Here at Manhattanville, we’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to see many prominent speakers through the school’s Castle Conversations programs. This is the second year the college has had their Castle Conversation series, and they have included speakers such as Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, and Neil Tyson DeGrasse. On April 5th, Manhattanville welcomed Steve Wozniak to the Castle Conversation’s stage.
“I told my father I wanted to be an engineer and a fifth grade teacher,” Steve started off. For those of you who don’t know, Steve is a jokester, computer genius, and the inventor of the Apple I and Apple II Computers. I know what most of you are thinking, no he is not the ghost of Steve Jobs, in fact, Steve Jobs didn’t actually engineer the computers, he was more into the business of buying and selling the products. Wozniak met Jobs while he was in college, and Jobs was still in high school, through a mutual friend, who thought the two jokesters would get along quite well. The first day they met, Wozniak introduced Jobs to his Bob Marley collection, and the two became good friends.
One question that seemed to loom in the air was why Steve Jobs became a household name, and not Steve Wozniak. “I wanted to be creating… I got asked for an autograph once, you don’t ask an engineer for an autograph!” Wozniak discussed how he didn’t want to be in the spotlight, and how Jobs became the spokesperson for the creative team.
Wozniak was a brilliant speaker, and not what you would’ve expected from a “computer nerd,’ as he seemed to identify himself. He discussed how throughout history we’ve always seemed to admire the geek and the nerd, and how now should be no different. “We’ve studied and admired people like Aristotle, I think we had a brief period of disrespect for the smart nerdy people of the world, but now the time to admire the nerds is back.”
Wozniak is a self-identified computer geek. He can remember always being interested in computers, and at one point could recreate any computer with a two day turnaround. He went to the University of Colorado for his first year of college, where he was put into a graduate level computer course, and wrote codes that scientists ended up using in their studies. Sadly, Wozniak had to leave the school when is intelligence got a step ahead of him, and he spent the class budget five times over. Wozniak continued his second year of college at a community school, where he actually developed the Mac. He also noted that he would often sneak into the computer lab at night with his friends, after overriding the code of course, because “computers are meant to be used, and should be used all the time.” It made no sense to Wozniak that his college would leave computers locked up and unusable for any amount of time. His third year of school was spent at Berkeley, and there after he took a year off to make the money needed to pay for school. During this time off he started to work for Hewlett Packard (HP) and helped develop the scientific calculator, which was the hottest product at the time.
This year turned into years. During his time off he got married, and was also in a plane accident which he couldn’t remember for the longest time. He discussed how he walked around for a few days in amnesia, not really understanding what was going on. He thought he was dreaming for about five weeks before he realized what was going on. He then decided to finish his engineering degree online, which he did in a typical, “Woz”, fashion: He enrolled under a false name, that was really a false, yet humorous name.
“I built the Apple I to help start the revolution.” Wozniak started to talk about the movie about Jobs, and how the story of him be brought to the computer club was false, “I was a regular at the club, and showed things off to them weekly,” Jobs had never been there, but it sparked something inside of him. From there on out, Jobs decided they should start selling computer parts, and at the time had no interest in starting a computer company just yet. Steve continues to run business from the bedroom, getting sales and publicity for their computer parts. At the time, seven out of the ten men involved were still in high school. Wozniak also made it clear, when the Apple I was invented, it wasn’t built in the garage as many people think. It was built inside, being tested in the garage on occasion.
Wozniak took their design to HP, hoping that his employer would see the potential the computer had, sadly HP couldn’t see the future of the personal computer, and they didn’t accept his request. At this point, the team decided to create the Apple we know today.
During this time, Wozniak met a school teacher who sparked something inside of him. Remembering his teaching tendencies that he had buried underneath the engineer, he ask Jobs if they could give the very first Apple I to her, and when Jobs said no, Wozniak bought the computer from the company, and gave it to the school teacher.
At this point in the conversation, the questions were open, and members in the audience were able to ask questions. One question involved video games, something we discover Wozniak loves and has helped develop. Wozniak helped bring color into video games. Then, a question asks about privacy, and we see a slightly sadder version of Woz. He believes that our lack of privacy is sad, and that it’s crazy that companies, such as Facebook, can legally acquire any pictures we post, and suggests that we’ve even lost our accounts. At one point, a boy who couldn’t be older than 12, asked Mr. Wozniak a question about storage, in which Woz replied “This boy is my hero, and other people like him,” which probably made the boys day.
Steve Wozniak is not only a great intellectual, but also an inspirational speaker. He took scientific formulas that he knew and turned them into ways to understand how to happily live your life. “I think the key to loving what you do it being happy and having fun while doing it.” And his formula? Well, he was two. He says to remember the three F’s of life; Fun, food, and friends. And finally, he said to follow one simple equation in order to enjoy life:
Happiness= Smiles – Frowns