Key Takeaways
- Wozniak shared the reason he was motivated to co-found Apple in a recent commencement speech.
- After Hewlett-Packard rejected his PC idea five times, Wozniak finally agreed to Steve Jobs’ plan to launch Apple independently.
- His message to Gen Z college graduates was that careers can follow unconventional, nonlinear paths.
In 1976, Steve Wozniak teamed up with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne to launch Apple, setting in motion a tech giant that would go on to reshape modern technology.
Yet despite Apple’s evolution into a $4.5 trillion powerhouse behind products like the iPhone and iPad, Wozniak says the idea of building a global tech giant was never a part of the original vision.
“When you try things, they don’t have to be for obvious money,” Wozniak said earlier this month in a commencement address at Grand Valley State University. “When we started Apple, did I want to make money? Start a company? Start an industry? No.”
Wozniak said his motivation was far simpler: He wanted to design and build his own personal computer and impress other engineers in the industry. What he wanted more than money was recognition.
“I wanted other engineers or other computer people to look at my designs and say, ‘Whoa’ and appreciate me and my brilliance,” Wozniak said. “‘How did he come up with these things?’”
How he got to Apple
In the 1970s, Wozniak took a job at Hewlett-Packard (HP), the company he imagined would define his career. At HP, he found stability and a community of engineers who shared his passion — but he was also developing a bold idea behind the scenes: a personal computer that individuals could own and use themselves.
Wozniak brought the concept to his managers not once, but five separate times, hoping the company would see its potential. Each time, HP passed. The repeated rejections forced him to reconsider his path, and gradually he decided to act on an alternative he had initially resisted — he agreed to Jobs’ plan to take the idea outside the company and build something of their own.
Looking back, Wozniak sees that moment as a lesson in choosing possibility over uncertainty. He shared the same message with graduates: Choose meaningful opportunities, even if they take you off the expected path. Stepping away from convention can be the first step toward building something extraordinary, Wozniak said.
“Don’t follow the same steps as a million other people,” he added. “Think: Is there something I can do a little different?”
Wozniak has never been driven by money
Wozniak has expressed a long-held indifference toward chasing wealth. Even in his early years, money was never the primary driver.
In his commencement speech, he recalled spending late nights typing college term papers for strangers for just a few cents and tutoring classmates — not because it paid well, but because he genuinely enjoyed the work and the chance to help others.
“When you had to type them on a real typewriter from midnight to 6 in the morning for a stranger I would never see again, I would charge 5 cents,” he said in his speech. “If you do something you love, and I love typing, you don’t need to prove it by charging a huge amount of money.”
Key Takeaways
- Wozniak shared the reason he was motivated to co-found Apple in a recent commencement speech.
- After Hewlett-Packard rejected his PC idea five times, Wozniak finally agreed to Steve Jobs’ plan to launch Apple independently.
- His message to Gen Z college graduates was that careers can follow unconventional, nonlinear paths.
In 1976, Steve Wozniak teamed up with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne to launch Apple, setting in motion a tech giant that would go on to reshape modern technology.
Yet despite Apple’s evolution into a $4.5 trillion powerhouse behind products like the iPhone and iPad, Wozniak says the idea of building a global tech giant was never a part of the original vision.
“When you try things, they don’t have to be for obvious money,” Wozniak said earlier this month in a commencement address at Grand Valley State University. “When we started Apple, did I want to make money? Start a company? Start an industry? No.”
