This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here.
What was the partnership between Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs like? How did they meet in the first place?
Steve Wozniak is best known as one of the co-founders of Apple alongside Steve Jobs. The book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson details how the two first met and their partnership that led to the creation of Apple.
Keep reading to learn about Wozniak and Jobs’s business relationship.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
In 1971, Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak, who was five years older but still a child at heart. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak bonded over electronics, as well as their love of pulling pranks. After reading about a way to hack the telephone network, Wozniak designed a circuit that he and Jobs used to make long-distance prank calls. Jobs hit on the idea of selling copies of the circuit to students at Stanford. Isaacson points out that this business model would later become the model for Apple, with Wozniak designing the system and Jobs responsible for packaging and marketing.
After graduating from high school in 1972, Jobs enrolled in Portland, Oregon’s Reed College. (Shortform note: Reed College’s ties to the counterculture movement stretch all the way back to the 1950s when it was a launching point for poets of the Beat Movement such as Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Allen Ginsberg. Reed College also had a reputation for lax policies regarding drug use on campus.)
While diving head-first into the early ’70s counterculture, Jobs developed an interest in Zen Buddhism, with its stark, minimalist values that he would keep over the years. He would also develop a fixation on extremely limited vegan diets and extended periods of fasting. (Shortform note: Single-food diets, while promoting short-term weight loss, have been shown to cause nutritional deficiencies and encourage unhealthy eating. The single-food diets Steve Jobs preferred were fruitarian, a subset of veganism restricted to fruits, nuts, and seeds.)
Jobs enjoyed his time at Reed, but he detested taking required classes. He eventually dropped out but persuaded the school to let him audit classes he was interested in for free. After leaving school for good, Jobs traveled to India, where he hoped to continue his spiritual pursuits, diving into self-deprivation and asceticism.
Steve Wozniak‘s History
Wozniak, like Jobs, was a California native and electronics prodigy who initially dropped out of college, though he did eventually earn a degree from UC Berkeley. Wozniak designed the circuit board that would become the core of the first Apple computer. He went on to design the Apple II computer, over which he and Jobs clashed. Wozniak wanted its design to be open, with multiple expansion slots for hobbyists and tinkerers. Jobs favored a more closed design, but Wozniak’s wishes won out.
———End of Preview———
Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full Steve Jobs summary:
- A no-fluff look into the life of Steve Jobs
- How Jobs changed the technology landscape
- What it was like to work with and for Steve Jobs
