Tuesday, July 1, 2008

iWoz - Steve Wozniak


Hi,

This is a review of the other Steve who co-founded the Apple computer company. This book should appeal to those Technology buff, Electronics engineer etc. He wrote this book to clear out the doubt on the issue if he's actually leaving Apple (He's actually not left Apple) and whether he start the CL9 (Cloud 9 was a universal remote control company) because of his dissatisfaction towards Apple (He's not). He's not actually kicked out from Uni (He quit himself).

In addition, we hear the life story of Stevefrom childhood till now. His passions on electronics were really unsurpassed by anyone I've read so far. I can see his interest pick it up from his father who work in a Top Secret Government project. He learn from his father the value of honesty from early on. He thought that the reason for his electronic prowess was due to his foundation that he learnt from his father and electronics magazine/datasheet. Ocassionally, he share his joy of pulling prank, creating dial a joke etc show his lighter side of him. He even try to call the Pope during the 70's and pretend as Henry Kissinger ! His initial work with HP on calculator division is worth mentioning. During the 70's, HP was a company that value engineer more than the marketing folks. Something the other company are not doing at that time. That makes Steve.

Interesting trivia
1. He created the automatic blue box (tone generator to make free call) and meet Captain Crunch along the way. He did sold some of those in the Uni days.
2. He single handedly designed the Personal Computer (Apple I and II) contrary to popular belief that he did this together with Steve Jobs.
3. He started up Apple with Steve Jobs (45%) and Mike Markulla (10%)
4. He had lost USD12 million twice while organizing concert of Progressive Country music in the 80's
5. Steve Jobs is actually few years younger than Steve and not classmates.
6. He suffered mild amnesia while crashing down from the plane.
7. He designed a lot of computer on some paper sketch instead of building it

Lessons learn from the book
1. One can learn good value from your parents - Honesty and other good value
2. Building a strong foundation on things is very important as your pursue your passion (For this case, Steve can achieve that level of breakthrough when he was young and building stuff for electronics fair)
3. Pursue your passion - Don't waver, do factual study just like a scientist. Don't jump to conclusion just yet. Sometimes only time will prove if you're right/wrong on the things that you pursue.
4. Do what you do no matter what it takes for your dream ! - Drive overcomes it all ! You have to trust your intuition on something that you think might want pursuing !

In conclusion, not much people in this world had achieve so much in his early life and yet can let go during his peak of his career in Technology and instead pursuing teaching for the 5th Grade and philanthropy. Not sure if that's cause by plane crash during his 80's though but he's truly one of the main character besides Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the story of Personal Computer revolution...

P/S : As there's 2 Steve's appearing in this review, I've used Steve to refer to as Steve Wozniak instead of Steve Jobs.

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