Steve Wozniak At The Turing Festival In Edinburgh
Tamara and I went to listen to Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, Inc. today when he spoke at the Edinburgh Playhouse as part of The Turing Festival.
It was Tamara who found out out that he was appearing, and as we both got a chance to shake his hand – thank you, Tamara. 
Here are a couple of things Steve Wozniak said (paraphrased) in response to questions from the interviewer:
On The Arab Spring:
I doubt that the success of the Arab Spring was because of the Internet. I think it was the CIA giving the rebels guns that was the main cause of its success.
On The Early Success Of Apple:
There were three people in Apple. Mike Markkula’s funding and managment carried us through the early days. But you never hear about him.
On Succeeding:
It’s the man who won’t let up until this button is in the right place and this bit looks right – he’s the one who is going to work hours into the night because he enjoy what he is doing.
He’s the one who is going to solve a puzzle. Because there are no books for things that haven’t been invented yet.
Technical
I took the photograph of Steve Wozniak with a Panasonic GF1 with 20mm lens and VF1 viewfinder – f2 at 1/200 second, ISO 400.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh how exciting for all you Mac fans!
Do I detect a hint of mockery
Fact is, it was exciting. Here was a man who helped to change the world for a lot of people, perhaps all of us.
Hope you got some good business tips from him.
He’s very enthusiastic and plain speaking, and he kept referring to the enthusiasm one feels when working on a project. He said he was always motivated by a desire to bring something to the little guy – to even up the playing field – to solve a problem that would allow everyone to benefit.
He also said he meets a lot of people who have great ideas but no skills to bring the ideas to fruition.
By the way, after he took a back seat at Apple, he spent eight years teaching fifth graders about how to put ideas and skills together with computers.
And when the interviewer asked him what was the most fun he ever had out of a project, he explained how he had a dial-a-joke service that was the most called number (I think he said in the Bay area) at the time when you could only rent and not buy a phone.
Great shot, great quotes, great post! I love that the “Early Success Of Apple” quote sounds like the beginning of a Princess Di quote…
It took me a while to remember the Princess Diana quote about three people in the marriage.
One thing I recall that Steve Wozniak said was that his father worked for Lockheed making stuff for the military and that his father’s view was that chips were always going to be something that only the military could afford.
So Steve’s dream was of everyone being able to own a computer – and that meant chips for everyone.
He said it was ironic that now the military were benefiting from chips being developed for gamers.
He also said that it was sad that while everyone had access to chips – in watches, phones, etc. – the dream he had of wealth for everyone hadn’t panned out and it took two wages and long hours to keep a family afloat.
What a great keynote it was, we’ve got a fairly in-depth article on what was said during the keynote if anyone would like to check it out: http://www.previousmagazine.com/steve-wozniak-turing-festival
Good article – glad to link to it
Thanks, David!