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> Entrepreneurship clearly isn't his strong suit. Makes me wonder how many top 1 world wide companies you have to have founded to be considered a successful en

> Entrepreneurship clearly isn't his strong suit. Makes me wonder how many top 1 world wide companies you have to have founded to be considered a successful entrepreneur. EDIT: HN, where people argue whether Wozniak really qualifies as a successful entrepreneur or not :)

Hamuko 6y ago
Apple Inc. definitely was not in the top 1 worldwide companies when Woz left.
- chx 6y ago
  No, but: > In May 1983, Apple entered the Fortune 500 at #411 after only seven years of existence. It became the fastest growing company in history. Both Jobs and Woz left in '85.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    He’s still on Apple’s payroll, technically.
    - wazoox 6y ago
      IIRC, he's employee #1, then Jobs made a tantrum and was assigned #0.
      - cambalache 6y ago
        Really? This will sound petty, but there is no redeeming quality about Jobs, he surely seems to have been an awful person. All his strong points: "Taste", ruthlessness,"reality distortion field" are more the traits of a sociopath than anything else. Great if he is managing a company you have stocks in, but you could say the same if he were managing your "plantation".
yitchelle 6y ago
Founding and contributing should be the measure here.
asddubs 6y ago
i think he definitely contributed to the success of apple in a big way, and it's hard to argue otherwise, but not really due to his entrepreneurial expertise
dagw 6y ago
where people argue whether Wozniak really qualifies as a successful entrepreneur or not OK, I'll bite. First of all nobody is denying that he/Apple was extremely successful. The argument is if entrepreneurship was his strong point, and I think most people would agree that it isn't. Nobody is denying that he was probably one of the greatest programmers of his generation and that is engineering genius was fundamental to kickstarting one of the most successful tech companies in the world. You can absolutely found an extremely successful company without being a great entrepreneur if other things align, like having a co-founder who is a great entrepreneur and having a truly groundbreaking product.
- jstummbillig 6y ago
  A a successful entrepreneur is someone who founds a profitable corporation. Whatever skills are required to do that is completely arguable and also completely irrelevant, if the corporation is indeed successful. Entrepreneurship is not being good at sales. It's not being a good leader. It's also not being a good coder and it's not being good at whatever metric you might feel is important. It's about founding an (eventually) profitable company.
  - asddubs 6y ago
    sounds like a case of the good old arguing over the definition of words. You seem to interpret "successful" as "technically successful", that is having achieved success at one point, whereas others might be more inclined to interpret it as "skilled" or "consistently successful" (which is to say, there isn't actually a real disagreement here, except over how language is parsed)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
samatman 6y ago
The Woz is a legendary engineer, no one doubts that. He's a worse-than-average entrepreneur, and I'd wager that without the other Steve, the Apple I would have been one of the many promising microcomputers which fizzled out.

Hamuko 6y ago

Apple Inc. definitely was not in the top 1 worldwide companies when Woz left.

chx 6y ago
No, but: > In May 1983, Apple entered the Fortune 500 at #411 after only seven years of existence. It became the fastest growing company in history. Both Jobs and Woz left in '85.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  He’s still on Apple’s payroll, technically.
  - wazoox 6y ago
    IIRC, he's employee #1, then Jobs made a tantrum and was assigned #0.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Really? This will sound petty, but there is no redeeming quality about Jobs, he surely seems to have been an awful person. All his strong points: "Taste", ruthlessness,"reality distortion field" are more the traits of a sociopath than anything else. Great if he is managing a company you have stocks in, but you could say the same if he were managing your "plantation".

yitchelle 6y ago

Founding and contributing should be the measure here.

asddubs 6y ago

i think he definitely contributed to the success of apple in a big way, and it's hard to argue otherwise, but not really due to his entrepreneurial expertise

dagw 6y ago

where people argue whether Wozniak really qualifies as a successful entrepreneur or not OK, I'll bite. First of all nobody is denying that he/Apple was extremely successful. The argument is if entrepreneurship was his strong point, and I think most people would agree that it isn't. Nobody is denying that he was probably one of the greatest programmers of his generation and that is engineering genius was fundamental to kickstarting one of the most successful tech companies in the world. You can absolutely found an extremely successful company without being a great entrepreneur if other things align, like having a co-founder who is a great entrepreneur and having a truly groundbreaking product.

jstummbillig 6y ago
A a successful entrepreneur is someone who founds a profitable corporation. Whatever skills are required to do that is completely arguable and also completely irrelevant, if the corporation is indeed successful. Entrepreneurship is not being good at sales. It's not being a good leader. It's also not being a good coder and it's not being good at whatever metric you might feel is important. It's about founding an (eventually) profitable company.
- asddubs 6y ago
  sounds like a case of the good old arguing over the definition of words. You seem to interpret "successful" as "technically successful", that is having achieved success at one point, whereas others might be more inclined to interpret it as "skilled" or "consistently successful" (which is to say, there isn't actually a real disagreement here, except over how language is parsed)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

samatman 6y ago

The Woz is a legendary engineer, no one doubts that. He's a worse-than-average entrepreneur, and I'd wager that without the other Steve, the Apple I would have been one of the many promising microcomputers which fizzled out.