Steve Wozniak is the engineer who built Apple. 

Then he did something Silicon Valley still doesn’t understand: he gave millions of his own money away to early employees, walked away from power, and refused to play the game everyone else was playing.

Public Release: November 4.
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While HP rejected his design and competitors built walled gardens, Wozniak’s philosophy of open architecture, the very one a young Steve Jobs fought against, is what saved Apple long enough for it to become Apple.

This is the story of the reluctant founder who won by refusing to compromise, and a blueprint for success without selling your soul.

Coming Soon: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript

+ Members have access to my highlights and notes from Steve’s biography, iWoz.

Lessons from Steve Wozniak:

Turn constraints into an advantage: Wozniak spent years designing computers on paper because he couldn’t afford to build them. He treated the constraint as a puzzle to be solved. He’d use twenty chips instead of a hundred. Then he’d redesign it again, and again. By the time he got access to the real components, he’d already done the hardest work: the thinking. The learning was the prize. When you focus on mastering the step you’re on, not the outcome you want, you build something most people can’t: deep expertise that compounds over time.

Optimize for the right customer: Steve Jobs wanted just two expansion slots for the Apple II. And his reasons were correct. Only having two slots would make for a more elegant machine. But Steve Wozniak fought for eight. Why? Because he’d been going to Homebrew Computer meetings and watched the engineers sharing ideas, trading schematics and pushing boundaries. These real customers weren’t the mythical “average users” of tomorrow. They were the hackers and tinkerers of today. The ones who’d buy their first thousand units, then become evangelists. Jobs was optimizing for a market that didn’t exist yet. Wozniak was optimizing for the people who were already showing up. Within months, dozens of companies built products for those eight slots. And each one became a marketing arm for Apple.

The Intelligent Loss of Control: Wozniak gave away his Apple I schematics and wanted to do the same thing for every computer he designed. To him, every person who tried to build a computer became part of the story. They struggled with the same problems. They appreciated the elegance of Wozniak’s solutions. By the time the Apple II launched, there was already a community that understood what made it special. Giving away control created something you can’t buy: genuine advocacy. The question isn’t “How do I protect my idea?” It’s “How do I make my idea spread?”

Think Different: Every computer before the Apple I had switches and blinking lights. They took thirty minutes to load a simple program. Industry experts accepted that that was just how computers worked. Wozniak asked a different question: “Why not put a keyboard and screen on it?” Obvious in hindsight. Revolutionary in 1975. When Wozniak designed the Disk II controller, he used just a handful of chips when competitors used twenty-two. Wozniak saw an idle processor in his computer and used it to do the work instead. Bill Gates would call it “The most clever program ever written for a small computer. Sometimes the most important question isn’t “How do I do this better?” but “Why am I doing it this way at all?”

Success on Your Own Terms: At the moment when Wozniak became one of the richest people in America, he did something inexplicable: he gave millions away to colleagues who’d been left out. When Apple became a public company obsessed with quarterly earnings, he left. Not in anger. Quietly. He’d developed a formula as a kid: “Happiness = Smiles minus Frowns.” Everything else was noise. Wozniak defined it for himself, then had the courage to walk away when things changed. The hardest thing you’ll ever do is turn down what everyone else wants so you can have what you actually need.

Loyalty Has Limits: Wozniak loved HP. Dream job. Dream company. When he invented the Apple I, he offered it to them. He begged them to take it and was bummed when they didn’t. He was free to leave but didn’t want to. It took Steve Jobs recruiting his family and friends for an intervention. Here’s the lesson: loyalty to an organization that doesn’t value what you’re building isn’t loyalty. HP’s blindness cost them billions. Wozniak’s loyalty nearly cost him Apple. The question isn’t “Am I being loyal?” It’s “Am I being loyal to the right thing?”

Platform Over Product: The Apple II with eight expansion slots became a platform. Radio Shack and Commodore had more money but they built computers that were just appliances. They wanted to control everything: peripherals, software, the entire experience. These were walled gardens before the term existed. Apple II’s openness created an ecosystem. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, could only run on the Apple II. Not because of an exclusive deal. Because the Apple II was the only machine with enough RAM, a disk drive, and a proper display. The business market didn’t choose Apple. VisiCalc chose Apple, and the business market followed. You can’t predict every use case. Build the platform and let others discover what’s possible.

The post [Outliers] Steve Wozniak: The Engineer Who Built Apple appeared first on Farnam Street.