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Steve Wozniak suffers minor stroke
- cfr2023 3y agoSpeedy recovery Steve, you and your hundred trillion dollar brain.
- willsmith72 3y agoIt's crazy that Jobs passed over 12 years ago already
- tmpz22 3y agoIronic that Woz has a stroke and one of the first comments is an unrelated comment about Steve Jobs.
- zzaaqq 3y agoJobs had a stroke too… a stroke of good luck, when he met Woz
- tomjakubowski 3y agoWoz was lucky to meet Jobs, too
- Eisenstein 3y agoWhy? Woz was happy working for HP and would have had a great career and still would have built computers. He might not have ended up super rich, but I am guessing that doesn't really matter to him.
- musicale 3y agoWould have been interesting if HP had produced the Apple II and ushered in the personal computing era. But if HP had been interested in doing so, then Woz might have stayed there to begin with.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoNo one knows for, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t irony.
- jamesjamesm 3y agoHow is that ironic?
- benatkin 3y agoNot ironic, maybe inappropriate, especially if his health is rapidly declining. Since I believe, and really want to believe, he's got a lot of good years ahead of him, I'm glad to see people speaking freely.
- elromulous 3y agoIt's crazier that Dennis Richie passed right around the same time as Jobs, and didn't get any of the fanfare, despite having far more meaningful contributions to the field (to say the least), while being a humble, decent, human being.
- huytersd 3y agoEven being in tech I only somewhat know about him. Jobs was a larger than life figure that average people knew.
- benatkin 3y agoThe age gap explains a lot of difference for me. I expected it with Douglas Adams. They should make a big deal about it when someone passes at such a young age. (And 70 is also young) However, it was still too much. If Jobs' passing got 100x the attention, maybe it should have only been 10x.
- globular-toast 3y agoOddly, John McCarthy died within the same few days too, if I recall correctly.
- alekseiprokopev 3y agoGet better soon, Woz. We need you.
- jasoneckert 3y agoBecause he is intelligent, wacky, and genuinely a good human being, the Woz is one of the few figures that many of us in the tech industry look up to and aspire to be like. I hope he sticks around for many more years to come.
- iancmceachern 3y agoMe too. For me it's because he didn't seem to lose, or trade, his soul. He just seems to stay true to the person he always was. So often people loose, or trade that.
- jacquesm 3y agoHe's one of very few, most that make it big end up amplifying their negative sides, Woz came out amplifying his good sides. He's exactly what we need, but unfortunately the tech bros seek other kinds of role models. Let's hope he pulls through and in good health.
- happytiger 3y agoI’d throw a few others in there like Brewster Kahle. Recovery quickly Woz!
- coderjames 3y ago> the Woz is one of the few figures that many of us in the tech industry look up to and aspire to be like. Relatable. My Woz story is from junior high school (middle school) in the late 1990s. I was writing a report on him and read two different biographies that seemed to report conflicting information. So I emailed him asking what actually happened back at a childhood science fair. And he actually responded and recalled the history that knocked my report out of the park <3. That left a lasting impression on me that you don't have to be scared to reach out to "famous" people. They're people too and appreciate hearing from polite/civil fans.
- jetrink 3y agoThat's wonderful. Do you happen to remember the true version of the science fair story?
- user_7832 3y agoDoes anyone know how dangerous a stroke is at his age? Side note, but why do older people have strokes so more often? Young people have blood clots too.
- cdolan 3y agoNot a doctor but plenty of stroke-suffering family members Strokes at any age are incredibly dangerous Most strokes occur at advanced age because circulation decreases (at least that’s my understanding)
- hm-nah 3y agoThere are also hemorrhagic strokes aka: brain bleeds. I had a non-traumatic hemorrhagic stroke at 40. That fuckin sucked. It still sucks 2 years later, but I’m so grateful for where I’m at. Losing one’s ability to speak coherently, at midlife, is a stark reminder…everyone is only temporarily abled.
- scubadude 3y agoDisabled is the only minority group you can join by accident
- cdibona 3y agoAside from the risk of age, he had documented memory issues after his airplane crash in 1981, i don't know if that makes him more or less vulnerable during a stroke, but I'd be worried for sure.
- Andoryuuta 3y agoI had a TIA(mini-stroke) a few years ago in my early 20s. From what I understand: strokes are not more dangerous with age, but are much more likely to happen as you age. I was told that the the risk factor is a matter of how quickly the stroke is identified and how quickly you are able to receive medical care after the onset. Faster response == less time for brain matter to die due lack of blood.
- throwaway914 3y agoHe's like, the nicest guy :(
- liquidgecka 3y agoWoz still holds a special place in my heart. He was the first to sign my laptop at Twitter (right on the Apple logo even). Talking with him was super interesting even though he was mostly a sales figure for hardware storage. He was super curious about the problem Twitter was facing at the time.
- hackernewds 3y ago> a sales figure for hardware storage. what does that mean?
- nso 3y agoHe had a position at Fusion-io, a storage company
- agildehaus 3y agoA bit over a decade ago Woz was chief scientist for Fusion-io, a startup that made various flash storage solutions.
- cdchn 3y agoYOU. Those fusion cards were ahead of their time. Shame they didn't take off.
- KwisatzHaderack 3y agoSending Woz good vibes.
- gizajob 3y agoSame here. Bless ya Woz. Get well soon.
- kbos87 3y agoStrokes suck to say the least. All the best wishes to someone so kind and smart, I’m glad it sounds like it was only minor. Something I really wish I knew immediately after my mom had a stroke is that the recovery that often happens over the days and weeks following a stroke as the brain adapts to its new normal is nothing short of amazing. My mom was nearly blind, unable to control her eyes, and mostly unable to speak. It was very, very bad, and we both thought her life was effectively over though neither of us said that to each other. A couple weeks later she walked out of the hospital and today she has almost no lasting effects. The only treatment she ended up receiving was time and monitoring because she got to the hospital so late (it happened on an island, hours from a hospital.) That’s not to undermine the importance of urgent treatment obviously. She was very fortunate.
- padolsey 3y agoThe biggest grudge I have against 'stroke' is that it's such an amorphous diagnosis. A heart attack, a similarly ischemic (or hemorhagic) event, often produces, say, one of a couple dozen lasting distinct symptoms. Some can be extremely severe and disabling, but it's still a narrow enough concept that people know how serious it usually is. Conversely, strokes present in literally thousands of ways, from mild eye twitches to complete paralysis. My stroke's effects will last for decades, and many aspects will never be 'fixed', but some of the immediate effects have waned significantly due to quick medical intervention. I wish Woz the very very best and that his stroke doesn't produce too many lingering disabilities. Taking time for yourself in the aftermath is crucial. Sending thoughts to him, in spirit, from a fellow survivor.
- Bluecobra 3y agoI’m sorry you had to suffer through that. My mother was a victim of amorphous diagnosis. She had sudden stroke symptoms and was immediately taken to the emergency room. She had the usual symptoms including blurred vision in her left eye and numbness on the whole left side of her body. Despite this, the hospital insisted she had glaucoma and dragged an ophthalmologist to come in on a late Sunday night only to diagnose her with a stroke. She needed an MRI and the hospital didn’t have anyone available to operate it at the time. She was transferred to another hospital 45 minutes away despite there being an excellent Level 1 trauma hospital 15 minutes away. (They were not affiliated with them so she couldn’t go there.) I lost a lot of faith in the healthcare system and doctors that night. This wasn’t a hospital in the middle of nowhere either, it was in an upper middle class neighborhood in the suburbs of Chicago. It was amazing she recovered fully from the stroke, though sadly passed away several years later of unrelated causes. I hope the best for Mr. Wozniak, this isn’t something I would wish on anyone.
- bittercynic 3y agoBest wishes to Woz and his loved ones. Seems like an exceptional figure. Technical genius. Strong sense of justice, and willing to to make personal sacrifice to help others get a more just outcome. All-around positive figure who delights in bringing happiness to others. I don't have any personal connection to him, but I'm a fan.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- elromulous 3y agoYou don't have to be an apple fan-child to love Woz. He's an engineer's engineer and a wonderful human. Wishing him many more healthy years on this earth.
- robswc 3y agoHeartbreaking, honestly. Tbh, hate macs and macOS but I like iPhone (just because I only use a phone to call, text and youtube, and it just works (tm)) but I've been a fan of Woz for as long as I knew about him... and he hasn't changed at all with age. Dude is just awesome and you can tell he loves the tech aspect so much.
- fuckyah 3y ago[dead]
- spacecadet 3y agoIn 2009 he played a demo of my iphone game at a WWDC party and gave me a business card because I asked. What a human.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoI wonder sometimes how Steve Jobs would have ended up had he not met Woz. Would he have started a company within even an order of magnitude of Apple?
- heatmiser 3y agoSteve would have always had the vision and the drive to see it through. My guess is that yes, Jobs would have started a company pretty similar in success to Apple but it probably would have taken him longer.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoAfter Jobs left Apple, he had the ideal conditions to move on with another venture. Next did ok but only survived because Apple bought it. Could Jobs have done even as good as he did with Next without the Apple II/Apple IPO reputational boost Woz gave him?
- upwardbound 3y agoI think that without Woz to develop the first two product versions (at exactly the right place & time in history, in a field that Woz had been studying obsessively since childhood), Jobs would have achieved minor success at best. Perhaps Jobs would become a well-regarded author, or a city council member, or own a franchise of restaurants. Alternatively, his drug use, lack of a useful college degree, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and his many other bad decisions could have led Jobs to end up homeless on the Berkeley streets like so many other hippies from his social circle. He might have died sunburnt and unwashed at age 45 from a heroin overdose, just as much as he might have been successful. Even if he avoided the catastrophic homelessness and destitution which befell the believers of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" movement that Jobs immersed himself in, I think his success would be no greater than any other successful person whose career takes them to the upper-middle class. Charisma and design sense can only take you so far, and the real lotto ticket was the "right place right time" factor which came from Woz, who was practically born to invent computers at a time when the inventors of computers could change the world. It was Woz who had dreamt of designing a computer since he was a boy, and who even in middle school taught himself computer architecture and circuit design at the Ph.D. level, and whose technical creativity was once-in-a-generation. Woz was super lucky that his passion was about something that history had ordained would become the next technology revolution (rather than e.g. having his boyhood passion be in ornithology & birdwatching). For every Woz, there are probably 10 or 20 equally brilliant kids whose passions unfortunately, through luck of the draw and no fault of their own, have very little societal or financial value. Jobs worked with Woz to get to the point where they had a computer company which Jobs could then grow by 1,000x. But without Woz, Jobs would probably instead be spending the years in which Apple grew big in a "turn on, tune in, drop out" lifestyle of crashing on friends' couches and doing nothing useful, until eventually there are no more friends' couches to crash on, and he becomes a shaggy and dirty person on the street, trying to get money for drugs.
- captainkrtek 3y agoGet well soon Woz!
- orionblastar 3y agoBest wishes to Woz and family. He is one of my heroes who started the personal computer industry. I quote him "Never trust a computer that you can't throw out a window."
- blindriver 3y agoWoz is the almost-forgotten heart of Silicon Valley of days gone by, that has gotten stepped on and almost ruthlessly thrown out. But we need him. I hope he recovers fully.
- superduty 3y agoThrown out? You are clearly unfamiliar with how revered and loved and embraced and honored and respected he is in the Valley. He is one of the actual and proverbial giants upon who’s shoulders most know they stand (except little shitheads like Zuck or Thiel).
- cdchn 3y agoThrown out by who? Steve Jobs? You're totally right about Woz's legendary status. He is essentially the living embodiment of the hacker ethos.
- upwardbound 3y agoWoz is one of the most selfless people I've ever met. At a conference he keynoted for (SynBioBeta), he said that even if immortality were available to him, he wouldn't want to live forever, because he'd be taking up a spot in the Earth's population carrying capacity, and even if that's just one spot of many billions, he wouldn't feel right taking up that spot, when he's already lived his life and now it's time for someone new to get the chance to enjoy the adventure that is living.
- kome 3y agoIt's surprising to me that such an obviously common-sense viewpoint is being treated as if it's extraordinary. Nonetheless, it's commendable that he hasn't succumbed to the delusions of grandeur and immortality.
- tourist2d 3y agoIf you asked the population if they would want immortality, the common answer wouldn't be "no".
- fomine3 3y agoIs it? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americans-live-forever-immortality-study-b1862042.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americans-... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2179928-only-one-in-five-uk-adults-would-choose-to-live-forever-if-they-could/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2179928-only-one-in-fiv...
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoYou beat me because I was selecting quotes.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoAccording to surveys your intuition is wrong. USA: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americans-live-forever-immortality-study-b1862042.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americans-... > Researchers from the university separated respondents into three groups, based on age. One group was younger people, between the ages of 18 and 29, another group of senior citizens whose average age was 72, and a third group made up of individuals whose average age was 88. 18 - 29: 34% Yes, 40% No, 26% unsure Average age 72: 32% Yes, 43% No, 25% unsure Average age 88: 24% Yes, 59% No, 17% unsure > Differences in responses emerged along gender lines as well, with more men saying they would take the pill than women. And ironically: > "If a life extension treatment were to become available that effectively stopped ageing, young adults may be likely to use such a treatment to avoid reaching the ages at which older cohorts say they would prefer to live forever," the study determined.
- alphanumeric0 3y agoLove Steve. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a conference once. I wonder if Mexico City's historically bad air pollution had something to do with it. Apparently the oxygen levels are 25% lower in the city, due to its high altitude, making the air pollution worse. Carbon-based fuels also do not combust completely.
- Gina65 3y ago[flagged]
- jwr 3y agoBest wishes to Woz. He is one of very few people I genuinely admire and look up to. So much unlike the current crop of leaders-a*holes (like Musk, SBF, and a bunch of other fraudsters not even worth mentioning that were so in vogue just a couple of years ago). Apart from his impressive technical achievements (and they are impressive, they are his, and they are worth learning about!), his personality and style are something to be admired.
- someonehere 3y agoMany years ago, I used to go to his website and he had a live cam of his home. I think he had a couple pointed zoom cameras in his house and outside of his house so he can look around. It was always cool seeing him walk by or doing something in front of the camera. It was almost like Justin TV but in the early 2000s.
- zlg_codes 3y agoHats off to the one guy allowed to call himself The Woz. Without him, Apple Computer wouldn't have made it off the ground. Jobs may have had some business or marketing acumen but the brains was all Wozniak. May his recovery go well and there be no long term damage.
- notadev 3y agoJust want to add to the positive voices wishing for Woz’s speedy recovery.