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Steve Wozniak: When I die these are the moments I want to remember
- foobar1962 2y ago> I decided that that life, for me, was not about accomplishment. It was about happiness. He is in the unusual position to have achieved a great level of accomplishment.
- throwup238 2y agoWith only 4kb of memory! There's a zen binary koen in there somewhere
- The_Colonel 2y agoIf you suffer from the "arrival fallacy" (discussed in the article), then you will find out only after reaching the top that there's not much hapiness in there. Woz kinda saves you the trouble of many years working towards an illusory goal ("when I acommplish this, everything will be great").
- anal_reactor 2y agoThat was an incredibly hard lesson for me to learn, but on the other hand, I'm happy I believed this fallacy because it motivated me to work hard, which brought me to the position I am currently in.
- jaggederest 2y agoIt's only a fallacy for people who actually have arrived. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a useful framework - of course people who have achieved physical and emotional security, esteem in their career and family think that "it's not all about accomplishments", because they have all the accomplishments they need and are just trying to self-actualize. People who aren't in a position to worry about self-actualization because they're trying to stay fed and clothed are unlikely to agree that money doesn't matter that much, if asked on their deathbed at presumably a young age.
- lawn 2y ago> People who aren't in a position to worry about self-actualization because they're trying to stay fed and clothed are unlikely to agree that money doesn't matter that much, if asked on their deathbed at presumably a young age. Lets be real though, almost everyone who reads HN are in the self-actualization phase, instead of the "how not to starve" phase.
- squigz 2y agoThe ideas people have about HN demographics is wild.
- cableshaft 2y agoI'd agree they're probably not in the Basic Needs phase, but not necessarily past Psychological needs (Esteem, Belongingness and love, which are both under Self-Actualization). Can be hard to get beyond those, and money isn't the deciding factor there.
- ryandrake 2y agoI noticed that the only people who say "Hey, money isn't everything!" are people who already have plenty of money. The people who tell you at work "You don't really want to advance in your career and be a [Manager/Director/etc.], it's so much more work and responsibility!" are always themselves Managers and Directors. "Don't worry about work so much, take that vacation!" says the person who's at a point in life where they don't have to worry about work.
- xenospn 2y agoTo be fair, it is much nicer to cry in a Porsche than an old Kia.
- p3rls 2y agoEh, Leonardo da Vinci out-accomplished him and wished for the reverse.
- aaron695 2y agoSpeech - https://vimeo.com/935633920#t=1h48m0s https://vimeo.com/935633920#t=1h48m0s (~15 mins) Without 2 min intro - https://vimeo.com/935633920#t=1h50m0s https://vimeo.com/935633920#t=1h50m0s
- gbil 2y agothanks but 'Video is not rated. Log in to watch.'
- aaron695 2y agoAs a Hacker you need to learn to solve these problems yourself. While in the EU/UK you need to learn to get around censorship, you have to work past your cyber-agoraphobia, leave your region. Use a VPN or Tor or Proxy Or it tells you what to do, get a login. yt-dlp or https://cobalt.tools https://cobalt.tools might even work. On Topic: Why they wanted to have accessibility for the blind is they were good people, also the famous blind phreakers at the time - https://www.eetimes.com/the-blind-hacker-who-inspired-apple/ https://www.eetimes.com/the-blind-hacker-who-inspired-apple/ It surprised me surveying 10,000's of students for accessibility how many used Apple over products you pay for. The failure is government, they should be creating these tools, not Apple, and the specialized private industry in this space is also incompetent.
- maxbond 2y agoLovely bit of history. Thanks for sharing. There is an interesting undercurrent of the blind and the history of hacking. Iirc Cap'n Crunch learned about phreaking from a house of blind people who could also hear and whistle the control tones.
- gbil 2y agoMy approach when I share something is to make sure that it is not behind a paywall or any other login schemes and while indeed one can jump in the page source and find the direct video link, not everyone has the time or is the "hacker" assumed here just because the read hacker news, I think we are years and years past this. Thanks again for the link though
- jrflowers 2y agohttps://x.com/stevewoz/status/1234575727678435328 https://x.com/stevewoz/status/1234575727678435328
- self_awareness 2y ago> At the end of his life, Steve Wozniak won't measure his happiness by the size of Apple's market cap or his personal net worth. This is a very popular stance to take for every millionare out there. Also, the absence of daily worries, the lack of problems induced by money, and the presence of an everlasting feeling of security can lead to a detachment from the concept of wealth. What I mean is, if you don’t experience the problems that money can easily solve—and there are many of them—and you possess a great deal of money, then you might not feel that money solves anything, simply because you haven’t encountered such problems in a long time. This could create the impression that money has no value, but it actually indicates that we’re detached from reality, not that we’ve achieved any form of moral enlightenment.
- innagadadavida 2y agoIt’s definitely a luxury that not all of us can afford. Happy Monday.
- mgiannopoulos 2y agoAnd yet, I would bet that it is the majority of millionaires that mostly chase more millions instead of happiness.
- giuseppe_petri 2y agoWhat if they're finding happiness in the chase, rather than what's at the end of it?
- kazinator 2y ago> simply because you haven’t encountered such problems in a long time And because if you've vanquished the problems that money can solve, the only problems that occupy your attention are ones money can't solve, so those seem disproportionately important.
- riedel 2y agoThere used to be a happiness cap of 75k earnings that everyone considered, but there seems to be a happiness inflation with a cap today 500k [0]. But the correlation also seems to be that it depends on the mindset of the people. In the end it might be easier to change your mind than your salary. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-happiness-study-daniel-kahneman-500000-versus-75000/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-happiness-study-daniel-ka...
- pipeline_peak 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- talldayo 2y agoHow many best-selling computer models did you design?
- dartos 2y ago“Focusing on happiness is a concept for children” is a really bleak worldview. I hope you’re doing okay.
- pipeline_peak 2y ago“I must feel good, I must feel good, no bad thoughts, feelings or words! Happy jokes hahahaha” Seek happiness through accomplishments
- talldayo 2y agoImagine how sad Steve Jobs was when he reaffirmed the call to not perform his fully-funded pancreatic cancer treatment. Do you think he was laying on his deathbed thinking about all the great hours of work he put in at Apple before reaching the pearly gates? Or was he reflecting on the $5,000 he stole from Woz in the name of "accomplishment" earlier on, the ways he ignored his peers when they succeeded with the Apple II, the Lisa he failed to sell in utter vanity, the family he ignored in his delusional ego-trip, the world he forgot in pursuit of a better business? Maybe if Jobs lived more like Woz he'd not be so eager to die. Accomplishment be damned.
- pipeline_peak 2y ago>Do you think he was laying on his deathbed thinking about all the great hours of work he put in at Apple before reaching the pearly gates? Yes, I could easily imagine him reflecting on his contributions and legacy, and it was known he was thinking of his family. https://www.rd.com/article/the-rumors-and-truth-behind-steve-jobs-last-words/ https://www.rd.com/article/the-rumors-and-truth-behind-steve... >Or was he reflecting on the $5,000 he stole from Woz in the name of "accomplishment" earlier on Absolutely not > Apple II, Lisa I have a hard time thinking Steve Jobs was thinking of nearly 30 year old commercial failures on his death bed >Wozniak is living proof that you can be both a smart and productive person without destroying everyone and everything around you Woz was nowhere near as productive as Jobs and you know it. He had numerous failed business attempts you haven't mentioned, most of his accomplishments seem to be philanthropic and funded by residual Apple wealth. He's regarded as a "darling of the valley", that's it. There were other Engineers who could've designed those early products, but far less Steve Jobs. It takes more than a big cuddly gullable teddy bear to curate something as impactful as the iPhone, arguably the most significant consumer electronic product in the past 20 years.
- amatecha 2y ago"Stay honest, keep smiling and pay your own successes forward" Love this mentality. I've not seen such a concise phrase to describe such a positive perspective that truly embraces the "gift" of life. Like, be real/legit, find the good in everything/everyone, and help people out or life people up. Woz seems like a pretty cool guy.
- bmitc 2y agoHe does indeed seem like a laid back normal person. But I must admit that I find it pretty easy to have such sentiments if one has or had a net worth that's basically infinite money to 99% of people out there. Would this post have the same upvotes and discussion if it was from an unknown gas station attendant or school teacher? It's good to take note of his positive attitude, but I do also think it's healthy to take anything multimillionaires say with a grain of salt.
- amatecha 2y agoI know what you mean and I've definitely thought the same. Wealthy people often have views of life and the world quite distinct from, well, not-so-wealthy/struggling people. That said, from my limited knowledge of the history of Apple, it didn't seem like Woz was ever driven from seeking riches so much as the joy of electronics, engineering, hacking, creation and of course benefiting others as a result of these pursuits. Worded simply, it seems to me like he was kinda already that way before he became rich. Maybe not though, I don't know a ton about him.
- zquzra 2y agoIf it was a school teacher people would surreptitiously dismiss it as "coping". People would dismiss it anyway, being it Woz or a teacher. Maybe people are somehow dismissing his opinion because it contradicts the entrepreneurial ethos that is glorified over here.
- muppetman 2y agoLOL that's all well and good but there's no VC money in happiness.
- xprn 2y agoI would think that there’s definitely VC money in making your customers happy. What makes them happy might be different, but I believe the sentiment still remains
- harry8 2y agoHappy customers might work, maybe, possibly. Dependent customers does work, even when they're miserable and they hate you. Consider some examples, from worse is better through addiction.
- madrox 2y agoI resonate with this a lot. There is a time horizon beyond which the work we do doesn't really matter. No code I wrote five years ago is in production today. A vanishingly small number of products I built are still around. The act of building is a pleasure, but once it's built, its success and impact are pretty much out of my hands. Once I accepted that, I enjoyed the process a lot more, and ironically my output got better, too. These days, I take the most pleasure out of building careers and mentoring younger engineers. I remind them of this lesson. I think, when I die, I'll be more proud of the people on my teams and what they went on to do than any software we shipped.
- normie3000 2y ago> No code I wrote five years ago is in production today. This is wild! How can you be so sure?
- taspeotis 2y agoHe's a JavaScript dev
- solarized 2y agoROFL !
- jaggederest 2y agoFunnily enough my first gigs around the turn of the century were in ASP/JScript! As far as I know that code is still running in production, NT 4.0 or something?
- joquarky 2y agoASP/VBScript is also still a heavy lifter in some industries.
- Jerrrrry 2y agoMy javascript may had been gutted, but my HTML and CSS live in Word documents across clipboards immortal.
- dbacar 2y agoThis is easy when you have the power to get all things you or your family needs for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately this is not the case for the rest of the world.
- surfingdino 2y agoHe had a driven business partner who helped turn his passion for computers into a multi-billion corporation. He always struck me as immature. Not a great businessman, not a great engineer, more of a hobbyist who got lucky and quickly reached the limits of his knowledge and ability with the original Apple. His myth has greatly outgrown his accomplishments and I have a feeling even he is not comfortable with it, he'd rather be showing off his Nixie watch to friends.
- 63 2y agoKnowing when you're at the limit of what you're able/willing to do and ducking out to go have a happy life strikes me as more mature, not less. Certainly he was a hobbyist and certainly he got lucky but what he did was still impressive for the time and choosing to step away is admirable imo
- staunch 2y agoWoz was a great engineer. He was years ahead of any other engineer on the planet in terms of building awesome PC designs. Millions of the computers he designed and programmed were sold, for billions of dollars. The computer he created was the "Model T" of the personal computer industry. It's hard to be more technically accomplished as an engineer. He could not have done it without Steve Jobs. But Steve Jobs could not have done it without him, either. Steve Jobs was a major believer in the idea of the 100x engineer. During his entire career, he always tried to hire them. And why did Steve Jobs believe in hiring 100x engineers? Because he knew and worked with Steve Wozniak.
- sunpazed 2y agoThis is an unfair and snide take on Woz. We are literally standing on the shoulders of giants — Woz happens to be one of them.
- pjerem 2y agoYeah he had luck. And so what ? Good for him. He is not claiming anything else. I don’t know if there is a real myth around him but it doesn’t looks like he is trying to maintain it. The guy really looks like he just wants to be happy in life and would prefer not be a celebrity. It looks like he is a worse entrepreneur than Jobs, sure, but a better father and a better human overall, that’s pretty sure. I feel like that’s a pretty mature behavior if you ask me.
- The_Colonel 2y agoIt's interesting how Woz and Jobs represent polar opposites on this topic with Jobs being very "the end justifies the means" type of person. > Finding things to be grateful for in the midst of hardship — like your loved ones or good health — can shift your brain into a more optimistic mindset and help you overcome those challenges, Wozniak added. I guess this is what it all boils down to. The default human setting is to be always unhappy, wanting more, but it's a never ending cycle with little satisfaction. Step out of the hamster wheel, appreciate what you have and live in the moment.
- b112 2y agoSorry to slap this on your comment, but it seems a good place to put it. We don't know who Jobs or Woz are. At best, even most people in the field are using 3rd or 5th hand information. Quotes from Jobs or Woz don't show even the tiniest real glimpse into who a person is. Stories about persons, especially those with significant media presence, are often tailored, and invariably seen through the optics of the author of the article. Certainly, anyone who has been through an interview knows that what they say is cut, altered, quoted in partial context, etc. Only people who have actually worked with Jobs and Woz know them. And even then, they often only know them at work. A brief interjection into a work day once a month isn't "knowing someone" either. Sitting in a room of 1000 people for a company wide meeting isn't knowing them. My point is, these sorts of deep thoughts aren't something we can gauge from 2nd party discussions about someone. You need to know a person, personally, to actually be able to gauge what they actually believed. I've always been sort of... sad that so much of the world looks at people from so far away, and then takes stock in what they hear/gleam. Quotes from figures religious, from every religion, are a popular theme here. "Some guy said something 2000 years ago", filtered through a half dozen translations, and church dogma, are taken as if a person had known the person for 20 years. Meanwhile, we literally haven't a clue what was said in such cases. Yet the same is true of all hearsay strewn about all such figures. It's just word snippets taken out of context, of a single hour in a person's life. For example, if I asked anyone here the same question 10 years apart, would the answer be the same? Would the response even remotely resemble the prior? If the answer is "yes", then the topic isn't complex, or the person hasn't learned anything in their life. So to this I would say, irregardless of how many dislike Job's work ethics re: employee interaction, what would a 70 year old Jobs say? And say in person, without being "on"? Or worried about a quote in the media, where single words uttered could shatter or change the image of a cult icon?
- asmmoto 2y agoHappiness comes after financial stability.
- ImAnAmateur 2y agoThat single sentence makes a strong point. It illuminates a weak part of Wozniak's reasoning. But I still disagree, you've got to look for happiness where you're at.
- feketegy 2y agoI'm sure he doesn't mind the Apple money either
- chenlian 2y agoI think this statement is very cliche and worthless. All the attention woz is getting right now happens to come from the fact that Apple is a company that everyone is looking for, and he happens to be one of the two founders.
- masfoobar 2y ago"I want to die remembering my pranks, and the fun I had, and funny jokes. I decided that life, for me, was not about accomplishment. It was about happiness." Dont get me wrong -- I genuinely agree with this. However, such comment means little when you have achieved an (unusual) high level of success. You have experienced something the vast majority does not. To be in a position when you will be thankful taking your last breath around your close family, but will be mourned ALL OVER THE WORLD... and be remembered in the computer industry alongside Fred Brooks, Ken Thompson, Steve Jobs, etc... not to mention others (when they pass) like Linus Torvolds, John Carmack, Brian Keringhan... to name a few! In the back of his mind he know this. He is just letting nature run with this, while focusing on family. He has acheived a lot and I respect that.
- Ma8ee 2y agoI haven’t achieved shit and I’m perfectly happy with that. I have a decently (maybe top 10%) paying job, not a career, and am trying to spend as much happy time as I can with my kids. No one, except my family, will remember me. So what?
- masfoobar 2y agoOK - I am glad you are happy. Does not change my point, considering I "genuinely agree" with his comment. Sounds like you just want to shout across the room as if I insulted you or something.
- robertlagrant 2y agoWhat I take from this is: if you have enough to buy the house you want, big or small, and look after the people in your family in a way you think is good, that's what's important from money. You might have modest ambitions and achieve this soon, or you might have a great capacity for making money and achieve it soon, or your reach might exceed your grasp and you never feel as though you've done it. I guess Woz made a lot of money and it was more than enough for him to do what he wanted with his life. That's great.
- tyronee 2y ago[dead]
- dangedbyidiots 2y ago[dead]
- renewiltord 2y agoIt makes sense: conditional on having achieved a lot, achievement doesn’t matter that much. This is why so many successful people will tell you they are glad for the time they spent with family and friends and so many people who didn’t succeed will talk about the opportunities they wish had worked out.
- sharadov 2y agoThere will come a time in our lives towards the end when we most likely will be alone - some of us will be fortunate to have partners or close friends. And when that time comes - the memories you made will be your sole company, so while you are healthy, go out and make those good memories.
- cableshaft 2y agoHow well will you remember those memories by then? You'll have some pictures and videos to help, and some posts or journals to reread, but it could seem like an almost completely different person did those things by then. I barely remember anything that happened to me 20 years ago (almost all of it is thanks to some journal entries I made back then and some files I have saved from then). I've surprised myself with what I've read in my journals relatively often, especially the further back I wrote them. Didn't remember those things happening to me at all. I mostly just remember major events and general trends. Vacations I took more than 10 years ago I almost might as well not have taken because I remember at most maybe one or two brief anecdotes and a handful of mental images. And conversations I had with people are basically all lost if I didn't commit them to journals at the time. Not outright disagreeing with you, btw, but sometimes it seems like I waste a lot of money chasing memories where I could have chased a few less memories, and be a lot closer to retiring by now. Especially if we're talking media consumption, like CDs/movies/games I watched or played once, if that, or eating out so often in restaurants.