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Steve Wozniak: Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about happiness
- kenny239 1y agokeep up the good view & never stop i guess
- johndoe0815 1y agoHappy Birthday, Woz!
- lordleft 1y agoThis is a slight tangent, but I have not been on slashdot since the early aughts. I'm surprised that it fell into obscurity since technical forums like HN and reddit CS subreddits are thriving. Or maybe it still vibrant and I'm making assumptions?
- duxup 1y agoIMO Slashdot always had some very narrow focus points and the community pretty predictable. Not a lot of variety in content or community compared to the digs or reddits of the world.
- lanfeust6 1y agopersonally hoping for a cultural shift back to smaller decentralized communities
- duxup 1y agoI like the idea, although smaller communities I find now a days to be far less formal and respectful than the slashdot heydays. The ride or die fans of a given thing or community sometimes are strange folks. People greatly upset by differing opinions and so on.
- lanfeust6 1y agoI believe it, as old ossified communities go. I remember a few old vbulletin spots that went through an exodus and often the ones who stick around are trolls, spammers, or odd ducks and people addicted to snark.
- ModernMech 1y ago/. was done after the Slashdot Beta mess. Never recovered.
- ghssds 1y agoSlashdot refused to moderate comments in an effective manner. Comment section was always full of bad memes that became stale: * Lot of rickrolling. but replace Rick Astley by Goatse, Tubgirl, or LemonParty. * Frist post * BSD is dying * GNAA * Nathalie Portman * Robotic Overlord * In Soviet Russia * Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these memes * etc. Then it becames fixated on SCO and basically became Darl McBride News, for years... However, what was interresting was their qualified upvote system. You did not simply upvote or downvote, but needed to add a qualifier to it: +1 Informative, +1 Insightful, +1 Interesting, +1 Funny, -1 Troll, -1 Offtopic, -1 Flamebeat. I never seen such a system elsewhere.
- fibers 1y agojesus this takes me back
- GloriousMEEPT 1y agoslides a bowl of grits down the front of his pants
- zahlman 1y ago... something something Natalie Portman...
- ec109685 1y agoI used to be a meta moderator there. But you're right, you need to have a strong "hand" or the communities like that fall apart. Their original owners also sold the site.
- ryzvonusef 1y agoYou forgot Cowboy Neal, you insensitive clod!
- annoyingnoob 1y agoslashdot stopped allowing easy new user sign ups a while back. Now its the same folks over and over, very predictable. A number of those old memes have died out, mostly. They really limited ascii art which helped too. There do seem to be a lot of trolls/psyops in the comments.
- ryzvonusef 1y agojust checked, my last comment was in 2014... damn
- kevstev 1y agoI still check it out a few times a week, and the discussions have just fallen off a cliff, and that was the biggest draw to me as well. The articles are far less technical these days as well and tend to lean more political - and I see the draw there, those posts are the only ones that can attract over 100 comments these days, when back in its heyday pretty much everything had around 200 comments on the front page. And it's a weird snakepit of conservative anger. On more than one occasion I have suspected bots have stolen accounts. Looking at post history on some particularly unhinged posts after the previous election, there was a pattern of people posting regularly in the 00s about only technical things and then going quiet for 5+ years and then only making comments about politics. It was fishy enough I sent some examples to the mods but never heard anything back. It's a real shame, slashdot used to be a juggernaut, and it's just a shadow of its former self.
- yodsanklai 1y ago> it's a weird snakepit of conservative anger. I've noticed that on teamblind as well (started to use it only recently). I didn't realize there was such hate towards foreigners in the US, especially, in the tech world which I assumed was more educated/progressive. Don't know if it's fueled by Trump or the other way around, but it's pretty scary.
- lbrito 1y agoSomething like 80% of blind posters are Indians on h1b. Absolutely no judgements here, just saying (source: polls asking some variation of Are you Indian? appear all the time there)
- AceJohnny2 1y ago> The articles are far less technical these days as well and tend to lean more political I dunno, it must've been 15 years since I set my signature there to "remember, Slashdot is a tabloid", after I realized how the posts skewed towards... "engagement". (signatures seem to have been lost in some redesign since)
- MetaWhirledPeas 1y ago
- daedrdev 1y agoI've never been on slashdot before. And what stands out to me is it's really hard to follow the UI. It's better than the classic forum layout but it's still just not easy to read, I just can't see myself using it. Though I have similar opinions on new reddit and it is pretty popular so I think I don't represent the possible new user. What seems more relevant is that I didn't know about it at all which seems common with many older internet sites dying a slow dead of no new users as younger audiences are literally unable to discover the site.
- ok123456 1y agoIt was better before their "redesign" in the mid-2000s, around the same time as the Digg redesign.
- nunez 1y agoSkimfeed, my entry point into HN, still indexes /. threads, so I still check it out from time to time. Definitely not what it was in the cmdrtaco days, but it has gems in there sometimes still.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoYeah, that was my take too. I used to be on it regularly 15-20 years ago, great nitty-gritty tech plus usually good-natured snarky techy humor; but haven't even visited in over a dozen years.
- deeg 1y agoWoz gave a lecture in one of my classes years ago and I came away impressed. He was obviously a brilliant engineer. "Naivete" is generally used in a negative manner but he had just enough naivete to get through life happy. He talked about all the chips he redesigned as a teen and it did not sound like bragging at all. We need more Woz's and less Jobs in this world.
- ModernMech 1y agoWhen I was a student, we tried to get him to speak to at our school, but Woz wanted mucho $$$$ to speak. But it seems plenty people will pay what he asks. I guess if my job were to just go around talking about random shit I'm interested in, and I can make $10M doing that, I'd be the happiest person ever too. I don't think it's about naivete. Edit to clarify: I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to get paid, I'm saying his being "the happiest person ever" is directly correlated to his ability to collect millions just shooting the shit in front of a fawning audience.
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- namrog84 1y agoit's a bit of work and effort to give a talk. And he is rich enough to not need to do it for the money. Time is important. If he'd be doing it for free he'd probably get too many requests. Adding a high $ can simply help filter down to a reasonable thing.to only the largest locations and highest number of people. I dont want to do contract work but people ask so I just quote an unreasonably high number and on occasion someone bites. I dont need the money so I need an easy filter.
- vjk800 1y agoA person whose every interest and opinion gets validated by the world would indeed be very happy. Imagine just talking about whatever the hell happens to interest you to people and everyone paying attention and even paying you good money for that. It's a bit related to how billionaires tell everyone to "just work on whatever makes you happy and it's all going to be fine".
- davidmurphy 1y agoLove to see this.
- sandworm101 1y agoHe also famously engineered a bomb hoax in highschool, down to building a ticking device that was heroically disabled by, iirc, the school principal. Today, such behavior would easily end in terrorism charges. It is all laughing a fun, until you meet people whose futures were destroyed for doing far less in regards to fake weapons in schools.
- nancyminusone 1y agoSay it ain't so! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Mohamed_clock_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Mohamed_clock_incident
- irchans 1y agoMy son accidentally brought a knife to school at age 12 -- maybe a 4 inch blade. When he realized that he had a knife in his backpack, he told his teacher. He was suspended from school for about 3 days and we had a fairly pleasant conversation with the principal after the suspension.
- nancyminusone 1y agoI myself have been suspended for having a "weapon". The weapon in question was a bent paper clip. No I'm not kidding.
- platevoltage 1y agoYou probably remember when the cops would get called if you were caught with a cell phone or a pager at school.
- sandworm101 1y agoWhen I was at university, one of my classmates was a cop. He was petrified because that day, due to schedule issues, he had all his cop stuff locked in the trunk of his personal car. At the time, having that sort of weaponry on campus was a big deal. He would have been better off comming to class in full uniform (the exception for cops would not apply if he wasnt on duty or at least in uniform.) He knew what might happen if someone discovered his handgun/taser/mace was on campus.
- softwaredoug 1y agoI always think about this: > At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10651136-at-a-party-given-by-a-billionaire-on-shelter-island https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10651136-at-a-party-given-b...
- codyb 1y agoCatch-22 is a fantastic read as well!
- mrtksn 1y agoSteve Wozniak is one of the kind of people that makes you happy knowing they exist.
- nancyminusone 1y agoI think that $10 million is a great answer for "how much money is more than you'll ever need". Significantly more than that, and you're a hoarder.
- atonse 1y agoMaybe I'm not creative enough but I've tried this thought exercise with friends and it's a fun one. The question is, try to spend $1bn on stuff. Go. So then you start with big ticket items (like maybe a yacht or a house). That gets you to your first $500m. After that, stuff gets WAY "cheaper" where you just run out of things generally before even hitting $1bn. And then at the end of it we try to imagine what it's like having stuff worth $250bn. And there's just no way to make that tangible. I did try this with my son and he said he'd buy an A-list soccer team. But I feel that starts to get into "buying companies that make you MORE money" territory. At a much smaller scale, it seems to be that $10mn is so much that you could live in a $2m house (good by any standard in any location), have a stable of cars, have full-time help, fly first class or even private everywhere, and vacation as much as you want. Or am I off by a lot given inflation?
- stronglikedan 1y ago> try to spend $1bn on stuff. Go. High end audio equipment. Done. Next!
- tempestn 1y agoRemember you need enough left over to throw off an income to maintain your yacht and private jet. Those things aren't cheap.
- bko 1y ago> Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns For me happiness is a terrible life goal. Sure it's nice to be happy, but its such a vapid meaningless emotion. If I were to optimize for "happiness" I would just cash out, abandon my family, move to Vietnam, play video games and eat Hot Pockets all day. It doesn't take much to ride out the rest of my years. But the life I choose is hard because doing hard things is good and fulfilling. I often willfully forgo happiness because, you know, I'm an adult. Maybe I'm just stupid?
- Trasmatta 1y agoWhy would abandoning your family make you happy? I feel like you seem to have an entirely different definition of happiness than most other people. Are you confusing hedonism with happiness?
- bko 1y agoHappiness is a positive emotion, pleasure, or contentment. It tends to be episodic and reactive, arising from enjoyable experiences, satisfying desires, or reaching short-term goals. I am "happy" watching Netflix (smile). I am not happy on a long vacation with screaming children (frown). If you were to optimize for smile - frown, you would do more Netflix, less children. In fact childless people report themselves much happier than people with children.
- Trasmatta 1y agoI still think you're confusing happiness with pleasure
- jstummbillig 1y agoAbandoning your family does generally not sound like a recipe for happiness to me, given a somewhat healthy relationship. If you think doing hard things is good and fulfilling, maybe that's what is happiness to you.
- 1y ago
- justin66 1y agoLove Woz but Woz U is definitely a sell out.
- justin66 1y agoIt's not?
- cole-k 1y agoI heard Woz give a talk (or Q&A?) at a conference and it was very enjoyable, even for someone who doesn't know much about Apple's history. If we are to believe his word about not selling out, then I must assume that https://www.efforce.io/company https://www.efforce.io/company also brings him more smiles than frowns. I suppose if you change the definition of "sell out" you can conventionally sell out without meeting your own definition. That said, I am reluctantly open to being shown evidence that the company isn't a grift.
- itsthecourier 1y agoi won a bid on Juliens for a book that was at some point given to Jobs by Woz. the dedication reads: "to the terminally ill, Woz" I adore Woz, I hope my friends keep pulling a leg on me on my worst days too. Woz is all a man need in a good friend. exemplary bonus: it's a computer science jokes book Woz wrote
- c4pt0r 1y agohttps://www.juliensauctions.com/en/items/23156/steve-jobs-computer-book-signed-by-wozniak https://www.juliensauctions.com/en/items/23156/steve-jobs-co... that's cool!
- lysace 1y agoI randomly rewatched Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) last night. Recommended.
- thomassmith65 1y agoWhile it's certainly not one of the finest movies ever made, it is the finest movie ever made about Apple, and a must-see for anyone in tech. Noah Wyle was perfectly cast as Steve Jobs. In fact, Wyle participated in an amusing Apple prank at MacWorld 1999: https://youtu.be/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os https://youtu.be/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os
- meindnoch 1y agoNot even when you created that Woz coin in 2021? Whatever it was called...
- zamadatix 1y agoI suppose that depends on whether or not he did it to get a huge pay day or if he just did it because he genuinely thought it was a cool way to try to encourage energy efficiency (but didn't make bank off that backing). Selling out isn't the same thing as not always picking the right thing.
- bryceacc 1y agohuh, does everyone forget this happened? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25330613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25330613
- sn0wtrooper 1y agoWow, I didn't know that. Disappointing.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- windowshopping 1y agoHere I thought you were about to link something genuinely bad, like a sexual allegation, and you link him creating a blockchain coin (that was probably indeed useless) in 2020 at a time when all anyone was talking about in tech was how the blockchain was going to change everything and EVERYONE was launching blockchain-based apps. Do you really think he did this with bad intentions? He almost certainly just thought it was cool and maybe would be useful or profitable. There's no reason to frame this as if it's a reason to ignore everything else about him. Completely disingenuous. Honestly shame on you imo. As if everyone who bought into the blockchain hype is a bad person. I hope by the time you're 75 you don't have people linking a single failure to sum up and dismiss your entire character and the work of your entire lifetime.
- arjie 1y agoIt's kind of nostalgic. Man, back in the day people would flip out on you if you used the wrong technology: "You fucking microserf!" There's a strange sense of joy I feel about someone being upset that he made a blockchain app. In some parallel universe we're still in the old world of the '90s culturally and engineers go online to yell at each other for which data structure they use. "You asshole! Did you just use distributed hash tables?!"
- stusmall 1y ago1) Love to see this 2) Totally checks out that the woz is still active on /.
- mocmoc 1y agoWoz we all love you , for real. When I was a kid and I got to know who was this guy that invented RGB , that was always smiling… you changed our lives
- gabrielsroka 1y agoThe rest of the story. https://slashdot.org/story/445414 https://slashdot.org/story/445414
- testfrequency 1y agoI love seeing all the positive comments here on HN regarding Woz. I worked at Apple for a good amount of time, and the general rhetoric from Apple folks still there is that Woz is “insane” and not to be trusted. I personally always found that to be so far from the truth, and the root of it really was how much Apple people didn’t like him speaking open and freely about the company (failures, success, and everything between).
- ProAm 1y ago> I worked at Apple for a good amount of time, and the general rhetoric from Apple folks still there is that Woz is “insane” and not to be trusted. Are you sure they werent talking about the other Steve? Are there any stories or examples from your co-workers? I've also only ever heard good things about him as a human and engineer.
- testfrequency 1y agoNobody calls Woz “Steve”, he’s almost always referred to as Woz.
- ProAm 1y agoAnd no one says Woz is not to be trusted or insane... so I was just curious about the stories you heard. Where as people have said insane and untrustworthy about Jobs.
- testfrequency 1y agoI’m not sharing those stories for sake of privacy. Also, I actually never heard any stories like that about Steve. Steve was more or less: don’t talk to him, don’t make eye contact with him, don’t take the same elevator as him. Obviously, the public had their opinions and stories of Steve..but generally, I never experienced much commentary on Steve. Woz, meanwhile, always felt like a punching bag for Apple employees on the off chance his name came up in conversation.
- jasoneckert 1y agoI think the reason why so many of us look up to the Woz in the tech world is that he is genuine, in an industry where we see so much of the opposite regularly - and we want to be the same.
- preommr 1y agoI really do wonder if this is still the case. As a younger millenial I am somewhat familiar with the legends of yore. But not as familiar as someone older that was around when the tech world was much smaller and more intimate. Where people casually met a wild Stallman at random conferences. Given how much bigger the software and tech world has gotten, with how much time has passed, and how much things have changed, I wonder if people still see Wozniak as tech hero and as part of casual tech culture knowledge.
- MetaWhirledPeas 1y agoDude. Yes we still see him that way 1000%. It's just that there are a lot of tech people on this planet and they all have different ages and experiences, so they don't all think the same.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tabtab 1y agoThere's an interesting job interview question: do you want to be more like Woz or S. Jobs? Elon Musk's management style is very Jobs-like: Motivates via manipulation and wow-factor of cutting edge, has grand visions, yet knows what factories and the market can and can't handle, tries odd drugs, etc. However, Jobs rarely stuck his nose into politics; Jobs mostly just trolled about tech.
- MetaWhirledPeas 1y agoI'm definitely a Woz. I appreciate both Jobs and Musk despite their blemishes, but I must say where Musk has Jobs beat is vision. Jobs was content to give everyone a computer. Musk is trying to bring the optimistic future to life on all fronts.
- mnadkvlb 1y agoI don't like idolization of rich people. Yea, Woz was great for the contribution to computing. He did sell out though, launching a billion dollar crypto ico which is now at a valuation of around million dollar. Sure anyone would be happiest person ever. /S
- MilnerRoute 1y agoI love how someone took clips of Woz smiling his way through "Dancing with the Stars," and spliced them into a song about "doing it for fun," and for passion... https://youtu.be/3FzuZdZLt54?si=l1hyv_ouGOcYD-ez https://youtu.be/3FzuZdZLt54?si=l1hyv_ouGOcYD-ez
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- judah 1y agoMet Woz randomly at the San Francisco airport a few years ago[0]. One of the nicest guys in the world. Humble, kind, gracious. [0]: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BHAeRQDGP/?mibextid=wwXIfr https://www.facebook.com/share/1BHAeRQDGP/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- craigmoliver 1y agoApparently he was so happy with integers that Apple had to license Basic from Microsoft.
- WillAdams 1y agoUnfortunately, he never got around to creating the floating point routines for the version of Basic he created for the 8-bit Apple computers which had unfortunate results: https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
- WorldPeas 1y agoThe most telling thing to me about Woz's personality was this walkthrough at the CHM. Note the section about the homebrew scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsB8Hxnb52o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsB8Hxnb52o
- djmips 1y agoThanks - a very good video! The quick anecdote of how he talks about in his teens / high school he stumbled over the PDP-8 small computer handbook which lead him to sneaking into the Stanford linear accelerator libary on a slow Sunday with his friend and reading through their prized selection of industry computer magazines, filling out the trade cards and getting back manuals for minicomputers which often had very detailed information about practical computer architecture - where he would then shut himself in a room and design on paper his own computers in a game to make them to use less and less chips. He competed with himself. This is a key detail in how he was self taught that I'd never heard before! https://youtu.be/hsB8Hxnb52o?t=1083 https://youtu.be/hsB8Hxnb52o?t=1083 Small Computer Handbook https://www.grc.com/pdp-8/docs/PDP-8_Small_Computer_Handbook_1972.pdf https://www.grc.com/pdp-8/docs/PDP-8_Small_Computer_Handbook...
- WorldPeas 1y agoanother thing I heard but never thought of that was in the video, Woz said he based the Apple I off a terminal! In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. > He was designing a terminal to be used with DARPANet, the predecessor to the internet. He wanted an inexpensive way to use a keyboard and TV as the display for use as a computer terminal. https://historysanjose.org/how-we-restored-our-apple-1-to-working-condition/ https://historysanjose.org/how-we-restored-our-apple-1-to-wo... I guess the IPhone was walking his path after all (as heretical as it may sound)
- nunez 1y agoWoz is the FUCKING MAN. He was on Dancing with the Stars, ffs. Before it got enshittified after Len died. (How did he even get that gig?) He's doing it right.
- throw4847285 1y agoI love the line they give Woz in the movie Steve Jobs. In the big final confrontation he says, "Your products are better than you are brother." The movie is a fiction, but Woz apparently liked it a lot and thought that Seth Rogen did a phenomenal job playing him. So this attitude of his adds up.
- squigz 1y ago"It's not binary, you can be decent and gifted at the same time"
- throw4847285 1y agoI love that Jobs doesn't have a comeback for that.
- dileeparanawake 1y agoSounds like an accomplished life
- aatd86 1y agoThe question is would he have been happy if he hadn't been successful?
- xorvoid 1y agoThat would be my guess. Or you can even consider that him focusing on happiness led to success.
- xorvoid 1y ago(For his definition of success, which I would agree with, but not everyone would)
- alkyon 1y agoSuccess in itself is not a sufficient condition of happiness. How many unhappy billionairs are out there?
- markus_zhang 1y agoI think worst case he is going to be a successful HP engineer, definitely not as rich but can probably still retire early and do some teachings.
- jomsk1e 1y agoEven in another universe, if such thing exists, I can imagine Woz is just as successful, if not more, than he is here.
- ethan_smith 1y agoResearch suggests happiness often precedes success rather than following from it - Woz likely would have found joy in engineering and creation regardless of financial outcomes.
- fsiefken 1y agoSome quotes relevant quotes from the net/youtube: "I didn’t want to be corrupted, ever, in my life. I thought this out when I was 20 years old. A lot of basic ethics is truth and honesty, and I’m going to be an honest person. I’m not going to be corrupted to where I do things for the sake of money. I don’t want to be in that group (chasing power and wealth), I just want to have a nice life, a good life, maybe better than a typical engineer. But I gave away a lot of my money. I’m very comfortable with who I am, I’m not one of those private jet people. Part of my philosophy was everything you do should have an element of fun in it. I came up with the formula for happiness, what life is about. Happiness to me is smiles minus frowns, H=S-F. Increase your smiles, do a lot of fun things, enjoy entertainment, talk with people, make jokes. That’s creativity." -- The Guardian interview, 3 May 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/may/03/wisdom-steve-wozniak-apple-computers https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/may/03/wisdom... "My starting point was the desire to be a good person. So, I came up with a lot of different values, largely based on truth being the most important thing of all, and the value of what's called ethics. And I just said, I want to be in the middle, where I can associate with the maximum number of people. People are one of the most important parts of this life. Who you are, who your friends are, how you can talk to them—it was important to me because I was shy; I was an outsider. And I wanted to be in the middle, not one of these extreme "way up" people where you can only deal with other "way up" type people. Part of my thinking, was to be open-spirited to people. Part of that was not to build a hierarchy. [..] I wanted to build a philosophy, not a hierarchy. Just say, "Hey, I'm going to present how I think," and if somebody else has a different way of thinking, they just have a different mind. They're not bad, they're just different. So I developed a lot of these different philosophies for life, including things like the desire to make the world better with technology and computers. So, I didn't forget who I was. After a bit of success happened, it also goes to your head; you want to have more value and more money. That's good, that's fine. But I was just one who never sought those goals. I never wanted to be so above everybody else that I would kind of forget them and shove them aside. [..] I think more people should know who they are, decide who they are, think about it, and decide to be that person they want to be." -- Encuentro Nacional Coparmex 2017 in Queretaro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVPz3T-8JA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVPz3T-8JA "Seth Rogen, who portrayed Woz in the 2015 movie Steve Jobs, described him to Variety as “immensely lovable,” “sweet, compassionate, caring” and “the kind of guy you want to give a hug to.” Throughout his career – in numerous interviews and in iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon, his memoir written with Gina Smith – Wozniak has always been a fount of knowledge and wisdom, whether speaking on subjects like innovation and entrepreneurship, the importance of honesty, or Star Trek and The Big Bang Theory. Think of them as aphorisms by Woz or, as we like to think of them, Woz-isms." 3 Woz-isms: “Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me – they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone – best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. Because the committee would never agree on it!” “You need to believe in yourself. Don’t waver. There will be people – and I’m talking about the vast majority of people, practically everybody you’ll ever meet – who just think in black-and-white terms. Most people see things the way the media sees them or the way their friends see them, and they think if they’re right, everyone else is wrong. So a new idea – a revolutionary new product or product feature – won’t be understandable to most people because they see things so black and white. Maybe they don’t get it because they can’t imagine it….Don’t let these people get you down.” “Start out with tiny projects that aren’t worth any money in the world, but that’s how you develop your brain and that’s how you learn. Every project you work on in your life – I just look at my own life as an example – is the prior project and a little better and a little more. And every technique you come up with for doing things better you keep forever in your head.” -–Interview with Prof. Alan Brown" https://www.zurich.com/media/magazine/2022/the-wise-words-of-woz https://www.zurich.com/media/magazine/2022/the-wise-words-of...
- billy99k 1y agoEasy to say when you have so much money, you don't need to worry about your next job.
- ArthurStacks 1y ago[dead]
- apwell23 1y agoto me life is about getting $10 million so i can be happy by not having to go to work everyday.
- AIorNot 1y agoWoz was always the best Steve at apple
- therealdkz 1y ago[dead]
- aanet 1y agoHere's my Woz story... (from a ~decade ago) I had gone to SFO to drop off my mom at the airport. After dropping her, I saw somebody who looked like Woz at the Delta First Class queue. I hung back to let him do his chat with the airline agents. As soon as he was finished, he turned around and I was sure it was him. He had his trade-marked backpack full of electronics on his torso. Approached him gingerly to ask, "Are you, umm, Mr Woz?" If he seemed surprised / annoyed, he didn't show. Then I got tongue-tied... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In a brief second, the entire history of Apple came flooding to me... I blurted at him that he was a boyhood hero of mine and just thanked him for his contributions, etc. (which is true, I do admire him) He seemed surprised. He said folks these days have sports heros, and was glad to hear what I said. Inquired about me / my work (also tech), my brief journey, etc. Exchanged a few pleasantries. That was it. I didn't have any elevator pitch or anything. I came away genuinely happy having met him in person.
- yodsanklai 1y agoI liked this video on his thoughts on Trump/Musk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck-f3qZVcWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck-f3qZVcWM
- giantg2 1y agoYou know, I there aren't many celebrities, especially in tech, that I think "It would be cool to have a beer with them". Not Gates, not Jobs, probably not Musk. But Woz seems like a cool guy with great stories to tell.
- martinky24 1y agoLmao at that probably
- NoPicklez 1y agoI agree, but I also think Gates would be very interesting, especially in his earlier days
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 1y agoI think I would like to have wine or tea with Tim Cook
- Wohlf 1y agoI think Steve Ballmer would be pretty fun to hang out with for a bit. Maybe not a beer but lunch with Bill Gates would be alright, I'd love to pick his brain about his charity work.
- UltraSane 1y agoI find Woz's lifestyle far preferable to Job's.
- lutusp 1y agoA key turning point in Woz's life was when he crashed his Beechcraft Bonanza, fully loaded with friends and luggage, from a runway that was too short for the aircraft load and air temperature (high temperatures require longer takeoff rolls). Woz also wasn't rated for the aircraft, but I'm not sure that really made much difference, compared to the allegedly skipped weight & balance calculation, which if performed would likely have predicted the outcome. This accident is said to have changed Woz's outlook on life, but when I knew him years earlier he already seemed very focused on worthwhile things, like excellent hardware designs and little interest in accumulating money, compared for example to Steve Jobs. When I heard that Woz quit Apple to become a schoolteacher in a small California town, I though to myself there aren't words of praise sufficient to describe that choice. Still think so.
- m0llusk 1y ago"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty." --The Bene Gesserit Coda
- kazinator 1y agoLogged in to Slashdot! User 1483, since around Q4 1997.
- blindriver 1y agoWhat a beautiful man, and I envy him immensely! 75 and being able to say he is happy is a privilege most don't get, and he truly deserves it!
- madrasman 1y agoLove the simplicity of “Happiness is more smiles than frowns”!
- chistev 1y agoBut accomplishments lead to happiness
- rpastuszak 1y agoCan you recommend any books/biographies/documentaries about Woz? Ideally, more focused on him than Jobs.
- jmfldn 1y agoI love his attitude, an example to us all. Woz knows what's important.
- dreamlayers 1y agoIt is about accomplishment, but about accomplishing what is truly meaningful to you and what makes you happy.
- gchamonlive 1y agoAbout happiness in life, that only happens when the needs of the body and the needs of the soul are satisfied. Only then we can talk about happiness and piece of mind. Virtually no amount of Buddhist intention can overcome a hungry body and an empty soul. That is not to bash on those like me that pursue this post-consumerist happiness state, only to say that you can't expect those that are hungry to overcome their state without help, as well as expect those that have their basic needs satisfied to feel guilty.
- mettamage 1y ago> About happiness in life, that only happens when the needs of the body and the needs of the soul are satisfied. Only then we can talk about happiness and piece of mind. Virtually no amount of Buddhist intention can overcome a hungry body and an empty soul. Could you elaborate on empty soul? It's easy to think what is meant by empty body (no food, water or oxygen). But one could, for example, believe that any amount of Buddhist intention is fulfilling for the soul? But you presume that's not the case. Maybe you mean something different with soul than I do. So I'm curious on how you'd elaborate on it.
- gchamonlive 1y agoI'd never make justice to Need for Roots from Weil. What I'm saying is that while a very few can just detach from human contact and supposedly be fine with it, the majority if prevented from creating bonds with other human beings will develop severe psychosomatic problems. But it goes beyond just interacting and feeling like you belong. It's the need to have your identity, collective memory and ancestry preserved.
- reactordev 1y agoYou can overcome a hungry body by asking for food, cooking food you find, hunting for food, or fishing for it. There's no such thing as an empty soul - just bad people. Do good and good things will follow. Happiness is a choice, a state of being, not an end-game. I've been rich, I've been poor, I've been in mansions, I've been on the streets. Your life is a rollercoaster, the more risks you take, the more extreme the ride. I happen to like going upside down so I'm a risk taker.
- jart 1y agoSteve Wozniak is doing a great job funding other people's retirements. Half of all revenue collected by US federal govt in 2024 (totaling $2565 billion) was given to retirees. Mostly middle class and government retirees. That's $1500b for social security, $865b for medicare, $128b for retired feds, and $72b for retired military.
- reactordev 1y agoYou rule Woz!
- Pomelolo 1y agoI think there's 2 kinds of psychodelic oneshot. Woz & Jobs. Woz became content with all he had and Jobs turned into a psycopath. Both geniuses, both gave us a lot. I'd rather have someone like Woz be a trillionare and e/alt using his wealth for good than a money hungry monster.
- piyuv 1y agoJobs is as much a genius as Musk.
- qarl 1y agoevery good thing i ever did i did because it was fun.
- megamix 1y agoThis should be pinned. Thank for this! Really really a big thank you!
- farceSpherule 1y agoSteve Jobs was a narcissistic asshole who treated people like idiots. More specifically: - Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder - Narcissistic Personality Disorder - Borderline Personality Disorder He thought he could cure his cancer with energy crystals and fruit juice.
- freediver 1y agoI read outlines of Stoic philosophy here. Recommend "A guide to good life" by William Irving as a great intro into it.
- sc077y 1y agoWoz is just a nerd, simple as that. And he stayed true to himself and that ethos his whole life.
- eboynyc32 1y agoHmm SW would still be playing with his HP calculator if SJ hadn’t come along and of course the reverse is true too.
- mbar84 1y ago> I never look for any type of tax dodge. If you're engaging in philanthropy, dodging taxes is perfectly justified. The main thing to look out for is whether or not you are using the money better than the government would, which isn't that difficult.