Steve Wozniak is the man that single handedly invented the entire future. In fact, not only did he invent the single most important technological advancement in the history of mankind (arguably), he created the basis for an entire culture that guys like me will never be able to forget. iWoz is the story, from the Wizard himself, about how that all went down.
I have to admit that I decided to listen to iWoz because I was a bit tired of hearing about how great Steve Jobs was, especially in light of his recent demise, and I wanted to hear about the person that really made our society happen. I expected to hear something boring and technical, because it is a book written by an engineer, but that isn’t what I found. I got pretty hooked early on in the book and just kept on listening right on through to the end.
I have to admit that I’ve always found Steve Wozniak to be a phenomenally interesting person. He’s always been this cult figure with an air of mystery about him. Really, there isn’t too much information about his life available out there that doesn’t come from this book. He was a private man that suffered severely from Social Anxiety. A genius that just didn’t know how to take his ideas from brilliance inside his mind into products that would save the world.
Wozniak’s life is a pretty fun adventure from his viewpoint, although there are a lot of hints about how hard life really was for him. I suppose I might read more into those things than others do, having spent most of my adult life afraid of people and looking for something bigger than myself.
More than anything, though, I can take away from this book a few really important things:
- Steve Wozniak is obviously in consort with the Devil.
- Mad Genius is a gift to be cultivated, even if it means you’re quite mad.
- Modern Culture exists because a handful of old hippies liked video games.
I know not everyone out there will really care too much about things that happened almost forty years ago at this point. For me, it was inspirational. It’s amazing to think that these huge changes were happening with just a handful of friends. People not that different to the people I know and spend time just hanging out with.
There is an idea in me now, that we are always on the edge of huge change. We just have to keep our eyes open to it.
If you’d like to read iWoz, you should check it out in word form from Amazon, or as an audio book on Audible.
Tags: Apple Computers, Book Review, iwoz, Steve Wozniak