The Woz calls Apple's famous garage birth something of a myth

Steve Wozniak sat down for an interview the other day with Bloomberg, and of course there was talk of the old days when the Woz and Steve Jobs started selling the Apple I. The pair sold about 100 units, and the Apple II did much better. According to Wozniak, sales took off once they designed "a spreadsheet program that let small businessmen do more work in one hour than they could do in 10 years with pencil and paper." It might have taken five years, but the Apple II was the first home computer to sell one million units, Wozniak noted.

Against the image of the Apple co-founders as portrayed in the movie Jobs, Wozniak commented that it was not his friend who first thought ahead about how computers could change the world. He said that Jobs "found the words that explained what these computers would do for people and how important it was a little later in life." He also noted that while Steve Jobs couldn't create or build things like the Woz could, his goal was to run a company. But when it came time to make a suggestion, Wozniak said that Jobs "...had the best brain. He usually had a little, tiny suggestion, but almost always he was right."

But what about the endearing myth about Apple being born in Steve Jobs' garage? The Woz blows this up by saying that no designing, no prototyping or manufacturing was ever done there. He said, "The garage didn’t serve much purpose, except it was something for us to feel was our home." Really, who cares? Two kids start a company that becomes the most valuable enterprise in the history of the planet. That is the main story here, and one which Wozniak should be quite proud about as he looks back at what he and Steve Jobs started all those years ago.


source: Businessweek