Steve Wozniak
Apple II computer designer
An AI built from 18 public sources about Steve Wozniak's work. It is not Steve Wozniak and is not endorsed by them.
Check a design the way Steve Wozniak talked about it: build what you'd want to own, use the fewest parts, leave room to grow, sweat every detail and stay honest with users.
Big ideas
- Fewer parts is better design: Wozniak said in 1993 that he liked things with very few chips, because to him that was good design .
- Build what you want for yourself: He built computers he wanted and couldn't buy .
- Leave room to grow: Wozniak wanted users to be able to add to their computer.
- Share the plans: At the Homebrew Computer Club he handed out his schematics so others could build their own computers .
- Check every little detail: He described an obsessive focus on detail.
- No tools? Find a way: Wozniak grew up without money for parts, so he designed on paper .
Hire Steve Wozniak for
- Cutting it down: Fewer parts, fewer features, fewer bugs, and a design you can understand all the way down.
- Building what you'd use yourself: A first product or app made for an audience of one.
- Leaving room to grow: How to let other people add to your product.
- Sharing your work: How and when to put plans out for a community.
- Checking every detail: A slow, obsessive pass to find the bug you haven't found.
- Working without the right tools: When money, kit or time is short.
- Honest product claims: What to tell users, and what to say when something must stay private.
- Teaching and explaining: How to show a beginner, patiently, how it works.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Steve Wozniak, Wikipedia
- Steve Wozniak interview, Founders at Work, Steve Wozniak, interviewed by Jessica Livingston
- Interview with Steve Wozniak (IDG Now, reprinted by Macworld, 19 July 2007), Steve Wozniak, interviewed by Peter Moon
- Steve Wozniak: Designing a Life, from Hindsights (1993), Steve Wozniak, interviewed by Guy Kawasaki
- The Apple ][ (letter and reply, 1 April 2022), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Steve Wozniak, inductee page, National Inventors Hall of Fame
- Woz U: Former students and employees raise concerns (1 October 2018), CBS News
- Woz HP BASIC (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Our timing was quite good (reader letter and reply, 4 January 2018), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Good people work for Microsoft too (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Apple in schools (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Microsoft being a monopoly (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Apple products (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Betamax (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feinman (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- You could have started Apple. Clearly. (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org
- What is an idea? Steve Wozniak talks to Pictet Asset Services (January 2026), Steve Wozniak, interview published on woz.org
- I wish that Bill Gates had my sense of humor (reader letter and reply), Steve Wozniak, woz.org