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Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”
- rtpg 13y agoFor those who haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading "Steve Jobs", the biography by Isaacson. It portrays pretty much all of these events like Woz describes them, and is a very complete portrait of Jobs. Woz' status at HP as referenced isn't really covered, but his actions during the Apple I and II launches are pretty complete. EDIT: I'd like to point out that this book covers everything, up to Jobs death, and is about Jobs, not Apple. There's obviously a lot about Apple, but a good amount about Pixar ,NeXT, and Jobs' personal life as well. A great biography IMO, but it's not much about technology.
- lancebailey 13y agoAlso check out woz's book iwoz.
- vinceguidry 13y agoPurchased, thanks.
- CountHackulus 13y agoiWoz is also a decent recollection of those times. A very interesting read overall though focuses more on Woz than on Jobs.
- raverbashing 13y agoAnd I recommend the reading of iWoz It goes in much deeper detail in some Apple aspects (until the Apple II, of course) but it's a nicer book in general (I mean, less rushed) But they are both great reads.
- oinksoft 13y agoI thought iWoz was bittersweet, even cautionary. Here's this brilliant guy doing unbelievable work, then after he makes it he's just spending his time figuring out what to do with the money ... and he designs a new remote so he can watch TV better.
- rbanffy 13y agoThat is the journey of a maker. You make things. Some of them are wildly successful, others less so, but you still make them. You don't do it for the commercial success, you do it for the art, for the job well done, and because you wouldn't do anything else.
- appledroid 13y agoHe's a big kid at heart.
- simonh 13y agoIt turns out people like Woz need people like Steve Jobs, and people like Steve Jobs need people like Woz. Steve moved on to actively search for, find and collaborate with as many people like Woz as he could. Unfortunately for us Woz never moved on, but then maybe he did what he needed to do.
- rodgerd 13y ago> It turns out people like Woz need people like Steve Jobs Nope. Woz gives every impression that he'd be perfectly happy inventing stuff, rich or not. He doesn't really need a Steve Jobs, and the exploitation by someone who presented himself as a friend mostly seems to have caused him a lot of heartache.
- simonh 13y agoAnd made him richer than you or I can ever dream of, and got his inventions to change the lives of millions of people, but apart from that...
- rodgerd 13y ago> And made him richer than you or I can ever dream of, That's the whooshing sound as a point goes over your head. You obviously care about that. Jobs obviously cares about that. It is nopt obvious Woz cares about that at all.
- 13y ago
- MrJagil 13y agoI'd very much recommend you to listen to a certain episode of Hypercritical (i believe) with John Saracusa, in which he slams the book heavily. I still very much like the book, but as with everything, it's nice to get another experts view on the topic.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoAgreed. I saw a few articles about it and purchased it. I wasn't disappointed. It paints a very complete picture of Jobs. I loved the sections on his relationship with Gates.
- gnaffle 13y agoWhile I think the book was worth the read, I think Isaacson was wrong on so many small and big things and failed to go into others, and he really did a poor job with the book. I recommend the two Hypercritical podcasts about the book, which really goes into some depth about the problems with the book: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 (starts 18 minutes in) http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43 http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43
- TillE 13y agoThe short version is that Siracusa recommends "Infinite Loop" by Michael Malone as the best single source for Apple history prior to the return of Jobs, and he says that the post-return material in the Isaacson book (ie, everything unique that it offers) is poor and/or limited.
- lostlogin 13y agoSiracusa and short version are not things that go together and long may this last. The only tolerable thing about my daily commute is listening to him discuss his pet peeves. File systems, TVs, programming languages, the Minecraft install process (great episode) ebook formatting etc. He must be interesting to know as there are very few things he appears just accept and use without pondering improvements.
- username223 13y agoI never get tired of listening to his Incomparable episodes on "Star Wars." And, of course, the final Hypercritical episode, in which he dissected his own podcast.
- barsky 13y agoThe Minecraft install process was on his new podcast. Here's the episode: http://atp.fm/episodes/25-thrustmaster-joystick http://atp.fm/episodes/25-thrustmaster-joystick But yes, John Siracusa is a national treasure.
- 13y ago
- adharmad 13y agoSeconded. The book is great! A small nitpick though is that it does not go into as much detail into the making of the iPod, iPhone and iPad products as much as the earlier Apple products (Apple, Macintosh etc.). Would have loved to read more insider accounts on the evolution of the Apple product in the 2000s.
- caycep 13y agofolklore.org, a site maintained by Andy Herzfeld, also has some good tidbits about the rest of the Apple and specifically the Mac team.
- balbaugh 13y agoThere are new comments from Woz posted today on the original Google+ post's comment thread. https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CarmsPerez/posts/GnVTvQNgvpf https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CarmsPerez/posts/GnVTvQNgvpf
- thearn4 13y agoThe replies are interesting indeed: >Actually, Jobs was not fired. He could have been well funded to develop any product, even something like the NeXT, right at Apple. He was removed from running Macintosh because he had no good constructive ideas that were needed to save the company. He felt that some small adjustments in pricing, and diverting funds from our revenue source, the Apple ][, would make the Macintosh an instant success. The Macintosh was great and was the future in the eyes of those who displaced Jobs. But it was time to be adult and realistic. Hard work to build a Macintosh market would be needed. I’m sad too that the Macintosh wouldn’t sell just on its own.
- vasilipupkin 13y agoJobs supposedly erroneously sabotages the cash cow. Job leaves, thank god. Everything is honky dory because Woz is still there? It sounds to me a bit like Woz is wishing for something that didn't quite pan out like that
- cma 13y agoThings were fine for a while, mac started making money, Woz got into a plane crash and reevaluated his life, left apple and went back to school.
- danso 13y ago> When I first met Jobs, I had EVERY Dylan album. I was a hardcore fan. I had bootlegs too. Jobs knew a few popular Dylan songs and related to the phrase "when you ain't got nothin' you got nothing to lose." I showed Jobs all my liner notes and lyrics and took him to record stores near San Jose State and Berkeley to buy Dylan bootlegs. I showed him brochures full of Dylan quotes and articles and photos. I brought Jobs into this Dylan world in a big way. I would go to the right post office at midnight, in Oakland, to buy tickets to a Dylan concert and would take Jobs with me. Jobs asked early on in our friendship whether Dylan or the Beatles were better. I had no Beatles album. We both concurred that Dylan was more important because he said important things and thoughtful things. So a Beatles fan was kind of a pop lamb to us. Why would they portray us in the movie as Dylan for Jobs and Beatles for me? It's sad that besides being underappreciated for engineering feats that are, even today, awe-inspiring, Woz is often thought of as the stereotypical nerd with no interests outside of tech. He was just as passionate about music as Jobs was, and has a great sense of humor besides.
- angersock 13y agoHe actually threw music festivals and was a notorious prankster.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoI'm not really familiar with this stereotype. Quite the contrary, it seems to me that a lot of geeks and nerds are very passionate about their musical tastes. Classic example is Patrick Volkerding and Grateful Dead.
- noname123 13y agoI think Woz is responding the myth that somehow Jobs has taken the aesthetics and free-spiritedness of the 60's counter-culture revolution and infused into Apple and that's what has made it stand out and thrive in comparison to the staid counterparts in computing (e.g., IBM/HP/Microsoft). Also, there was a long-standing rumor that Jobs had a long-time "under-the-table" liason with Joan Baez who was also a long time music collaborator and lover to Bob Dylan. Tbh, it's sad that Woz comes out of the woodwork once in awhile to carp on his one-time partner. Yes Jobs was an ass-hole but Woz has all of the money in the world to get high, get a young nice-looking woman and play League or Dota2. In terms of the "intellectual man" who got snubbed by the "type-A asshole," Woz should learn from Paul Allen who reinvented himself as a renaissance man who long moved on from computing to owner of the Seattle Seahawks and blues guitar extraordinaire who jams with Clapton. At the very least, try going to the gym to get rid of that atrocious love-handle of his.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 13y agoIt makes you wonder how wrong other movie biographies are.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- moocowduckquack 13y agoAccurate ones are like rocking horse droppings.
- anonymfus 13y agoWorst are probably "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Pentagon Wars".
- CurtMonash 13y agoThere are many contenders for the title. E.g., I'm thinking of one about Cole Porter that focused on his heterosexual love affair ...
- ama729 13y ago"A Beautiful Mind" is the worst I've ever seen: - Most characters didn't exist, they are *inspired* by real persons - He never had visual hallucinations, only auditory - The hallucinations started *after* college - He and his wife divorced in 1963, they only remarried in 2001. - The pen laying and the Nobel ceremony never happened - Near the end of the movie, he say he's taking "new meds" while in real life, he stopped taking them after the mid 70's and he's vocal about it. The scenarist added it because he or she feared it would encourage people not taking med. - Etc.
- r0s 13y agoJeeze, thanks for that I had no idea.
- saraid216 13y agoMovie adaptations of novels are generally very, very questionable in terms of true-to-the-original accuracy. And novels at least have the advantage of having been written for the kind of entertainment-driven everything-fits-together narrative that movies are compelled to conform to. Real life, with its terribly inconvenient nature for pacing and self-contradicting, does even less well when compacted into 2 hours for a primarily visual medium. If you see a movie adaptation, you can be pretty sure it's inaccurate. The question of accuracy shouldn't be in the detail; it should be in the message that the movie was trying to tell. "Ip Man - A Legend is Born", for instance, conveyed Yip Man's desire to spread Wing Chun better than any other movie biography, whereas "Ip Man" best discussed his philosophy of life and "The Grandmaster" put him into a historical context completely ignored by the other movies. They're all factually wrong, but they're wrong with different emphases and strengths because they're expressing different perspectives on the same life.
- etfb 13y agoThe ideal name for a movie about Steve Wozniak, given how often he's misrepresented in the whole Jobs/Apple story: Woz/Not Woz.
- gojomo 13y agoI might go for: Joz ...or... Wobz ...or maybe even... Wjobz ...and it's up to every member of the audience whether the 'j' is silent or not.
- agumonkey 13y agoW = NW
- etfb 13y agoWould be funnier if his name had been Steve Pozniak, but I still give it points for geek cred.
- hobs 13y agoThe Kingdom Of Woz
- raganwald 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Was_(Not_Was) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Was_(Not_Was)
- etfb 13y agoHmmm... highest rating comment in ages = pun + eighties reference. Lesson: learned.
- etfb 13y agoOh gods, I just realised they'd have to get Eddie Izzard to play him. Who else could be the Izzard of Woz?
- egdelwonk 13y ago'The Wizard was Woz'
- jokoon 13y agoI want a movie about bill gates
- mindcrime 13y agoWhat, Anti-trust[1] wasn't good enough for you? [1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/
- glasz 13y agoyep, anti-trust is rather good. but very much less fact than fiction, i'd say. (no, i absolutely do not like gates. not only because of the glasses he used to wear.) if anybody is into documentaries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM http://vimeo.com/6303800 http://vimeo.com/6303800 for the german-speaking audience (there might be an english version, couldn't find one though): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_NcVpADgM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_NcVpADgM
- drv 13y agoThat first documentary has an amusing title screen... in Chicago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM#t=119 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM#t=119
- damncabbage 13y agoI'd recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley if you haven't seen it already. It covers both Jobs and Gates in the period where both Apple and Microsoft began (though I'd argue that it's a little more focused on Jobs).
- tjaerv 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
- CurtMonash 13y ago
- OGC 13y agoWho the fuck is Carms Perez?
- myko 13y agoA person who posted something that ended up being fairly interesting on the internet. Why take such a harsh tone?
- sethbannon 13y agoIf we could all be as gracious and even-keeled and creative as Woz the world would be a better place.
- mrtksn 13y agoUnlike "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", "Jobs" was painful to watch and it was not only because it was a bad movie but because I've already red the biography by Isaacson. It felt like somebody was lying to me to things I know that are not that way. It was like a creationist teaching me the evolution theory. I don't claim that The Pirates of Silicon Valley is completely accurate but but Jobs(movie) was out of line. It's not just that it got many facts wrong or lacked very important events, it felt so wrong on many levels, especially the way characters were portrayed.
- abritishguy 13y agoBill gates said "the pirates of Silicon Valley" is pretty accurate in his reddit AMA.
- ArcticCelt 13y agoI think Woz said more less the same. Something like it was maybe not 100% of the story but at least things where mostly true and the essence of the characters right. EDIT: Watch him say it : http://macmothership.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=226 http://macmothership.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=226
- gooble_flop 13y ago>>>it was maybe not 100% of the story but at least things where mostly true and the essence of the characters right.<<< Which is more important in my opinion. I care about the people more than I care about the sequence of events.
- mathattack 13y agoWas it inaccurate compared to the book by Isaacson too?
- leelin 13y agoIn Steve Wozniak's interview with Emily Chang, he says "I loved Pirates of Silicon Valley... but it wasn't more truthful." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ (at approximately 12:10)
- yeukhon 13y agoThis is probably a better documentary because his friends and co-workers are all in this documentary... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC3qFtgeogE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC3qFtgeogE
- ehsanu1 13y agoNo audio track on that link due to some copyright claim... Ugh.
- yeukhon 13y agoYeah, well, I shouldn't provide a link I know that works... that wouldn't be cool on HN lol It was actually pretty good from BBC (some BBC documentary shows have been proven to be fake in the past)
- clockworkelf 13y agoHere is a 1986 documentary from the PBS show "Entrepreneurs" about Jobs at Pixar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Owau3YHs5E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Owau3YHs5E
- kevando 13y agoI love when people write exactly how they talk.
- tomelders 13y agoI thought Ashton Kutcher was robbed of a career defining performance by a director and a writer who didn't give a shit about anything.
- bliss 13y agoHis career is already defined, take it you've not seen "Dude, Where's My Car?"
- tomelders 13y agoBy far the greatest adaptation of A Comedy of Errors ever committed to film.
- smackfu 13y agoThe story of this move is pretty bizarre. The company that made it isn't a movie company, the writer was the son of the production company's owner, and it just got lucky getting a name star attached to it. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ashton-kutcher-steve-jobs-movie-mark-hulme-310304 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ashton-kutcher-steve-j...
- Dn_Ab 13y agoSidenote: You can tell Woz is an amazing genuinely good person with no hint of pretension or self importance. A lot can be discerned about famous personalities by who they choose to follow. For example, you can tell whether the person has little utility for social networks but maybe started out following a scattering of experts relevant to their interests. Usually though, the personality is using their handful of followed people as an importance signalling factor. Often they will be following somewhere between -5e6 to 10 hugely important to unbelievably hugely important people; people with names like Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Paris Hilton, Bono, Lord Vishnu and Kanye West. On the other hand we have those like Steve Wozniak - following nearly 5000 people and deigning to reply to someone even the likes of HN commenter OGC is completely unaware of. That is, in all seriousness, an incredible sign of sustained humility.
- gokulk 13y agoLord Vishnu ?
- hobs 13y agoHindu god. "the all-pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past, present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who supports, preserves, sustains and governs the universe and originates and develops all elements within. Though he is usually depicted as blue, some other depictions of Vishnu exist as green-bodied, and in the Kurma Purana he is described as colorless and with red eyes.[1]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu
- gokulk 13y agoI am Hindu. I was just suprised Lord Vishnu has a social media account.
- sliverstorm 13y agoYou think technology is beyond Vishnu?
- jpmattia 13y ago> Woz: And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time. I have to say: That speaks volumes. And Woz, if you ever happen to read this: It's still a pile of dough in the year 2014.
- ricardobeat 13y ago$28,409,090.91 corrected for inflation.
- wpietri 13y agoThat's CPI, yes, the general inflation indicator? Tech salaries were lower then relative to other salaries, so if you look at it in terms of how much money it would have meant to people, it would probably be more than that. I believe people were also much stingier about equity then, so I expect they saw it as a kingly bonus. Another way to compare it would be to look at what would have happened if they had, as many did, bought houses in Silicon Valley. That's a much higher inflation rate. But the most fun way to think about it (and in some ways least accurate as well) is asking, "What if they kept the stock?" Google shows shares of Apple trading then for three bucks and change, so call it 3 million shares of today's stock. So that's $1.6 billion of Apple stock in today's market.
- Falling3 13y agoI think he meant even if Woz had given away $10 million today, it would still be impressive.
- jpmattia 13y agoYes, exactly.
- billforsternz 13y agoGiven the uncertainties and rounding involved, it makes (a lot) more sense to say $30M
- SeanLuke 13y agoAstonishing how messed up Google+ is with regard to zooming in ... in Chrome.
- ghffgh 13y agoAs he said: "Who the fuck is Carms Perez?" Is she just some random bitch?
- dchichkov 13y agoDon't want to spoil iWoz for you, but wanted to mention that his father was pretty cool too. Allowed him to play with the right stuff that enabled him to build great things later in the future. And it is not like he was some kid-genius. It is just that when you have a full scale electronics lab at home, you tend to pick things up, even as a four year old. As a side note, it is not the electronics lab specifically. It is keeping current with the state-of-the-art yourself, working with state-of-the-art stuff at home and letting your kids to fool around...
- sarreph 13y agoCan someone show this to Aaron Sorkin so we can be sure that he does a much better job than Matt Whiteley... [Not that Sorkin would ever produce anything other than a stellar script, anyway]
- tomasien 13y agoI hate the "Great Man" theory of history. It misses everything. Hitler was responsible for NAZIsm in Germany lets SO many people off the hook (including people in the US, UK, etc.) and "Jobs made Apple" takes credit away from so many others who not only deserve it, but in aggregate deserve ALL of it. I'm a Jobs fan in many - but a fan of what he actually did (minus being a douche), not the myth.
- larrys 13y agoAgree. One thing missing from Wozniak's comment is that in the end Jobs did whatever he had to and created great products that many of us use. Woz doesn't seem to want to acknowledge the fact that creating great things in life or in business involves stepping on some toes and doing all sorts of shenanigans. Woz certainly didn't have the stomach to be Jobs but Jobs did. And with that you get credit perhaps you don't deserve. But it doesn't matter to many of the daily users of the Mac what Woz did they just want a product that is great that solves a problem that they have. It's interesting thought that someone can be a Woz and still get jealous as if they need more notoriety and attention for what they have done. By the way if you look at David Geffen you will see many artist who were made by him in one way or another. Geffen became quite wealthy and more wealthy than I believe any of the artists he managed. But they seemed to be happy with their success and aren't looking to say things like "hey if it wasn't for my talent Geffen who could play an instrument (actually I think he could play something) wouldn't be a billionaire." While it is debatable what Jobs would have been without Woz there is no doubt in my mind that Woz would have been a regular talented engineer if he never met Jobs.
- pyre 13y ago> But it doesn't matter to many of the daily users of the Mac what Woz did they just want a product that is great that solves a problem that they have. You're implying that the only thing that people care about is the end result; the product that rolls off of the assembly line for their use. If that's the case, then they equally don't care what Jobs did.
- larrys 13y ago
- laureny 13y agoI can't seem to be able to get a direct link to Woz's post so I can forward it around, am I missing something or is Google+ even more braindead than I thought?
- smtf 13y agoI'm in the same boat. Personally I suspect the later rather than the former.
- saraid216 13y agoPermalinks to comments are not a thing yet on G+. Which is why the OP took a screenshot of it: https://plus.google.com/+CarmsPerez/posts/cDK6ZNpZ6YH https://plus.google.com/+CarmsPerez/posts/cDK6ZNpZ6YH (this was the original link; the mods decided this was too convenient).
- enscr 13y agoThank you @jamesbritt for posting this comment on HN. I've always wanted to hear the truth from Woz.
- Ironballs 13y agoPirates of the Silicon Valley is the movie, not just about Apple, but it involves Microsoft too, and according to Wozniak on several occasions, is quite faithful to true events. At least, a lot more than this new film.
- zk00006 13y ago"Woz" movie. It would love to see the story centered around Steve Wozniak. Inspiration for everybody who wants to build something from scratch before business kicks in.
- stigi 13y agoThanks Woz for taking the time to comment!
- Grue3 13y agoA movie is fictionalized version of real events! News at 11!
- Arjuna 13y ago"And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time." Nothing more need be said, really. This is the very definition of character and integrity.
- talmand 13y agoWhat I want to know is when do we get a movie about Woz?
- dyscrete 13y agoCan we all demand a Woz movie?
- crusso 13y agohttp://www.kickstarter.com/ http://www.kickstarter.com/
- csmattryder 13y agoI've never backed anything on Kickstarter yet, nothing's caught my eye, but an iWoz film would be a great way to get into the whole crowdfunding thing. He's a great engineer, but unfortunately for big-budget film-makers, isn't a name that'll draw people into the box office.
- justplay 13y agoWoz deserves recognition, lets do it guy.
- acjohnson55 13y agoIf Pay It Forward can make it big, so could iWoz. I mean, his life has had all sorts of drama, and yet it's a really heartwarming story. If done right, it could be a truly great film of tech and humanity.
- normloman 13y agoSteve Jobs main talent was taking credit for other people's ideas. The mythology that developed around him in the wake of his death is a testament to his keen credit-stealing skills.
- sbhadra 13y agoWoz over Jobs any day!
- brianzelip 13y agoI really enjoyed reading Wozniak's foreword to Phil Lapsley's 'Exploding the Phone' book [0], as well as reading about the time period when Wozniak began college and what they were up to. It's a great book about phone freaking. [0] http://explodingthephone.com http://explodingthephone.com
- chrisweekly 13y agoWoz's comment in full: Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me. I was an engineer at HP designing the iPhone 5 of the time, their scientific calculators. I had many friends and a good reputation there. I designed things for people all over the country, for fun, all the time too, including the first hotel movie systems and SMPTE time code readers for the commercial video world. Also home pinball games. Among these things, the Apple I was the FIFTH time that something I had created (not built from someone else's schematic) was turned into money by Jobs. My Pong game got him his job at Atari but he never was an engineer or programmer. I was a regular member at the Homebrew Computer Club from day one and Jobs didn't know it existed. He was up in Oregon then. I'd take my designs to the meetings and demonstrate them and I had a big following. I wasn't some guy nobody talked to, although I was shy in social settings. i gave that computer design away for free to help people who were espousing the thoughts about computers changing life in so many regards (communication, education, productivity, etc.). I was inspired by Stanford intellectuals like Jim Warren talking this way at the club. Lee Felsenstein wanted computers to help in things like the antiwar marches he'd orchestrated in Oakland and I was inspired by the fact that these machines could help stop wars. Others in the club had working models of this computer before Jobs knew it existed. He came down one week and I took him to show him the club, not the reverse. He saw it as a businessman. It as I who told Jobs the good things these machines could do for humanity, not the reverse. I begged Steve that we donate the first Apple I to a woman who took computers into elementary schools but he made my buy it and donate it myself. When I first met Jobs, I had EVERY Dylan album. I was a hardcore fan. I had bootlegs too. Jobs knew a few popular Dylan songs and related to the phrase "when you ain't got nothin' you got nothing to lose." I showed Jobs all my liner notes and lyrics and took him to record stores near San Jose State and Berkeley to buy Dylan bootlegs. I showed him brochures full of Dylan quotes and articles and photos. I brought Jobs into this Dylan world in a big way. I would go to the right post office at midnight, in Oakland, to buy tickets to a Dylan concert and would take Jobs with me. Jobs asked early on in our friendship whether Dylan or the Beatles were better. I had no Beatles album. We both concurred that Dylan was more important because he said important things and thoughtful things. So a Beatles fan was kind of a pop lamb to us. Why would they portray us in the movie as Dylan for Jobs and Beatles for me? And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time. Also, note that the movie showed a time frame in which every computer Jobs developed was a failure. And they had millions of dollars behind them. My Apple ][ was developed on nothing and productized on very little. Yet it was the only revenue and profit source of the company for the first 10 years, well past the point that Jobs had left. The movie made it seem that board members didn't acknowledge Jobs' great work on Macintosh but when sales fall to a few hundred a month and the stock dives to 50% in a short time, someone has to save the company. The proper course was to work every angle possible, engineering and marketing, to make the Macintosh marketable while the Apple ][ still supported us for years. This work was done by Sculley and others and it involved opening the Macintosh up too. The movie shows Steve's driving of the Macintosh team but not the stuff that most of the team said they'd never again work for him. It doesn't show his disdain and attempts to kill the Apple ][, our revenue source, so that the Macintosh wouldn't have to compete with it. The movie audience would want to see a complete picture and they can often tell when they are being shortchanged. And ease of computer came to the world more than anything from Jef Raskin, in many ways and long before Jef told us to look into Xerox. Jef was badly portrayed. And if you think that our investor and equal stock holder and mentor Mike Markkula was Jobs' stooge (and not in control of everything), well, you have been duped. Jobs mannerisms and phrases are motivational and you need a driver to move things along. But it's also important to have the skills to execute and create products that will be popular enough to sell for more than it costs to make them. Jobs didn't have that success at Apple until the iPod, although OS X deserves the credit too. These sorts of things people would have wanted to see, about Jobs or about Apple, but the movie gives other images of what was behind it all and none add up.
- drawkbox 13y agoIf the world was filled with Wozs I imagine it would be a wonderful place, far more advanced than we are now. He's a product iterator and inventor at his core, and that core has a big heart. He impacted and took part in making our lives better (I coded my first game on an Apple ][) all the while is humble and helpful.
- dkrich 13y agoI've seen many movies based on real-life events and have yet to read a review of any that didn't find huge fault with its accuracy. The most notable are probably the Ben Mezrich movies, but most recently I watched Wolf of Wall Street and then subsequently read an editorial by the lead prosecutor calling the movie out as inaccurate and assailing the real life Jordan Belfort. The lesson in all this is that when you are mass-marketing a story to the public, the truth doesn't sell as well as a greatly altered version of the truth. People want to see a romanticized version of the story, so that is what Hollywood gives them. There shouldn't really be a huge surprise there. If you really want to know what factual events took place in any story, you're probably going to have to do a lot better than a two-hour Hollywood interpretation starring the lead character from Two and a Half Men.
- afterburner 13y agoIt's a constant disappointment, especially when the characterization of the lead role is questionably accurate. (Captain Phillips, or the Christian Bale one about a GI who escape a POW camp.) If you want to see a recent movie that is considered quite accurate, Blue Caprice seems to be.
- smackfu 13y agoIt's also pretty common for a movie to be follow a particular non-fiction book closely, and then that book doesn't turn out to be very rigorously accurate. And very common for people to go public with disagreement with a movie where they were totally not interested in helping out with the original book.
- mark_sz 13y agoBrilliant interview with Woz (1984) - shows how sharp this man is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RZrv55B6Js http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RZrv55B6Js
- amorphid 13y agoAs I was watching that interview clip, for a moment I forgot it was 1984. It feels pretty relevant now.
- prht 13y ago"Woz" would be a better title for a movie than "Jobs" anyway
- prht 13y ago"Woz" would be a better title for a movie than "Jobs" anyway
- prht 13y ago"Woz" would be a better title for a movie than "Jobs" anyway.
- piyush_soni 13y agoHas this link gathered the most number of upvotes ever on HN already? :) (How can we find that out? https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best clearly shows it way above, but I guess it doesn't show the links of 'all times')
- tn13 13y agoWhat I really liked about Steve Wozniak's writeup is that he says so many things without sounding like "Hey, Jobs was an ass I am the real hero".
- utunga 13y agotangentially, this is a classic example of Google plus inability to link straight to content.. what is up with breaking one of the best things about the web (links as first class citizens) Google ?
- nctalaviya 13y agoI love this...
- gulbrandr 13y agoI don't understand why this story has more than 1.5k points.