VIDEO: Apple co-founder reflects on Jobs legacy and the iFuture
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Well he was the lesser known of the two Steves who built a computer, called it Apple, and changed the world. Steve Wozniak is an engineer, Steve Jobs was a visionary. Together they started a revolution which will continue along after both men have gone. Tomorrow Steve Wozniak kicks off a speaking tour in Perth before heading to Sydney and Melbourne, and I spoke to him earlier from Perth in his first TV interview on this tour. Steve Wozniak, welcome.
STEVE WOZNIAK, APPLE CO-FOUNDER: Hi, Chris. Glad to be here
CHRIS UHLMANN: What did you imagine the personal computer would be when you made the first one in 1975?
STEVE WOZNIAK: Well, we hoped in some kind of imagination it would be in every home; every family in the world would have a computer; that it would be a tool you would learn to operate and program. You could learn the essence of being a developer and write your own programs. We didn't realise they'd just be handed to you and you'd have everything pre-done in the world. But we had hopes.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Just before this you were working for Hewlett-Packard, your dream job, and you are dealing with Steve Jobs of course, who is the other Steve in this equation, and he convinces you that you should really jump ship and found this company?
STEVE WOZNIAK: Correct. For about five years Steve and I had been best friends and one device after another I would always design them, invent them, not copy anybody else's work and build these incredible projects, and he would always find a way to turn them into money. Finally he said, "The two of us have got to have our own company and it doesn't matter if we make a profit or not." That was important because I wasn't sure if we would.
CHRIS UHLMANN: How important was the relationship between the two of you?
STEVE WOZNIAK: The relationship was extremely good over that time. We both grew up in the counterculture days and we both admired people who thought differently about things. We didn't like strict rules of everything in life, dress and behaviour. We loved the same kind of music that had deep thoughts about... and clever symbols and a vague words and we liked it like it was more like poetry, like something Shakespeare would have done if it came from Bob Dylan. We loved little pranks and jokes in those days and pulled some ourselves and that's just... so we were very much alike in that timeframe.
CHRIS UHLMANN: How would you describe the legacy of Steve Jobs?
STEVE WOZNIAK: Steve was an incredible leader and a manager. He went through an awful lot of things in life that got him to that point, and really it was upon his return to Apple - he now really knew how to run a company and not make mistakes. He did need the backing of the board and all that but how to keep track of the operations and inventory and manage every single department there ever was in a company and on day one when we formed Apple, that was the role assigned to him by our mentor and our teacher, who was also our funder.
CHRIS UHLMANN: A few people were lucky enough to be young when a revolution begins. What is it like to one of those people? Do you reflect on that much?
STEVE WOZNIAK: Yes, I do. We used the world "revolution". We're going to revolutionise the world and the big companies didn't believe us; they said it would not happen. That made us more passionate and determined, and I always wanted to be some kind of rebel, so I liked it when we used the word... this is a revolution! I wanted to be a revolutionary. Looking back, I knew at the time that I was doing the most outstanding product that could put in people's hands and give them power, the little guy he never had before against the huge corporation that could affords computers of the day. Of course, you never know how far it's going to go this far.
CHRIS UHLMANN: What do you see the future doing now that you've seen so much change over the course of that time that you've made that first computer?
STEVE WOZNIAK: It took me even a while to see the future, but it's based on what I like when I use computing equipment - you go through a one-way door, you don't want to go back to the old way. That's always been ease of use, it's always been a computer that acts naturally the way I live my life as a human being. The computer has enough software put into it that it operates the human way. These computers are more and more human. We're now touching like you touch a human, like the way you touch an object on a table to move it with your hand. We're speaking to our phones and computers and telling them what to. I don't have to think very hard to think up what I want to tell you. I speak to you as a human being? I want to speak to my computers as a human being, and get answers. I want to get answers, I want to get assistance, I want them to do useful things for me they do better than humans do. I really think this very natural interface where you don't really have to think out procedures to get things done. This started for me the first day I had a Newton message pad from Apple, the first PDA in the world and I wrote with my own hand, I wrote a note as we were on our way to Disney World, I wrote a note, "Sarah, dentist, Tuesday 2pm." I clicked a button called, "Assist" not knowing what it would do and it opened the character, put things in on Tuesday at 2pm with Sarah from my address book, and the note was "Dentist". I said, "My God, I just thought something with my head to write a hand written note and this machine understood me." The machines have got to understand this, become more like brains, more like people, and they've got to have a conscience some day. I think back and see all the signs it's starting, and we're on that path that Ray Kurtzweil says computers will equal our intelligence by 40 years from now.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Finally, what advice would you have for the young who have ideas?
STEVE WOZNIAK: Don't ever sacrifice quality. Try to do any job you do better than any other human being would do. When you get a product or an idea for a product, think and think and think. Reflect a lot. It's better to have a shy person that goes in the quiet and things in their own head about how they can improve it, make it better, make it superior, maybe even a totally different way than has ever been done before. Don't ever give up in your ideas if you believe in them.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Steve Wozniak, thank you.
STEVE WOZNIAK: Been a pleasure being here talking to you, Chris.
*Nb.: This is a transcript of the original interview that went to air while the video here is the extended version of the interview, so the two do not match.
Steve Wozniak helped found Apple with Steve Jobs and joins us from Perth to reflect on what it was like to work with Steve Jobs, what next for Apple, and how far technology has come since Apple 1.