It’s not everyday that you get to hear from one of the founding icons of the personal computer industry. So it was a packed event when Steve Wozniak, co founder of Apple , showed up at Haas to speak at an ASUC event. I had heard that Woz was an entertaining speaker and is never afraid to stray from the prepared script and that was definitely true. Here are a few nuggets from the talk:

- It was quite clear that Woz strongly believed that he was the technical brain behind Apple and its early computers and that Jobs was the marketing genius at the company.
- He survived a plane crash in the early days of Apple.
- It was funny and interesting to hear that Woz was really reluctant to leave his engineering job at HP and join Jobs to start Apple. It took a lot of convincing to get him to give up his role.
- When asked why name the company ‘Apple’? It was because they couldn’t think of anything better and a factor that influenced this decision was that Apple records was big in that period of time.
- After taking a break for 8 years and teaching in high school Woz returned to Apple but refused to take on a management role. So he remained an engineer for a few more years before quitting Apple permanently in 1987
- Woz loves playing pranks on people.

What really struck me was the kind of energy that Steve brought to the presentation. He seemed like someone who didn’t want to grow up and had an almost child like passion. I hope that this genius who practically kick started the personal computer industry gives us more amazing products in the years to come.

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