I once approached Woz about potentially speaking at Hacker News London, fully expecting my email to be completely ignored. A few days later, he actually responded enthusiastically and mentioned an upcoming trip to the UK. He loved the grassroots nature of the meetup and was really up for giving a talk (for free!) to the community. I then had multiple delightful interactions with his wife who managed his logistics.
Devastatingly he fell ill just before his trip and had to withdraw. Fortunately we hadn't announced anything however I still mourn over the missed opportunity to be able to introduce this living legend to our audience!
Unfortunately we shut it down when COVID hit. I think there's a smaller, less formal HN meetup still happening occasionally but I'm not affiliated with it.
Woz is by far the person in computing history for whom I have the most respect. Dude is an absolute legend, and from everything I have heard is humble and kind on top of his crazy skills. If I could get to the point where I had even 10% of his skill and generosity of spirit, I would consider myself to have done pretty well.
I can't think of a single person who embodies the spirit of this site more than Woz. dang could replace the guidelines with a picture of Woz and we'd all know what it meant.
Let's not forget url of this site is Ycombinator. As far as i know that is very far from “friendly selfless genius inventor engineer”. It's more like “ambitious finance move fast and break things programmer”.
If you're an engineer, you should admire Woz, if you're a product manager or marketeer, Jobs.
Jobs was a brilliant product manager and marketeer - every bit as brilliant as Woz is an engineer.
The truth is, the sharpest engineers struggle to make a marketable consumer product - because they make it for themselves, and while thats quite laudable, however it's generally a tiny market compared to one targeted at normal people.
Worshiping Woz is cool, but like the article says, there's only one Woz. And chances are you're nothing like Woz or Jobs. But Ballmer? That's someone I can look to emulate.
I was behind Woz in Heathrow security a few years back. I was taken aback he’d just be in the regular airport security line given he’s probably worth 1B+. I asked him if he was who I thought he was (he was wearing a face mask, but it was printed with a picture of his own face on it so I wasn’t sure). He said yes and asked if I wanted to take a selfie. Very humble dude.
It’s a stark contrast to today's mindset where we often just throw more resources at the problem. His obsession with elegance over features is something I try to keep in mind, even if it's harder in modern web dev. " Let's make it shorter and punchier. "Woz's floppy disk controller design is still the gold standard for doing in software what competitors needed a whole board of chips to do. That kind of obsession with elegance over brute force is exactly what's missing in modern engineering.
What I'm seeing more and more of is junior folks blindly taking LLM-generated code and including it into their systems, without even trying to understand it or think critically about what it does and where it might break.
Maybe I am living in the past, but it does make me think that they might be depriving themselves of an opportunity to develop key skills.
Had to let this here: A TV clip on YouTube of an episode of “That’s Incredible”, featuring Apple co-founder Stephen “Woz” Wozniak (aged 38) running through a maze and nearly winning.
It's kinda funny... In '89 a friend and I were talking about starting a startup like the two Steve's (we didn't know about Ron Wayne back then.) We both knew exactly what Woz did, but were a bit sketchy on Jobs role in the early days. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Jobs was a layabout, only that the strengths he brought to the table were more abstract.
So I would also say... the kinds of things we learn from Woz are concrete and we get immediate feedback if we learned them wrong.
Woz talked about the early days in an interview, and he said something like (paraphrasing) "Steve [Jobs] could call companies and get free samples for me, and negotiate low prices for other stuff, something I simply couldn't do".
It sounds like they complemented each other during the startup. And it was Jobs who suggested that they should try running a company.
At the end of the day many different types are needed to make complex products work. Humans at least are unlikely to be able to accomplish all this individually as it requires character traits that are in conflict with each other.
With all humans the difficult part is getting all the needed traits to make a business/product work without getting ones like backstabbing/jealously that cause problems later.
I guess it depends on people’s priorities. He won that Nobel for some stuff he did in office, but probably more for his peacemaking efforts, afterwards.
I think his Habitat for Humanity work was pretty damn important.
I once approached Woz about potentially speaking at Hacker News London, fully expecting my email to be completely ignored. A few days later, he actually responded enthusiastically and mentioned an upcoming trip to the UK. He loved the grassroots nature of the meetup and was really up for giving a talk (for free!) to the community. I then had multiple delightful interactions with his wife who managed his logistics.
Devastatingly he fell ill just before his trip and had to withdraw. Fortunately we hadn't announced anything however I still mourn over the missed opportunity to be able to introduce this living legend to our audience!
I didn't know there is a HN meetup in LDN. How do I join up?
Unfortunately we shut it down when COVID hit. I think there's a smaller, less formal HN meetup still happening occasionally but I'm not affiliated with it.
Woz is by far the person in computing history for whom I have the most respect. Dude is an absolute legend, and from everything I have heard is humble and kind on top of his crazy skills. If I could get to the point where I had even 10% of his skill and generosity of spirit, I would consider myself to have done pretty well.
To me he's second only to stallman for me. Woz is an engineering genius, but stallman is pretty much the reason we're on this site right now in a way
Care to explain?
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I can't think of a single person who embodies the spirit of this site more than Woz. dang could replace the guidelines with a picture of Woz and we'd all know what it meant.
Let's not forget url of this site is Ycombinator. As far as i know that is very far from “friendly selfless genius inventor engineer”. It's more like “ambitious finance move fast and break things programmer”.
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Woz may embody the spirit of hacking but does he really embody the spirit of venture capital?
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Maybe Fabrice Bellard could be a candidate.
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Woz is great, but I'd still go for Alan Kay.
Everyone chooses the wrong Steve to worship.
If you're an engineer, you should admire Woz, if you're a product manager or marketeer, Jobs.
Jobs was a brilliant product manager and marketeer - every bit as brilliant as Woz is an engineer.
The truth is, the sharpest engineers struggle to make a marketable consumer product - because they make it for themselves, and while thats quite laudable, however it's generally a tiny market compared to one targeted at normal people.
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Worshiping Woz is cool, but like the article says, there's only one Woz. And chances are you're nothing like Woz or Jobs. But Ballmer? That's someone I can look to emulate.
https://medium.com/packt-hub/how-to-be-like-steve-ballmer-cf...
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I worship both thank you very much.
I was behind Woz in Heathrow security a few years back. I was taken aback he’d just be in the regular airport security line given he’s probably worth 1B+. I asked him if he was who I thought he was (he was wearing a face mask, but it was printed with a picture of his own face on it so I wasn’t sure). He said yes and asked if I wanted to take a selfie. Very humble dude.
I think his net worth is probably a couple of orders of magnitude lower https://swipefile.com/steve-wozniak-co-founder-of-apple-on-h...
It’s a stark contrast to today's mindset where we often just throw more resources at the problem. His obsession with elegance over features is something I try to keep in mind, even if it's harder in modern web dev. " Let's make it shorter and punchier. "Woz's floppy disk controller design is still the gold standard for doing in software what competitors needed a whole board of chips to do. That kind of obsession with elegance over brute force is exactly what's missing in modern engineering.
modern engineering is launching an electron to-do list app that uses 2gb of ram.
Which, at least works relibly across all platforms and devices unlike desktop frameworks?
People wouldnt use electron is they had good alternative
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What I'm seeing more and more of is junior folks blindly taking LLM-generated code and including it into their systems, without even trying to understand it or think critically about what it does and where it might break.
Maybe I am living in the past, but it does make me think that they might be depriving themselves of an opportunity to develop key skills.
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Then they justify it because they vibe-coded a proof of concept in Tauri, and it was even worse.
Had to let this here: A TV clip on YouTube of an episode of “That’s Incredible”, featuring Apple co-founder Stephen “Woz” Wozniak (aged 38) running through a maze and nearly winning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoJexQjoMtk
(found on the blog of Cabel Sasser: https://cabel.com/woz-vs-wooz/)
It's kinda funny... In '89 a friend and I were talking about starting a startup like the two Steve's (we didn't know about Ron Wayne back then.) We both knew exactly what Woz did, but were a bit sketchy on Jobs role in the early days. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Jobs was a layabout, only that the strengths he brought to the table were more abstract.
So I would also say... the kinds of things we learn from Woz are concrete and we get immediate feedback if we learned them wrong.
Woz talked about the early days in an interview, and he said something like (paraphrasing) "Steve [Jobs] could call companies and get free samples for me, and negotiate low prices for other stuff, something I simply couldn't do".
It sounds like they complemented each other during the startup. And it was Jobs who suggested that they should try running a company.
At the end of the day many different types are needed to make complex products work. Humans at least are unlikely to be able to accomplish all this individually as it requires character traits that are in conflict with each other.
With all humans the difficult part is getting all the needed traits to make a business/product work without getting ones like backstabbing/jealously that cause problems later.
> his post-Apple life has mattered in ways that have nothing to do with money or power.
Sounds a bit like Jimmy Carter. His best and most influential work came after he left The Oval Office.
Maybe best, but suerly not most influential.
I guess it depends on people’s priorities. He won that Nobel for some stuff he did in office, but probably more for his peacemaking efforts, afterwards.
I think his Habitat for Humanity work was pretty damn important.
That “but” needs to be an “and”.
I learned some very bad jokes from him.
Only one Woz? What about Scott?
As someone who never heard Steve Wozniak being called "Woz", Scott was the only Woz on my mind.
There would be no Scott were it not for Woz (or even Avi.)
The fact that you have to be more specific than "Scott" says a lot.
That’s more likely just you.
Anyone who knows Apple knows who “Scott” is referring to. Scott Forstall.
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Coincidentally one of the earliest Apple I prototypes ends its auction tomorrow if you have over $500K to spare:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46605420
he's also not afraid to speak out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck-f3qZVcWM
For me, anyone who is involved in FOSDEM in any way deserves more respect (regarding revolutionary things we can learn)
You can just go to FOSDEM, it's open entry. If you're in Brussels this weekend.
People are crediting Woz here with great things but not going far enough.
Woz invented the consumer personal computer.
That is one of the greatest inventions in human history, perhaps the greatest.
Well, that's a highly contested claim. There was quite a bit of prior art.
I find it amusing people still port in WozMon for modern 6502 trainer hobby machines. =3
Woz is the man
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