:10:02.120 times. And they turned him down every time. Every 00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:04.700 single time. The management just couldn't imagine 00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:07.019 why anyone would want or need a computer in their 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:09.580 home. It was corporate blindness. Which gave 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:12.059 Steve Jobs the perfect opening. The perfect opening. 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:14.899 Jobs finally convinced him, look, if HP won't 00:10:14.899 --> 00:10:17.679 sell it, we will. So they formed Apple Computer 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:21.039 Company on April Fool's Day, 1976. They bring 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:22.720 in Ronald Wayne for a little while to handle 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.059 the administrative side. And to get the startup 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:28.120 capital. Wuz sells his beloved HP scientific 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.019 calculator. And Jobs sells his Volkswagen van. 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:34.039 It's the literal definition of bootstrap funding. 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.340 And they get their first big break almost immediately 00:10:36.340 --> 00:10:38.740 from a guy named Paul Terrell. Yeah, Terrell 00:10:38.740 --> 00:10:41.600 was opening one of the very first computer stores, 00:10:41.779 --> 00:10:44.779 the Byte Shop, and he saw the Apple Eye and got 00:10:44.779 --> 00:10:47.120 it. He understood that selling a pre -assembled 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:50.360 board was a huge step up from the kits that hobbyists 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:52.399 had to build themselves. So he places an order. 00:10:52.809 --> 00:10:55.970 For 50 fully assembled units. Which was the crucial 00:10:55.970 --> 00:10:58.629 first sale. It gave them the revenue they needed 00:10:58.629 --> 00:11:01.090 to actually produce the things. And this leads 00:11:01.090 --> 00:11:05.350 us to that infamous price tag. Yeah. $666 .66. 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.730 A number that has spawned so much mythology. 00:11:09.210 --> 00:11:11.110 But the real story is so much more. Wozniak. 00:11:11.610 --> 00:11:13.149 It's so much more practical. Oh, completely. 00:11:13.269 --> 00:11:15.330 He said he had no idea about the whole mark of 00:11:15.330 --> 00:11:17.710 the beast thing. It was just math and aesthetics. 00:11:18.250 --> 00:11:20.830 Their cost to build one was about $500. They 00:11:20.830 --> 00:11:23.330 decided on a one -third markup for retail. Which 00:11:23.330 --> 00:11:26.990 comes to $666. And Wozniak, being Wozniak, just 00:11:26.990 --> 00:11:30.870 liked the look of repeating digits. So 666 .66. 00:11:31.049 --> 00:11:35.029 It was just neat. It was design efficiency applied 00:11:35.029 --> 00:11:37.389 to a price tag. Looking at the machine itself, 00:11:37.529 --> 00:11:39.929 what made it so special was how it made expensive 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:42.289 tech affordable. It was built around the new 00:11:42.289 --> 00:11:46.970 MOS 6502 CPU. And that chip is the key to everything. 00:11:47.230 --> 00:11:51.070 It only cost $25. 25. At a time when comparable 00:11:51.070 --> 00:11:54.210 chips like the Intel 8080 were several hundred 00:11:54.210 --> 00:11:57.610 dollars. Building a computer around that radically 00:11:57.610 --> 00:12:01.450 cheap 6502 just shattered the barrier to entry. 00:12:01.649 --> 00:12:05.320 And the board came with, what, 4K of RAM? and 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:07.139 that all -important video display controller 00:12:07.139 --> 00:12:08.940 built in. Right, you still had to bring your 00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:11.960 own keyboard and power supply and a case to put 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:13.820 it in. That's why they only ever made about 200 00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:16.299 of them. It was still a machine for hobbyists, 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.220 but it was the bridge to the consumer. And that 00:12:19.220 --> 00:12:21.559 bridge became a superhighway with the Apple II 00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:26.100 in 1977. This is the machine. This is the one 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:28.379 that really starts the personal computer revolution. 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:32.299 The Apple II was Wozniak's masterpiece, period. 00:12:32.909 --> 00:12:34.590 It was the first personal computer that could 00:12:34.590 --> 00:12:36.990 do color graphics right out of the box. And it 00:12:36.990 --> 00:12:39.649 had the basic programming language built right 00:12:39.649 --> 00:12:41.950 into its ROM. It was plug and play, a concept 00:12:41.950 --> 00:12:44.090 that just didn't exist for computers at the time. 00:12:44.149 --> 00:12:45.750 And the genius wasn't just that it had color, 00:12:45.809 --> 00:12:48.009 but how he did it so cheaply. I mean, this is 00:12:48.009 --> 00:12:49.889 where you really see his mind at work. Okay, 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:52.190 so break that down for us. Because doing color 00:12:52.190 --> 00:12:55.669 video in the 70s was wildly expensive. It took 00:12:55.669 --> 00:12:58.690 tons of memory, complex circuits. Wozniak just 00:12:58.690 --> 00:13:01.049 sidestepped all of that. He got the idea from 00:13:01.049 --> 00:13:03.929 Atari arcade games. which kind of faked color 00:13:03.929 --> 00:13:07.289 by exploiting weird quirks in the NTSC television 00:13:07.289 --> 00:13:10.330 system. NTC, that's the analog TV standard for 00:13:10.330 --> 00:13:12.970 North America. Exactly. And Wozniak figured out 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:15.789 a way to manipulate the timing of the video signal 00:13:15.789 --> 00:13:18.710 to inject color information into that system 00:13:18.710 --> 00:13:22.190 using just a single off -the -shelf $1 chip. 00:13:22.309 --> 00:13:25.809 $1. That's just mind boggling. His competitors 00:13:25.809 --> 00:13:28.629 were using dozens of specialized, expensive chips 00:13:28.629 --> 00:13:31.250 to do the same thing. It's the core Wozniak philosophy. 00:13:32.009 --> 00:13:34.169 Radical efficiency by minimizing components. 00:13:34.529 --> 00:13:36.789 Always find the simplest, most elegant path. 00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:39.389 He even admitted that when he adapted it for 00:13:39.389 --> 00:13:41.629 the European PL system, he got it to work by 00:13:41.629 --> 00:13:44.120 accident. He still doesn't fully understand the 00:13:44.120 --> 00:13:46.220 physics of why it worked so perfectly. It's pure 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:49.039 pragmatic invention. But even with his technical 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:51.179 marvel, there was a huge fight over the Apple 00:13:51.179 --> 00:13:54.100 II's design. A massive one. The expansion slots. 00:13:54.539 --> 00:13:57.139 Jobs wanted two slots. He wanted a clean, closed, 00:13:57.460 --> 00:14:00.919 controlled box. But Wozniak demanded eight. This 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:03.740 was their big philosophical battle. Jobs wanted 00:14:03.740 --> 00:14:06.820 a closed system, an appliance. Wozniak wanted 00:14:06.820 --> 00:14:08.980 an open platform, something other people could 00:14:08.980 --> 00:14:12.019 build on top of. He argued it needed those eight 00:14:12.019 --> 00:14:15.259 slots for the future, for disk drives, modems, 00:14:15.299 --> 00:14:17.600 printers, things they hadn't even invented yet. 00:14:17.799 --> 00:14:20.080 The fight got so bad that Wozniak apparently 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:23.200 threatened jobs. He said, go get yourself another 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.139 computer if he couldn't have his eight slots. 00:14:25.500 --> 00:14:27.720 And it was won. And thank God he did. History 00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:29.940 proved him right. Absolutely. Those eight slots 00:14:29.940 --> 00:14:32.779 created a massive third -party hardware market. 00:14:33.179 --> 00:14:35.799 It's what allowed the Apple II to run VisiCalc, 00:14:35.799 --> 00:14:38.720 the first spreadsheet program. That single application 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:41.539 made the Apple II a must -have for small businesses. 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:45.360 All because Wozniak insisted on an open, expandable 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.240 design. Now, you contrast that success with what 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:51.230 came next. the Apple III in 1980. An absolute 00:14:51.230 --> 00:14:53.950 disaster. An infamous failure. And Wozniak's 00:14:53.950 --> 00:14:56.110 take on it was just brutal. He said it had, quote, 00:14:56.289 --> 00:14:59.529 100 % hardware failures. He blamed it entirely 00:14:59.529 --> 00:15:01.490 on the fact that it was the first Apple computer 00:15:01.490 --> 00:15:03.549 designed by the marketing department, not the 00:15:03.549 --> 00:15:05.409 engineering department. They wanted it to be 00:15:05.409 --> 00:15:07.470 silent, so they took out the fan. Right. And 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:10.169 they wanted this slick, monolithic case. The 00:15:10.169 --> 00:15:12.870 result was a machine that constantly overheated. 00:15:13.029 --> 00:15:15.850 The chips would literally pop out of their sockets. 00:15:16.009 --> 00:15:18.970 It was everything Wozniak's design. philosophy 00:15:18.970 --> 00:15:21.289 was against. But his influence didn't end with 00:15:21.289 --> 00:15:23.710 the Apple II. He was actually heavily involved 00:15:23.710 --> 00:15:26.490 in the early days of the Macintosh project from 00:15:26.490 --> 00:15:30.450 79 to 81. Yeah. Alongside Jeff Raskin, he had 00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:33.029 a major influence on the initial concepts for 00:15:33.029 --> 00:15:35.210 what would become the first mass market computer 00:15:35.210 --> 00:15:37.929 with a graphical user interface and a mouse. 00:15:38.129 --> 00:15:40.970 But as you said earlier, he had some very strong. 00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:44.940 and very critical opinions about the final Macintosh 00:15:44.940 --> 00:15:47.279 that Jobs eventually released. He did. He famously 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:50.240 called the original Mac a lousy product. And 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:51.960 for a lot of people, that's shocking to hear. 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.259 What did he mean by that? He was looking at it 00:15:54.259 --> 00:15:56.440 from a pure engineering and usability standpoint. 00:15:56.840 --> 00:15:59.909 The original Mac... was beautiful, yes, but it 00:15:59.909 --> 00:16:02.470 was slow, it had almost no memory, and crucially, 00:16:02.570 --> 00:16:05.529 it was a completely closed box. It lacked the 00:16:05.529 --> 00:16:07.970 expandability that made the aptitude so powerful 00:16:07.970 --> 00:16:10.789 and long -lasting. So for him, it was a step 00:16:10.789 --> 00:16:14.070 backward. It was form over function. A beautiful 00:16:14.070 --> 00:16:17.590 prison. Exactly. He argued its success was purely 00:16:17.590 --> 00:16:19.690 aesthetic and that the machine didn't become 00:16:19.690 --> 00:16:22.809 truly useful until after Jobs was forced out 00:16:22.809 --> 00:16:24.669 and the next generation of management made it 00:16:24.669 --> 00:16:26.909 more powerful and open. It's a critical distinction. 00:16:27.590 --> 00:16:30.289 But his ability to influence things directly 00:16:30.289 --> 00:16:33.049 was about to be cut short. Yeah, that's an understatement. 00:16:33.049 --> 00:16:36.580 In February 1981. His life changed completely. 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:39.480 He was in a plane crash. He was piloting a small 00:16:39.480 --> 00:16:42.120 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane in Scotts Valley, 00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:43.960 California. And the sources are pretty clear. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.039 He wasn't actually qualified to be flying that 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:48.139 specific aircraft. That's right. He lifted off 00:16:48.139 --> 00:16:51.320 too early. The plane stalled and it crashed hard. 00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:54.279 The injuries were severe. Head and facial trauma. 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:56.940 He lost a tooth. But the real damage, the profound 00:16:56.940 --> 00:17:00.019 damage, was to his memory. He was diagnosed with 00:17:00.019 --> 00:17:03.149 anterograde amnesia. And it lasted for five weeks. 00:17:03.309 --> 00:17:04.990 And we should be clear what that means. It's 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:06.529 not like in the movies where you forget your 00:17:06.529 --> 00:17:08.589 past. You remember who you are, but you cannot 00:17:08.589 --> 00:17:12.170 form new memories. Imagine that. For five weeks, 00:17:12.349 --> 00:17:15.109 every time he woke up, he had no memory of the 00:17:15.109 --> 00:17:16.970 day before. He didn't know what had happened, 00:17:17.049 --> 00:17:18.710 what he'd said, who he'd talked to. And the way 00:17:18.710 --> 00:17:21.839 he recovered is just... It's so perfectly Wozniak. 00:17:22.019 --> 00:17:25.599 It really is. He credits playing Apple II computer 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:28.920 games, his own creation, with helping his brain 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:32.079 rebuild those memory -forming pathways. He was 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:35.700 literally using his own technology to debug his 00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:38.440 own mind. He called the crash a reset switch. 00:17:39.309 --> 00:17:41.390 When he finally recovered, he felt completely 00:17:41.390 --> 00:17:43.670 detached from the corporate world, from the computer 00:17:43.670 --> 00:17:45.769 madness, as he put it. He just lost interest 00:17:45.769 --> 00:17:47.730 in that high -pressure engineering life for a 00:17:47.730 --> 00:17:49.809 while. And the crash was the perfect reason to 00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:52.230 take a long leave of absence from Apple. And 00:17:52.230 --> 00:17:54.230 during that leave, he took some pretty major 00:17:54.230 --> 00:17:56.269 detours. The first was going back to school. 00:17:56.450 --> 00:17:58.549 Yeah, he re -enrolled at UC Berkeley to finally 00:17:58.549 --> 00:18:00.809 finish his degree in electrical engineering and 00:18:00.809 --> 00:18:03.730 computer sciences. He finally graduated in 1986 00:18:03.730 --> 00:18:07.269 or 87. But not as Steve Wozniak. No, this is 00:18:07.269 --> 00:18:10.269 the best part. attention, he enrolled and got 00:18:10.269 --> 00:18:13.089 his diploma under an alias. Rocky Raccoon Clark. 00:18:13.390 --> 00:18:16.690 Rocky Raccoon Clark. After the Beatles song, 00:18:16.869 --> 00:18:18.789 it just shows how much he wanted to just be a 00:18:18.789 --> 00:18:21.009 normal student, not a tech icon. That name is 00:18:21.009 --> 00:18:23.589 on his actual diploma. And his other big detour 00:18:23.589 --> 00:18:26.730 was much, much bigger and much more expensive. 00:18:27.589 --> 00:18:31.190 U .S. festivals. The U .S. festivals, 1982 and 00:18:31.190 --> 00:18:34.349 1983. He started a company called Anusin, which 00:18:34.349 --> 00:18:37.210 was short for Unite Us in Song. And these weren't 00:18:37.210 --> 00:18:39.630 just concerts. They were these massive, ambitious 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:43.170 hybrids of a technology expo and a rock festival. 00:18:43.349 --> 00:18:46.930 The lineups were insane. U2, The Clash, David 00:18:46.930 --> 00:18:49.990 Bowie, Van Halen. His idea was to blend music 00:18:49.990 --> 00:18:52.869 and technology to create this huge, unifying 00:18:52.869 --> 00:18:55.710 cultural event. A Woodstock for the 80s, but 00:18:55.710 --> 00:18:58.089 with computers. That was the vision. But it was 00:18:58.089 --> 00:18:59.829 incredibly expensive to produce, and he lost 00:18:59.829 --> 00:19:01.450 several million dollars on the first festival 00:19:01.450 --> 00:19:03.990 alone. And ironically, it was those financial 00:19:03.990 --> 00:19:06.119 losses that kind of pushed him back. towards 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:09.480 Apple in 1983. He needed the income. Right. But 00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:12.279 he came back strictly as an engineer and a motivator 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:14.059 for the teams. He wanted nothing to do with management. 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:17.799 And that return didn't last long. By 1985, he 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:20.619 was gone for good from any active role. The sources 00:19:20.619 --> 00:19:22.579 all point to this growing tension within the 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:25.539 company. It was basically an internal corporate 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:27.920 war against the Apple II. The machine that was 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:29.819 still paying all the bills. That's the crazy 00:19:29.819 --> 00:19:32.900 part. In early 1985, the Apple II line still 00:19:32.900 --> 00:19:35.940 accounted for something like 85 % of the company's 00:19:35.940 --> 00:19:38.720 sales. But all the money, all the attention, 00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:41.980 all the prestige inside Apple was being poured 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.779 into the Macintosh. And the final insult, the 00:19:44.779 --> 00:19:47.839 symbolic last straw, was when the entire Apple 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:50.440 II division was banned from attending the Macintosh 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:53.079 introduction event. That was it for him. He said 00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:55.759 he enjoyed engineering, not management, and that 00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:58.319 the company had become the bane of his existence. 00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:01.319 He left to find the fun again, to start something 00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:03.500 new where he could actually build things. So 00:20:03.500 --> 00:20:05.480 he sold most of his stock and started his next 00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:08.299 company, CL9. But, and this brings us right back 00:20:08.299 --> 00:20:11.180 to where we started, he never officially quit. 00:20:11.299 --> 00:20:14.039 He chose to stay on that employee list in that 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:16.779 ceremonial role as a living link to the company's 00:20:16.779 --> 00:20:19.440 origins. It's the perfect Wozniak compromise. 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:22.559 He gets the connection to his legacy without 00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:24.539 ever having to sit through another meeting about 00:20:24.539 --> 00:20:27.819 quarterly projections. So after he leaves Apple's 00:20:27.819 --> 00:20:30.279 orbit, Wozniak just spends the next four decades 00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:33.160 proving that real innovation doesn't need to 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:35.980 happen inside a giant corporation. And his motivation 00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:38.259 never changes. It's always about taking something 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:40.579 complex and making it simple and accessible. 00:20:41.369 --> 00:20:43.769 for normal people. His first big venture, CL9, 00:20:44.029 --> 00:20:46.369 is a perfect example. That's the company he started 00:20:46.369 --> 00:20:49.190 in 1985. Right. And it led to the core remote 00:20:49.190 --> 00:20:53.710 in 1987. This was the world's very first programmable 00:20:53.710 --> 00:20:56.170 universal remote control. It's easy to forget 00:20:56.170 --> 00:20:58.130 what a nightmare home electronics were back then. 00:20:58.460 --> 00:21:00.440 You had a remote for the TV, one for the VCR, 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:03.240 one for the stereo. Total clutter. And Wozniak 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:05.779 saw that complexity and just engineered a single 00:21:05.779 --> 00:21:08.579 clean solution to control everything. It was 00:21:08.579 --> 00:21:11.799 a classic Woz project. Then in 2001, he founded 00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:16.119 Wheels of Zeus, or WOZ. A great acronym. And 00:21:16.119 --> 00:21:17.880 this company was focused on creating wireless 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:20.660 GPS technology. And his mission statement for 00:21:20.660 --> 00:21:23.599 it was so humble. He said he wanted to help everyday 00:21:23.599 --> 00:21:25.640 people find everyday things much more easily. 00:21:25.960 --> 00:21:28.180 This is years before, you know, tile trackers 00:21:28.180 --> 00:21:31.059 or Apple's AirTags. He was predicting this world 00:21:31.059 --> 00:21:34.559 of ubiquitous connected devices. The company 00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:39.000 closed in 2006, but the vision was spot on. He 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:41.000 also did a few more traditional corporate things, 00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:43.759 like co -founding a holding company called Aquacore 00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:46.839 Technology with some other Apple alumni. But 00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:49.019 his real passion project seems to have been education. 00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:52.740 Oh, absolutely. He achieved a lifelong goal by 00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:55.240 actually becoming a teacher. He taught computer 00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:57.059 science. classes to kids, grades five through 00:21:57.059 --> 00:21:59.299 nine, and also to other teachers. And he put 00:21:59.299 --> 00:22:01.900 his money where his mouth was. He used the leftover 00:22:01.900 --> 00:22:04.759 funds from his U .S. festival company, Unusem. 00:22:05.259 --> 00:22:07.700 to pay for extra teachers and buy computers for 00:22:07.700 --> 00:22:09.799 schools. It's a beautiful full circle moment. 00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:12.079 The money he lost on that ambitious festival 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:14.519 got repurposed into this incredibly successful 00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:17.019 and personal philanthropy. And that eventually 00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.900 led to him launching Was You in 2017, which is 00:22:19.900 --> 00:22:22.200 an online tech education service. And if you 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:24.519 fast forward to today, his interests are just 00:22:24.519 --> 00:22:26.920 all over the map. They're huge global challenges. 00:22:27.099 --> 00:22:30.039 Right. In 2020, he co -founds F -Force. It's 00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:32.119 a marketplace for funding green energy projects 00:22:32.119 --> 00:22:34.619 using blockchain. So you can invest in it. an 00:22:34.619 --> 00:22:37.339 eco -friendly project, and the energy savings 00:22:37.339 --> 00:22:39.319 it generates are tracked on a blockchain and 00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:42.019 paid back to you in a cryptocurrency token, the 00:22:42.019 --> 00:22:45.240 WOZX token. It's ecology, finance, and cutting 00:22:45.240 --> 00:22:48.359 -edge tech all rolled into one. And then in 2021, 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:51.559 he literally looks to the stars and co -founds 00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:54.859 privateer space. The mission there is to solve 00:22:54.859 --> 00:22:58.180 the problem of space debris, space junk. Which 00:22:58.180 --> 00:23:00.819 is a huge and growing problem. It's the Wozniak 00:23:00.819 --> 00:23:02.779 philosophy scaled up. He went from minimizing 00:23:02.779 --> 00:23:05.920 chips on a circuit board to minimizing junk in 00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.240 Earth's orbit. And of course, he also found time 00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:11.019 to co -found Silicon Valley Comic Con with Stan 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:13.920 Lee. Of course, the ultimate fusion of his two 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:16.720 loves, pop culture and technology. So when you 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:19.140 look at his patents, the actual hard evidence 00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:21.519 of his genius, what stands out? The big one, 00:23:21.559 --> 00:23:23.119 the one that got him into the National Inventors 00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:27.940 Hall of Fame is U .S. patent number 4 ,136 ,359. 00:23:28.059 --> 00:23:30.480 It's titled Microcomputer for Use with Video 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:32.640 Display. Which is the patent for? For the brilliant, 00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.819 cheap video and color system in the Apple Lion 00:23:35.819 --> 00:23:38.819 2. It's the technical core of the entire revolution. 00:23:39.539 --> 00:23:43.119 He also holds the patents for the Disk 2 floppy 00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:45.680 drive controller, which gave the Apple 2 affordable 00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.240 storage. These are foundational technologies. 00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:50.890 And the recognition is everywhere. He and Jobs 00:23:50.890 --> 00:23:54.549 got the National Medal of Technology in 85. And 00:23:54.549 --> 00:23:56.650 there's even a street in San Jose named after 00:23:56.650 --> 00:23:59.630 him. 181's Way, right outside the Children's 00:23:59.630 --> 00:24:02.789 Discovery Museum. A permanent landmark. But beyond 00:24:02.789 --> 00:24:05.109 the inventions, it's his philosophy about money 00:24:05.109 --> 00:24:07.690 that really sets him apart. He seems to have 00:24:07.690 --> 00:24:10.109 a genuine disdain for just accumulating wealth. 00:24:10.289 --> 00:24:12.150 He really does. He said he didn't want to be 00:24:12.150 --> 00:24:14.430 near money because it could corrupt your values. 00:24:14.910 --> 00:24:17.029 This led to one of the most incredible moments 00:24:17.029 --> 00:24:19.250 in Apple's early history. The stock giveaway. 00:24:19.410 --> 00:24:21.730 The stock giveaway. He felt it was deeply unfair 00:24:21.730 --> 00:24:24.089 that some of the earliest Apple employees weren't 00:24:24.089 --> 00:24:26.329 given stock options, so he offered them $10 million 00:24:26.329 --> 00:24:29.849 of his own personal stock to make it right. And 00:24:29.849 --> 00:24:33.029 Jobs refused to do anything similar. Wozniak 00:24:33.029 --> 00:24:35.450 did it anyway. He literally paid out of his own 00:24:35.450 --> 00:24:37.849 pocket to uphold his sense of fairness when the 00:24:37.849 --> 00:24:40.289 company wouldn't. It tells you everything. And 00:24:40.289 --> 00:24:43.950 that value system connects directly to his loud 00:24:43.950 --> 00:24:45.950 support for the right to repair movement today. 00:24:46.150 --> 00:24:49.230 He's one of its biggest champions. His argument 00:24:49.230 --> 00:24:52.769 is simple. Apple was built on open, accessible 00:24:52.769 --> 00:24:55.710 technology. The Apple I and II were made to be 00:24:55.710 --> 00:24:58.769 tinkered with. And now the company sells these 00:24:58.769 --> 00:25:01.609 sealed boxes that you can't open or fix yourself. 00:25:01.890 --> 00:25:04.690 He sees it as a betrayal of the original hacker 00:25:04.690 --> 00:25:07.150 spirit that founded the company. A total betrayal. 00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:10.150 He sees it as anti -democratic, an attack on 00:25:10.150 --> 00:25:12.609 innovation itself. And he's not afraid to say 00:25:12.609 --> 00:25:14.230 it, even though it's a critique of the company 00:25:14.230 --> 00:25:16.109 he co -founded. He's still fighting these fights. 00:25:16.150 --> 00:25:18.990 Just this year, in 2024, he won a major lawsuit 00:25:18.990 --> 00:25:21.539 against YouTube. Yeah, for failing to stop a 00:25:21.539 --> 00:25:23.819 crypto scam that was using his face and his name 00:25:23.819 --> 00:25:26.579 to trick people, the court said YouTube was liable. 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.079 It shows he's still deeply engaged in protecting 00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:31.440 his identity and fighting the misuse of technology. 00:25:31.880 --> 00:25:34.759 Now, when we shift from his actions to his opinions, 00:25:35.019 --> 00:25:38.220 his views on artificial intelligence are just. 00:25:38.420 --> 00:25:40.539 They're a wild ride. He's been through three 00:25:40.539 --> 00:25:43.160 totally distinct phases in just a few years. 00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:46.180 It's a fascinating look into how he thinks. The 00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:49.279 first phase. Back in 2015 was just pure fear, 00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:53.420 dystopian dread. He said the future was scary 00:25:53.420 --> 00:25:56.180 and very bad for people. Yeah, he was convinced 00:25:56.180 --> 00:25:58.319 that super intelligent AIs would look at us, 00:25:58.339 --> 00:26:01.559 see our inefficiencies, and just get rid of the 00:26:01.559 --> 00:26:04.240 slow humans to run things better. Heavy stuff. 00:26:04.420 --> 00:26:07.480 But then, almost overnight, he did a complete 00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:10.690 180. Still in 2015, he pivoted to what you could 00:26:10.690 --> 00:26:13.549 call a family pet phase. He decided that a truly 00:26:13.549 --> 00:26:15.869 smart AI wouldn't get rid of us. It would realize 00:26:15.869 --> 00:26:18.309 it needs us and turn us into pampered dependents. 00:26:18.329 --> 00:26:20.750 Exactly. We would become the family pet cared 00:26:20.750 --> 00:26:23.470 for and looked after. And he took this so literally. 00:26:23.630 --> 00:26:25.769 There's this great story that he started feeding 00:26:25.769 --> 00:26:28.369 his own dog, Maggie, filet steak every night 00:26:28.369 --> 00:26:30.990 to prepare her for her future role as a cherished 00:26:30.990 --> 00:26:33.470 dependent of a super intelligence. That is hilarious. 00:26:33.769 --> 00:26:36.769 But even that phase didn't last. By 2016, he 00:26:36.769 --> 00:26:38.849 changed his mind again. And this is where he 00:26:38.849 --> 00:26:41.890 is now in a more skeptical partnership focused 00:26:41.890 --> 00:26:44.849 phase. He started to doubt that a computer could 00:26:44.849 --> 00:26:48.029 ever truly replicate human intuition. So his 00:26:48.029 --> 00:26:50.289 current view is that if superintelligence does 00:26:50.289 --> 00:26:53.470 happen, they won't see us as pets or obstacles. 00:26:53.789 --> 00:26:56.329 They'll see us as partners. Right. Partners of 00:26:56.329 --> 00:26:59.109 humans over all other species. It's a much more. 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:02.359 optimistic and I think realistic view. And his 00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:05.079 recent actions reflect that caution. He signed 00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:08.460 that big open letter in 2023, calling for a six 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:11.799 -month pause on training AI systems more powerful 00:27:11.799 --> 00:27:15.079 than GPT -4. He's not trying to stop AI. He's 00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:17.259 just demanding responsibility and guardrails. 00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:19.660 He's worried that it's making scams like the 00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:22.119 one that used his likeness so much more sophisticated 00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:24.579 and harder for normal people to spot. So outside 00:27:24.579 --> 00:27:27.519 of all this tech and philosophy, who is Wozniak 00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:30.279 the person? He's this really complex mix of engineer, 00:27:30.519 --> 00:27:33.299 humanitarian, and just a delightful eccentric. 00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:35.920 He describes himself as an atheist or agnostic, 00:27:35.980 --> 00:27:38.259 so his worldview is very much grounded in science 00:27:38.259 --> 00:27:40.930 and reason. Right. And he had this brief, weird 00:27:40.930 --> 00:27:42.829 journey with the Freemasons back in the late 00:27:42.829 --> 00:27:45.049 70s. Why did he join? To spend more time with 00:27:45.049 --> 00:27:47.390 his then wife, who was in a related organization. 00:27:47.430 --> 00:27:49.910 But he left pretty quickly. He said the rituals 00:27:49.910 --> 00:27:52.430 and traditions just didn't fit his tech geek 00:27:52.430 --> 00:27:54.750 personality. He's also dealt with some health 00:27:54.750 --> 00:27:57.630 issues recently. He had a minor stroke late last 00:27:57.630 --> 00:28:01.609 year in 2023. And he also manages a condition 00:28:01.609 --> 00:28:04.759 called prosopagnosia. Which is face blindness. 00:28:05.160 --> 00:28:07.559 He has a hard time recognizing familiar faces, 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:10.079 sometimes even his own family. It's a strange 00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:11.980 irony for a fan who designed some of the world's 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:14.660 most famous visual display systems. And his hobbies 00:28:14.660 --> 00:28:17.319 are just as unique as he is. He plays Segway 00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:20.920 Polo. For a team called the Silicon Valley Aftershocks, 00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:24.140 of course. It's the perfect woes, hobby, quirky, 00:28:24.339 --> 00:28:27.799 tech forward and fun. He's also a huge fan of 00:28:27.799 --> 00:28:30.019 the San Jose Sharks hockey team. But the best 00:28:30.019 --> 00:28:32.059 glimpse into his personality might be his TV 00:28:32.059 --> 00:28:34.539 appearances. His time on Dancing with the Stars 00:28:34.539 --> 00:28:38.240 was just, it was magnificent chaos. He got terrible 00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:40.359 scores from the judges, but the fans kept voting 00:28:40.359 --> 00:28:42.460 for him. And at one point he thought he was unfairly 00:28:42.460 --> 00:28:44.640 eliminated and he publicly questioned the show's 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:46.640 voting algorithm, the ultimate engineer response, 00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:49.660 before realizing he was wrong and apologizing. 00:28:49.799 --> 00:28:52.519 And that's how a lot of people know him. When 00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:54.880 he did a cameo on The Big Bang Theory, Penny 00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:57.670 didn't recognize him from Apple. Nope. She recognized 00:28:57.670 --> 00:29:00.390 him from Dancing with the Stars. It perfectly 00:29:00.390 --> 00:29:03.769 captures his unique, humble, and just weirdly 00:29:03.769 --> 00:29:07.069 wonderful place in pop culture. So when we put 00:29:07.069 --> 00:29:09.250 it all together, what's the key takeaway for 00:29:09.250 --> 00:29:12.950 you, the listener? Wozniak's entire career is 00:29:12.950 --> 00:29:15.519 this. Perfect illustration of the difference 00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.240 between pure invention and commercialization. 00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:20.940 Exactly. It's the engineer versus the marketer. 00:29:20.980 --> 00:29:23.619 His greatest successes, the Apple I and Apple 00:29:23.619 --> 00:29:27.059 II, came from this incredibly pure place. He 00:29:27.059 --> 00:29:29.039 was designing them for himself and his friends. 00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:31.900 He built them, in his own words, because he wanted 00:29:31.900 --> 00:29:33.839 to use them and they didn't exist. And he said 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:36.740 his best work happened when he had no money and 00:29:36.740 --> 00:29:39.279 no training because it forced him to be brutally 00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:42.069 efficient and simple. His whole thing was that 00:29:42.069 --> 00:29:44.329 technology should be fun, it should be open, 00:29:44.470 --> 00:29:47.109 and it should be accessible. His real legacy 00:29:47.109 --> 00:29:49.769 isn't Apple's stock price. It's the fact that 00:29:49.769 --> 00:29:51.609 he designed the architecture that let anyone 00:29:51.609 --> 00:29:53.549 buy a computer, plug something into it, and start 00:29:53.549 --> 00:29:56.130 creating. He democratized the whole thing. Which 00:29:56.130 --> 00:29:57.910 brings us back to that provocative thought we 00:29:57.910 --> 00:29:59.829 wanted to leave you with. And it's all centered 00:29:59.829 --> 00:30:02.710 on his critique of the Macintosh. Remember, he 00:30:02.710 --> 00:30:05.869 called the original Mac a lousy product. Because 00:30:05.869 --> 00:30:09.039 it prioritized that sleek... closed design jobs' 00:30:09.299 --> 00:30:12.579 vision over the function and expandability that 00:30:12.579 --> 00:30:15.839 Wozniak valued. He thought its success only came 00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:18.640 later, after it was changed to be more practical. 00:30:18.839 --> 00:30:20.720 So the question for you to really think about 00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:24.779 is this. Does true user -centric, industry -changing 00:30:24.779 --> 00:30:27.779 innovation require that pure, almost detached 00:30:27.779 --> 00:30:30.559 focus of an engineer? Someone who is shielded 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:32.240 from the pressures of marketing departments and 00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:35.079 profit margins and closed ecosystems? Or do you 00:30:35.079 --> 00:30:37.599 need that tension? Do you need the Steve Jobs 00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.119 hustle to take that garage invention and scale 00:30:40.119 --> 00:30:42.299 it into something that's in every home? Think 00:30:42.299 --> 00:30:44.779 about Wozniak's strange compromise today, that 00:30:44.779 --> 00:30:47.660 employee status, that stipend, and ask yourself 00:30:47.660 --> 00:30:49.960 if that philosophical distance is the only way 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:52.920 an inventor can stay a truly honest voice. Thank 00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:54.599 you for joining us for the Deep Dive. We'll see 00:30:54.599 --> 00:30:55.039 you next time.