Steve Jobs was driven by money and the desire to be important. That’s according to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on the latest episode of former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast.
Woz just wanted to have fun, but Jobs was propelled by something else, Wozniak said on the podcast. “[He] was always looking for little ways to make a next step in money, [and] he wanted to be that important person in life,” Woz told Kawasaki.
During the podcast, Wozniak talked about the early days of Apple and how success changed Jobs. “He got kind of strict,” Woz said. While Woz always liked to joke around, Jobs stopped doing so.
Wozniak, meanwhile, told Kawasaki that he had no desire to be a rich guy. “I had told everyone I knew I was going to be an engineer at Hewlett Packard for life because I loved it and I didn’t want to ever be corrupted by big money,” he said. “I’d read too many stories that were not the person I wanted to wind up being.”
Wozniak also said that, from the moment he met Jobs, Jobs always talked about important people who had changed the world. “Because he talked about those people all the time, he wanted to be one of them, and he felt he had it,” Wozniak said. “He had the motivation, and sometimes wanting something is a lot more important than having the real skill.”
Woz talks Jobs on podcast
I’m always a sucker for people talking about the early days of Apple — as evidenced by the fact that I write my daily “Today in Apple history” post. Woz has talked plenty about his early experiences with Jobs over the years. However, I’m constantly fascinated by stories of Apple back when it was just a handful of people — or less.
Steve Wozniak and Jobs took very different routes at Apple. As Woz notes, he was more of a fun-loving geeky engineer. He helped build the iconic Apple-1 and Apple II computer, but was more or less out of Apple by the mid-1980s. Jobs, meanwhile, was more interested in becoming an executive. He may have been tough to work with in those early days, but there’s no disputing that he managed to do what he wanted.
You can check out Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast here. Other guests have included Andrew Yang, Arianna Huffington, and more.
Source: CNet
