Woz was working on interesting stuff from day 1. He also didn't view his start-up as a business. He and Jobs were fucking around to see what they could do, havi

Woz was working on interesting stuff from day 1. He also didn't view his start-up as a business. He and Jobs were fucking around to see what they could do, having a good time, and it happened to be an incredible business opportunity. You talk about "Woz-caliber" people like they're a commodity, or like you can track who's brilliant and who isn't. Fact is, if Woz didn't work for Apple, he probably wouldn't have gone on to be a huge celebrity icon. Certainly his later work never got that much attention. And the traits Woz had going for him - a strong technical mind and a rabid curiosity - are common traits. What makes Woz unique is that he worked on something cool. If your thing isn't interesting enough to attract a programmer, then hire one. Don't expect magic to happen because it shouldn't. When I worked on boring projects, I had to deal with incompetent people who didn't care about my ideas. Once I began working on cool things, I got access to the cool programmers, and they were as into the work as I was, because it really was cool work.