Chapter 16 Section 9 About Woz

A few more words about Woz. The life of Jobs and Joe’s gang leader is a legend, and the people who played an important role in the life of Jobs are often legends. Just as one cannot talk about Qiao Feng without talking about his friendship with Duan Yu, Xu Zhu and other heroic knights, one cannot talk about Jobs without bypassing such an inexperienced genius engineer as Woz. In fact, Woz himself is no less legendary than Jobs. On the day Jobs and Woz were interrogated by the police because of the blue box, it was already late at night when the two Steves were brought back to Jobs’ home by friends, and Woz still insisted on driving back to Berkeley alone.On the road, Woz, who was physically and mentally exhausted, fell asleep lying on the steering wheel.When he opened his eyes again, the car had lost control and rushed to the side of the road.Woz turned the steering wheel desperately, the out-of-control car spun wildly on the road, and the seat belt fixed Woz on the seat.At that moment, Woz felt like he was in a dream.Fortunately, only the car was destroyed in the crash, and Woz himself was unscathed.Moreover, if the car accident hadn't destroyed the car, Woz wouldn't have dropped out of school to earn money after finishing his junior year, and he probably wouldn't have founded Apple with Jobs in 1976.

Misfortunes never come singly. In early 1981, Woz was transferred from the Apple II team to the Macintosh team by Jobs.At the time, he had just gotten engaged to his second wife and had just gotten his pilot's license.Woz excitedly took his fiancée for a ride in a private jet. One day in February, when Woz took off from Scotts Valley (Scotts Valley) Airport with his fiancée, for some unknown reason, the plane did not reach the required take-off speed when it left the ground, but crashed at the end of the runway.Both Woz and his fiancée were seriously injured and spent weeks in bed.After recovering, Woz suffered from staged amnesia due to head damage. He often forgot important things, and even missed the time of work and rest because he couldn't remember the day of the week.

Surviving two catastrophes gave Woz a different understanding of life, and he decided to treat the fleeting time of life in a happier way.Shortly after the plane accident, Woz decided to leave Apple for a while, returned to Burke and used an alias to finish his senior year of college, and also decided to marry his fiancée that summer. In Woz's mind, if two people have the same life expectancy, one of them spends his whole life in running, managing, and controlling a company, while the other only focuses on his field of expertise, joking with the people around him in his spare time, and enjoying the benefits of life. Happiness, then, is that people who enjoy life with laughter are happier, even if they don't make a lot of money.

Obviously, Woz will not force himself to work hard like Jobs for the rest of his life.He is also very indifferent to money and fame.Before Apple went public, Woz even defended five outstanding employees who joined Apple early but did not receive any shares, and gave them his Apple shares free of charge.The "rewards" each of those five employees received from Woz was worth almost $1 million when Apple went public! In February 1985, Woz decided to leave Apple.It wasn't that he didn't like Apple, but that he had a renewed urge to start a business and design new products, and he wanted to start a company that made a universal remote.At the time, the relationship between Jobs and the CEO and board was deteriorating.Woz didn't even give Jobs advance notice when he was leaving Apple.Like all employees, Jobs learned of Woz's departure at the last minute.This year, Woz and Jobs, together as the founders of Apple, won the National Medal of Technology from US President Ronald Reagan.

After leaving Apple, Woz ran his own business while receiving a minimum salary from Apple as a shareholder and consultant. Around 1990, Woz began to devote more energy to education.Woz was naturally fond of children.He has personally taught teachers and children to use computers in the Los Gatos school district.Woz was living in a large house in Los Gatos, and the house and yard were filled with places for children's entertainment and scientific exploration.He even built "Woz's Cave" behind the house, a limestone faux prehistoric cave full of dinosaur footprints, fossils, prehistoric murals and the like for kids to explore and learn from . “The whole house was built for the kids, and of course for the grown-ups,” Woz said. “Kids love caves and mystical places.”

Woz, who loves technology and children, has found his happiest and most enjoyable way of life in a world full of childishness.Although he has not become a man of technology and fashion like Jobs, who can say that the life path chosen by Woz is not exciting and happy enough? In any case, Jobs and Woz are two polar opposites.One has an active mind, sharp vision, and exhaustive calculations, while the other concentrates on technology, enjoys life, and is as wise as a fool.Such two people, if they don't both share the common dream of using technology to change the world, it will be difficult to get together.As Woz himself said: "Jobs and I were best friends for a long, long time. We had the exact same goals for a while, and it was the same goals that brought about the birth of Apple." .But the two of us have always been completely different people, from the very beginning, completely different."