Steve Wozniak

Stephen Gary Wozniak, born on August 11, 1950, in San Jose, California, is an American electronics engineer. The son of an electrical engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, Wozniak developed an early interest in electronics and mathematics. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and later the University of California, Berkeley, though he eventually dropped out. In 1971, Wozniak designed the “Blue Box,” a device for making free long-distance calls, which he sold with Steve Jobs. His early career included working at several small electronics firms before joining Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1975.

While at HP and involved with the Homebrew Computer Club, Wozniak designed his own microcomputer in 1976. This design eventually led him and Steve Jobs to co-found Apple Computer. Their initial capital came from selling Jobs’s automobile and Wozniak’s programmable calculator. They began building microcomputer circuit boards in Jobs’s family garage. This effort resulted in the Apple I, followed by the Apple II in 1977, which was the first commercially successful personal computer, featuring a built-in keyboard and color graphics support. The Apple II, combining Wozniak’s engineering with Jobs’s aesthetic vision, significantly expanded the personal computer market beyond hobbyists. Apple Computer went public in 1980, achieving a market value exceeding $1 billion, and making Wozniak a multimillionaire.

Wozniak continued to innovate at Apple, designing hardware components like the 3.5-inch floppy disk drive for the Apple II and various parts of the Apple operating system. In 1981, he was involved in a plane crash, which led to a temporary sabbatical. He returned to Berkeley, completing his electrical engineering and computer sciences degree in 1987. Although he continued with Apple, Wozniak retired as an active employee in 1985, focusing on philanthropic activities, particularly in children’s education, and teaching computer enrichment classes. He has since founded or advised several technology companies, including Fusion-io, Primary Data, Efforce, and Privateer Space, maintaining his influential presence in the tech industry.