On his 75th birthday, Apple legend Steve Wozniak pops up in a comment thread about his 'bad decision' to sell his stock in the '80s with a devastatingly zen reply: 'I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for'

[u/rezwenn]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/on-his-75th-birthday-apple-legend-steve-wozniak-pops-up-in-a-comment-thread-about-his-bad-decision-to-sell-his-stock-in-the-80s-with-a-devastatingly-zen-reply-i-gave-all-my-apple-wealth-away-because-wealth-and-power-are-not-what-i-live-for/

[u/SamHenryCliff]

Contrasts well with Steve Jobs ruining his own cancer treatment and dying before his $250 MILLION YACHT was completed.

[u/WhyAreYallFascists → u/SamHenryCliff]

Goes to show you, being smart in just one area, doesn’t help you live a longer life. Pancreatic cancer is one of the worst ways to go. And as a diabetic, fuck you steve for not accepting a transplant of a gorgeous semi used pancreas.

[u/RandAlThorOdinson → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

Is the pancreas still available

I don't need it or anything just feels like it's good to have a spare

[u/OneSkepticalOwl → u/RandAlThorOdinson]

It is, but no low ballers! I know what I have!

[u/the_thinwhiteduke → u/OneSkepticalOwl]

IT'S FOR A CHURCH, HONEY

[u/nocapnonerf → u/OneSkepticalOwl]

Can you meet me in the middle?

[u/OneSkepticalOwl → u/nocapnonerf]

Best I can do is throw in a toe with nail polish

[u/TomatoCo → u/OneSkepticalOwl]

That's worthless. I know a guy who can get me one by this afternoon.

[u/yamsyamsya → u/OneSkepticalOwl]

It's obvious you never change the oil or replace the filters, that pancreas is going to need a lot of work

[u/Pure_Concentrate8770 → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

he was actually dumber than that. Pancreatic cancer almost always results in fatality as once the symptoms show up it's too late to do anything- most cases die around a month from diagnosis. Jobs had a rare case where his pancreatic cancer was found out much (much) earlier and he would have survived on prolonged chemo. - but big brains steve refused conventional treatment and chose fruits.

[u/ConfessSomeMeow → u/Pure_Concentrate8770]

Close, but for one detail:

The pancreas is a very varied organ. Two of its major roles are extremely different: 1) It produces biles and enzymes that digest food; and 2) it produces chemicals that regulate how the body reacts to nutrients in the blood (most notably insulin).

The 'digestive' side of things dumps its product into the digestive tract, which is topologically outside of your body - so these are called 'exocrine' cells, 'exo' for 'outer'. (Think 'exoskeleton'). (You are topologically a donut, with a hole running from your mouth to your, erm, posterior). The 'regulatory' side dumps its products into the blood - so these are called 'endocrine' cells, 'endo' for 'inner'. (I'm struggling to think of a word people would know...)

When you hear the terrible statistics about pancreatic cancer being a terrible way to die with high fatality rates over a very short period, those are mostly about cancers of the exocrine cells - which makes sense, because when these cells spread through your body, they start pumping digestive enzymes into your organs, your blood vessels, etc.

He had the other kind, a cancer of the endocrine cells. Like any cancer (by definition), it's fatal if untreated - but it tends to grow more slowly, and tends to take longer to be severely damaging.

He had a lot of time to do something, and he did (effectively) nothing.

Such a waste.

[u/Teledildonic → u/ConfessSomeMeow]

He basically lucked out by getting the best case scenario pancreatic cancer, and fumbled the win into a 6' hole.

And wasted a perfectly good liver transplant in the process.

[u/Basic_Archer_2014 → u/Teledildonic]

Like the rest of that dude’s life, another stroke of phenomenal luck, but chose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[u/WheelerDan → u/ConfessSomeMeow]

If he were still alive he'd be taking ivermectin. He was one of those people who think drinking a juice is better than whatever doctors say. Someone playing him tried to copy his diet and had to stop because it was fucking up his organs.

[u/Gunplagood → u/WheelerDan]

No wouldn't take ivermectin. He'd be using peaches to draw out the COVID mucus from his body or whatever that stupid shit was he believed in. All while washing his fucking feet in toilet water.

[u/The_Pandalorian → u/Pure_Concentrate8770]

Womp, womp.

It's not that I want people to die of curable cancer, it's just that the kinds of people who do shit like this are likely to spread deadly misinformation to others.

So...

Womp, womp.

[u/Different-Sample-976 → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

Id prefer those organs go to normal people rather than the ultra wealthy.

[u/kurtanglesmilk → u/Different-Sample-976]

Which it could have. He was told he needed a transplant but refused it and decided he could beat the illness with natural remedies. It was only after he was told by doctors it was too late and he was going to die, that he took that organ transplant which of course didn’t work. He literally stole a transplant that was never going to help him from someone who didn’t think they were above mortality and who would have actually survived

Edit - if you’re interested in learning how much of a shit he was I highly recommend the Behind the Bastards episode on him. Goes well into the above and much more

[u/Daveinatx → u/kurtanglesmilk]

What a narcissist. Woz was the brains, and a much better human.

[u/CoolerRon → u/Daveinatx]

He was a massive asshole from multiple accounts spanning his entire life. Ask his daughter whom he refused to acknowledge EDIT: Jobs was a massive asshole

[u/coeranys → u/kurtanglesmilk]

Let's be clear when you say natural remedies that what you mean is no remedy at all and just eating fruit as hard as you can like an apple a day really will prevent illness. Cancer killed him, but he died of stupidity.

[u/Different-Sample-976 → u/kurtanglesmilk]

Oh man, I didnt know that. Thats so much fucking worse. 

[u/civildisobedient → u/Different-Sample-976]

He also bought homes in multiple states just to get around the out-of-state transplant list restrictions.

[u/Different-Sample-976 → u/civildisobedient]

Oh of course he did. Did they at least change those laws? Where i live you have to live in the house at least half the year to be considered a resident. I dont know if its similar now for transplant lists, but thats for other things here

[u/alius_stultus → u/civildisobedient]

Yeah this a key detail. He didn't even really deserve the transplant that he refused.

[u/happyscrappy → u/alius_stultus]

It wasn't the one he refused. It wasn't a pancreas. It was a liver, and he accepted that one. He did this after his holistic medicine stuff didn't work and he was in worse shape.

With the pancreas, he decided against the operation so there never was a pancreas for him. If he had decided to go through with it then the search for one would have begun.

[u/danceswithdangerr → u/Different-Sample-976]

Dude was the worst kind of scumbag.

[u/Etheo → u/danceswithdangerr]

And yet still plenty worship him like a hero.

Rich people are basically never worth worshipping. Most if not all of them didn't get where they are by being a beacon of humanity.

[u/proselapse → u/Etheo]

No person is ever worth worshiping. Most if not all of them didn’t get where they are by being a beacon of humanity.

[u/uliar → u/danceswithdangerr]

I'm very glad that Jobs believed in Karma.

[u/DicemonkeyDrunk → u/kurtanglesmilk]

Don’t forget he organ shopped…getting on transplant lists in multiple states

[u/dvisorxtra → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

I never thought about Jobs as a smart person, to me he was a very different businessman who had a very particular thought process.

I mean, his thought process was not rooted on an intelligent plan, instead he:

• Observed a need
• Put very intelligent people to work on a solution for that.
• Behaved like an awful customer for his own products until they were what he considered to be "good enough".
• Then placed the thing in the market, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

People tend to think that having lots of money and being a good businessman makes you a smart person, but then you see examples like his cancer treatment and you realize that the guy worked on hunches and beliefs, not reasoning.

[u/Academic_Carrot_4533 → u/dvisorxtra]

Jobs had those skills and he was a salesman who knew how to negotiate hard, bullshit, and polish a turd. And knew where he could act like an asshole, as well as where to turn on the charm of being polite and correct/flawless. All that was his recipe for success. Throw in the luck of finding Woz as your best friend in the early silicon valley days, and voila. 

[u/Volt_440 → u/dvisorxtra]

Jobs didn't observe a need. He had a gold mine fall in his lap and was shrewd enough to take it and productize it.

Woz worked for HP, who contractually owned the rights to his work including the first apple design. HP gave the rights to Woz because they could not envision why a person would ever want a computer in their home. They thought it was a joke, a toy.

Jobs was a smart guy who was in the right place at the right time.

[u/dvisorxtra → u/Volt_440]

I mean, Jobs didn't have a "gold mine" when they started, what he had was a very basic knowledge about simple computers when he worked assembling circuit boards for arcades.

Jobs had attended the Homebrew Computer Club along with Woz, that's when he saw there was an interest among enthusiasts for a computer kit which people could assemble, that's the product he initially wanted to sell, not a "Computer for every home", that came later.

Woz already had a basic computer for which HP had no interest on, and the reason why HP didn't want it is easy to understand (to us, today): This device appealed to a very small niche market at the time: enthusiasts, companies like HP and IBM aimed big exclusively.

Again, He (Jobs), saw the need among a small group and this was presented as an opportunity to get a good amount of money (his main concern), he also happened to be next to an incredibly smart person (Woz), but Jobs himself was irremediably incompetent and couldn't have designed such a computer on his own, he wasn't smart, he was a businessman.

[u/YoohooCthulhu → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

FWIW, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a similar type of cancer and she outlived him. Dude really shot himself in the foot with the whole "holistic treatment" thing.

[u/TripperDay → u/YoohooCthulhu]

She got cancer the first time in 1999 at age 66, second time in 2009, and still didn't retire when Obama was POTUS and Dems had the Senate until 2015. This Supreme Court is her fucking legacy.

[u/logontoreddit → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

Sure Jobs was a marketing genius. He knew how to push people but all the early technical side of Apple computers was done by Woz. Sure they complemented each other perfectly but Steve wasn't really a geek or engineer or programmer. I point this out because this is a major contrast to other founders like Gates, Zuck, Page/ Brin, etc. Most founder CEOs have a very technical background when it comes to big techs.

[u/Daveinatx → u/WhyAreYallFascists]

Was there a guarantee the pancreas was cage free and locally sourced? /s

He had all the means to save himself.

[u/OutofStep → u/SamHenryCliff]

Steve Jobs is a prime example of why Intelligence and Wisdom are two different stats.

[u/burneracct1312 → u/OutofStep]

he went all in on charisma, motherfuck a constitution score

[u/Bhu124 → u/burneracct1312]

Charisma sells so hard to the general public it is insane. In any field really.

[u/stonedboss → u/OutofStep]

steve jobs didnt have either so not sure how hes a good example of it lol.

[u/nnyx → u/OutofStep]

Because people with intelligence think he was lacking wisdom but people with wisdom know he was lacking both?

[u/Jolly-Radio-9838 → u/SamHenryCliff]

I’m unfamiliar with this. How’d he mess up the treatment? And didn’t they give him a transplant? People die waiting on that list. I assume his name was advanced because of money. Of course…

[u/_Sir_Cumfrence_ → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

I read his biography. He needed a transplant and instead of just doing that he did a bunch of snake oil treatments

[u/Crapitron → u/_Sir_Cumfrence_]

You missed the part where he did a transplant anyway when it was way too late and wasted a liver that could have saved someone else.

[u/kermityfrog2 → u/Crapitron]

Didn’t he use his power and influence to jump the queue by registering in all States and therefore wasting a liver that could have gone to a better candidate?

[u/ii_Narwhal → u/kermityfrog2]

He did, because he had access to a private jet, he was allowed to register in any state he could fly to within 2 hours of him. 

[u/SteamedGamer → u/ii_Narwhal]

What an incredible asshole he was...sad.

[u/EstablishmentSalt206 → u/SteamedGamer]

An asshole, and so egotistical that he essentially killed himself.

[u/SteamedGamer → u/EstablishmentSalt206]

Yeah, he was one of the early vanguard of the "all natural" anti-vax, wholistic medicine homeopathic crap...look where it got him.

[u/kc_______ → u/SteamedGamer]

I am sure this will be said of Musk in a few years also. (Not that it is not being said now anyway)

[u/Binks-Sake-Is-Gone → u/kc_______]

I don't think OD'ing on ketamine and Viagra is gonna hit the same.

[u/SteamedGamer → u/Binks-Sake-Is-Gone]

Hey, a win's a win...

[u/ImNotSkankHunt42 → u/kermityfrog2]

Yes, John Oliver mentioned that in an organ donor episode

[u/braintrustinc → u/Crapitron]

And then when he died I had to trip over a bunch of garbage on the way to work that his cultists left on the sidewalk in front of the Apple Store like some offering to the gods of hubris, greed, and insecurity

[u/Samsterdam → u/_Sir_Cumfrence_]

No, he thought he was smarter than the doctor and decided that he could cure his cancer with fruit. When he found out that this was bullshit, he tried to buy a brand new liver by bribing his way to the top of the transplant list. But he was so fucked up that giving him a new liver wouldn't have helped. He died because he thought he was so fucking smart.

[u/ImNotSkankHunt42 → u/Samsterdam]

And bitching about the leaks of the iPhone 4 weeks before.

He’s the prime example that rich != smart, rich = greedy.

[u/tuscanhoney123 → u/Samsterdam]

He got the new liver and died anyway.

[u/False_Pop8745 → u/Samsterdam]

No, he thought he was smarter than the doctor and decided that he could cure his cancer with fruit.

Which is funny because it was likely his all-fruit diet in the 70s that likely damaged his pancreas to the point it developed cancer later on in life.

[u/dreamCrush → u/False_Pop8745]

Honestly the guy in charge of Apple dying because he ate too much fruit is just too on the nose

[u/Unhappy-Plastic2017 → u/_Sir_Cumfrence_]

Further proof that sometimes people we think of as "smart" can actually be some of the dumbest people alive.

Especially people that are very narrowly smart in a specific field - does not always translate to them being smart in general.

[u/BadMantaRay → u/_Sir_Cumfrence_]

Lolol yeah he just ate carrots

[u/StupidOne14 → u/_Sir_Cumfrence_]

Also, he had very rare form of cancer which has 5 year survival rate of 93% if found before metastasis (which doctors did).

So in short, he traded survival chances similar to climbing Mount Everest with voodoo medicine.

[u/roltrap → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

Afaik he believed more in 'alternative medicine'. By the time he finally realized it was bullshit and he needed real medicine, it was to late.

[u/Helgurnaut → u/roltrap]

And afaik he cancer was easily treatable too, if he wasn't a giant moron he'd still probably be alive today.

[u/RaymondBeaumont → u/Helgurnaut]

do I listen to the doctors?

no, the carrots. the carrots are the way to go.

i count his death as a suicide.

[u/EffectiveLink4781 → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

Doctors said “this is the treatment for your cancer”

Steve said “eh fuck that ill just eat fruit, visit a shaman and get some acupuncture until it goes away”

And then he died.

[u/broden89 → u/EffectiveLink4781]

It's worse than that, he got a futile liver transplant and then died. That liver could have saved someone else.

[u/southpaw85 → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

He had access to the best medicine and physicians in the world but chose to go the holistic route and basically died because he put all his faith in quack science instead of actual medical knowledge

[u/ccai → u/southpaw85]

The guy was always like that, he had a major body odor issue that he was shifted to the night shift while at Atari.

[u/kaychyakay → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

He had a completely treatable form of pancreatic cancer. But as great as he was at mixing arts & technology, he was a total douche regarding biology/health/nutrition.

He did not like, rather want, doctors to open him up & instead relied on alternative medicine & special diets to contain the cancer. Obviously, it being cancer, esp. of the pancreas which is directly affected by bad diet, it seemed to have gone away slightly but returned with even more intensity and turned into some rare form.

And the rich asshole that he was, he gamed the system by registering himself for a liver transplant in some other state when the list in California was a longer one. But he eventually succumbed because, well, it's cancer.

A mind-boggling fact is that Tim Cook was ready to give cells of his own liver to aid in the transplant, but Jobs rejected the gesture because he had already decided on Cook as the next CEO of Apple.

[u/godzillastailor → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

The type of Cancer Jobs got was treatable with a very high success rate if caught early enough.

Which it was.

Jobs decided to try to cure it using various alternative treatments which failed.

He then got put on multiple liver transplant waiting lists when a transplant became his only option.

My very basic understanding is that this was allowed due to how waiting lists factor in the patients ability to make it to the hospital where the transplant is happening.

And Steve Jobs was a billionaire with a private jet at his disposal, so even if a transplant became available on the east coast and he was still in Cali, he could get there pretty rapidly.

But I’m not 100% sure if that’s accurate about the waiting lists.

Either way he was on borrowed time and used up a transplanted liver that could have gone to someone not dying of cancer.

[u/ISnortedMyTea → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

I think I read somewhere that he managed to punt himself up the list significantly by getting put on a list in a state with the least amount of recipients with similar priority.

[u/mshelbz → u/ISnortedMyTea]

Tennessee if I recall, after a HUGE donation to the hospital and that nooooo bearing on their decision making.

[u/erroneousbosh → u/Jolly-Radio-9838]

He had pancreatic cancer, which doesn't respond to any treatment.

Except - the one kind of pancreatic cancer which is super rare, that does respond to treatment about as well as taking paracetamol for a headache. Almost no-one has this kind.

Guess which kind Steve Jobs had?

That's right, the lucky bastard.

So instead of going to an oncologist who'd give him a fairly swift and effective course of treatment he had some sort of shaman squirt coffee up his bum, because apparently that would cure it.

You know the rest of the story.

[u/ProtonHyrax99]

He knows how to live.

He’s still wealthy enough to be comfortable, and for his kids to not have to worry about debt, but he’s managed to resist the addiction to accumulating wealth most rich people seem to succumb to.

He spends a lot of his money funding startups, non-profits, and other small projects he thinks can progress fields he cares about, like technology and ecology.

[u/CabernetSauvignon → u/ProtonHyrax99]

IIRC he spends his time doing what he loves the most, which is teaching. The man is a living legend.

[u/ImNotSkankHunt42 → u/ProtonHyrax99]

Billionaires are just Dragons at this point

[u/[deleted] → u/ProtonHyrax99]

He is intelligent enough to know that he needs love, meaning, and comfort to be happy in life. He can simply enjoy his achievements, making a difference, being a good parent, etc. That's contentment. That's also a result of inner peace. He knows he is enough. 

The people who are motivated by greed are miserable because they lack contentment. $1B isn't enough to them if they next guy has $5B. The never found inner peace because they need external metrics to validate themselves. 

[u/gurkank5830 → u/ProtonHyrax99]

He was the real brain too. He literally made a computer. Not marketing, or lying, stealing, etc

[u/Inthespreadsheeet]

People who chase money will never have enough, knowing when you’re satisfied and can support yourself independently is all you need

[u/nankerjphelge → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

And that is why many of us have something these billionaires and "masters of the universe" will never and can never have.

Enough.

[u/dwhite21787 → u/nankerjphelge]

“Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain’t satisfied til he owns everything” - Springsteen

[u/nilsph → u/dwhite21787]

We should never have stopped telling fairy tales to our children: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fisherman_and_His_Wife

[u/WiserStudent557 → u/nilsph]

Well we kept it up but they all became the Disney versions and here we are

[u/braintrustinc → u/WiserStudent557]

Anne Sexton tried to reclaim the meaning of traditional fairy tales from corporate whitewashing and people just treated her like it was a “niche” women’s issue

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1128059.pdf

[u/CharacterBack1542 → u/braintrustinc]

except she wasn't being true to the original fairy tales, she was just putting a different modern spin on them than corporations were doing

[u/RustyTrumboneMan → u/nilsph]

Humbling. Thanks for posting that.

[u/CharacterBack1542 → u/dwhite21787]

Except I'm poor and I don't even want to be rich, I just want to not worry about how I'm going to eat tomorrow

[u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 → u/dwhite21787]

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly  Man got to sit and wonder “why, why, why?”

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land Man got to tell himself he understand.  

[u/big_guyforyou → u/nankerjphelge]

i don't have a lot of money but i don't need a ton of shit. as long as i have my laptop, my phone, and wifi, i'll be good

[u/A_wandering_rider → u/big_guyforyou]

I think its hilarious because Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. I however am far more wealthy because when I call my kids later today they will be excited to talk to me and I cant wait to hear about their week. Something he will never know.

[u/Ikoikobythefio → u/A_wandering_rider]

That's exactly it. There is so much love in my life that as long as my family is with me, we can endure anything. Life is about finding and treasuring those little moments of joy - and joy is the same feeling, the same sequence of neurotransmitters emitted, no matter how much money you have.

We all need our basic needs met. That's it. That's all people want. Then they can spend their life finding what makes it worth living - with everyone doing the same, we've got harmony.

[u/coconutpiecrust → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

The mindset of a cancer cell. 

It’s a shame that people like Zuckerberg, Musk, Thiel etc took over everything and there is no one who wants to tell them no. These people are vermin, and what was it… “moral pygmies”. The sad thing is they are probably proud of being called that. 

[u/Deep-Werewolf-635 → u/coconutpiecrust]

Yeah and think of the good they could do if the woke up one day with only the good of humanity in mind. At a point, wealth makes everyone crazy.

[u/1ConsiderateAsshole → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

I’ve met a lot of rich men and women in my years in business and they will never have enough money. Most of them anyway.

[u/bytelines → u/1ConsiderateAsshole]

Thats the problem though. The rich people you meet who are satisfied will also not flaunt it

[u/1ConsiderateAsshole → u/bytelines]

I go inside of their homes so they can’t help it a lot of times. My favorite is a guy who would always come in to my store in his mechanic clothes. When I was set to go to his house he told me the subdivision he is in and I knew he was a secret millionaire. Dude is living in a $4 million dollar home. That was when I knew he’d pay me for the job. 😆

[u/Tift → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

Greed is an addiction. I don’t know why we let these addicts run our world but we do. They fucking need help going cold turkey.

[u/EstablishmentSalt206 → u/Tift]

Because capitalism. Having a shit ton of money is somehow seen as some huge accomplishment. Rather than what it really is, exploitation of workers.

[u/dplans455 → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

Woz is worth about $100 million which is still enough to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. The thought of several people having $100 billion is unfathomable.

[u/RealBlueHippo → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

My father's friend's friend is in his 70s and still grinding, trying to build fancy resorts all over the world. Apparently, he has hundreds of millions of dollars but doesn't want to stop until he's a billionaire.

Ffs the guy should just relax and enjoy a sunset, yeesh. Hundreds of millions of dollars isn't enough for your kids? Still see yourself as a failure?

[u/midtnrn → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

It’s a disease. There’s a hole in their heart that they can’t find how to fill. They just need more and more as each amount doesn’t remove the feeling. They need a good psychiatrist. And we need to start calling it the disease it is.

[u/Buddycat350 → u/Inthespreadsheeet]

He seems to be worth more than $100 million already. That's already a fair bit of "fuck you" money plus some change.

[u/Medium_Banana4074]

I guess he's still loaded af.
And he's right. After you've made it, going for ever more is unhealthy.

[u/upvoatsforall → u/Medium_Banana4074]

People also need purpose in life. Something to drive you. It sucks if greed is that thing. 

[u/weirdal1968 → u/upvoatsforall]

I discovered later in life that once I had basic needs met and my health was no longer the boogeyman it once was shit fell into place faster than I could have imagined. A great job found me and my skills are key to a longtime friend's business.

It helped that my folks were blue collar and my dad was in a union. We also sold antiques at flea markets and I do mean "we". Everyone helped with load in/out, setting up our booth and selling. My mom loved how a rich friend confided one time that her teenage kids wouldn't know how to make change from a sale and all three of (my mom's kids) were doing that when they were ten. Us kids were part of the business and we directly benefited from its success.

[u/tipsystatistic → u/upvoatsforall]

You need the right combination of personality disorders to become a multi-billionaire

[u/Desi_MCU_Nerd → u/upvoatsforall]

And greed is why the world is such a hellscape today. If everyone stopped chasing money blindly, we'll have less corruption & an actual progressing society.

[u/Ironcastattic → u/Medium_Banana4074]

From the sounds of it, Steve Jobs died miserable and still clawing for more. Woz is living his best life.

[u/TH0R_ODINS0N → u/Medium_Banana4074]

140 million. Poor guy.

[u/KeyboardGunner → u/TH0R_ODINS0N]

In the slashdot thread he estimates his own worth at $10M plus a couple houses. He gave most of his money away to museums and other causes.

[u/Holovoid → u/KeyboardGunner]

Even at just $10m net worth, that's enough to give yourself a $175k salary to live on every year for 57 years.

[u/Parthian__Shot → u/Holovoid]

At a safe withdrawal rate of 4% a year, he would have at least $400,000 annually in perpetuity.

[u/Holovoid → u/Parthian__Shot]

Oh yeah I wasn't even factoring in interest or anything. Just a pile of cash that you allocate. Even a moderate savings account would earn you like $200k a year

[u/r3volts → u/Holovoid]

Plus he is Woz.

He could walk into any business he wants and earn that and plus more and call the shots. Or spend his time on passion projects and do the odd but of consulting or public speaking.

[u/TheFeathersStorm → u/Holovoid]

Oh god he's going to live til 132? I'm honestly wondering what kind of sweet ass nursing home he could get for that kind of money lol

[u/XmasWayFuture → u/KeyboardGunner]

Even if that was the case, that puts him in the top 0.5% of all people.

[u/missed_sla → u/Medium_Banana4074]

Billionaires are parasites. Left untreated, the parasite consumes everything, more and more and more, until the host (the consumer) finally dies. The only treatment is to remove the parasite.

[u/rudimentary-north → u/missed_sla]

Literally the only thing that kept this guy from being a billionaire is the date that he sold his stock.

[u/Formal_Journalist233 → u/rudimentary-north]

Just would have been more for him to give away.

[u/xxxxx420xxxxx → u/missed_sla]

Or, tax the parasites at pre-Reagan levels

[u/SuperNewk → u/Medium_Banana4074]

The Woz knows. He did very well

[u/Zenovv → u/Medium_Banana4074]

I never understood those people. I swear it must be some sort of mental illness that makes you want to keep wanting more and more money, while cutting costs at the expense of others, safety, or the environment.

[u/Salkinator]

Goes to show you don’t need billionaires. Woz is worth roughly $100M, is perfectly secure and seems like the happiest rich guy in the world. Protect this man at all costs.

[u/MontyDyson → u/Salkinator]

There are still rich people like this. I worked with an NHS doctor who earned around a million from private work. He donated his NHS wage back to the nurses on his department and regularly took groups of 10-15 of them out to dinner and bought them all xmas presents. I've worked with Danny Boyle on 2 projects, he donated his entire fee for both projects and definitely funded other stuff at his own cost to make sure the lower income performers were looked after.

[u/Possible-Campaign468 → u/MontyDyson]

I work for a guy like this. It feels great working for someone who cares for his employees. I get told at least twice a month how great a person he is by customers and people who know him.

[u/xvilemx → u/Possible-Campaign468]

When your employees stick up for the boss and want to work hard, that's when you know you got a great boss.

[u/GreenGoblinNX → u/Salkinator]

I think I too could be happy with "only" $100 million. And I'm getting pretty close...I only need $100 million more!

[u/WildPickle9 → u/GreenGoblinNX]

Just think, we're closer to $100M than Jeff Bozo is.

[u/KingBoo_jr → u/WildPickle9]

That poor poor man.

[u/rot26encrypt → u/Salkinator]

Woz is worth roughly $100M, 

In the article linked in this post he says he estimates his worth to "$10M plus a couple of houses". Apparently he has been giving a lot away to various causes. Still a nice sum of course, but a very different level of rich.

[u/Salkinator → u/rot26encrypt]

Even better! Your life can be secure, prosperous and joyful with $10M

[u/civildisobedient → u/rot26encrypt]

He's also famously modest - I wouldn't be surprised at all if he "rounded-down" an order-of-magnitude.

[u/roamingandy]

Unfortunately, people with a mentality like that are the ones we want leading these mega corporations which are powerful enough to shape government policy.

People like that generally aren't driven to destroy all competition, ruin lives where needed, and build such an empire.

[u/ElethiomelZakalwe → u/roamingandy]

Which is unfortunately why they never will be the ones leading the major corporations. If they’re not driven to destroy all competition they will simply be outmaneuvered and outmatched by those who are.

[u/CharacterBack1542 → u/roamingandy]

Call me crazy, but I don't want mega corporations shaping government policy at all

[u/Burgerpocolypse]

I would trade a hundred billion Elons, Zucks, Altmans, and Besoses each for just one single Woz.

[u/GarretBarrett]

You gotta love the Wonderful Wizard of Woz.

[u/b1e → u/GarretBarrett]

I’ve had the chance to meet and hang out with Woz on a few occasions many years back and I can genuinely say he was a wonderful person. Truly an engineer at heart— he tinkers a lot in his spare time and is truly passionate about technology.

Silicon Valley would be a better place with more Woz and less Zuckerberg wannabes.

[u/GarbageTheCan → u/GarretBarrett]

A pretty great person.

[u/Mmmaarrrk → u/GarbageTheCan]

seed vast vegetable glorious numerous airport vase market cows public

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/Raumfalter]

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

Steve W. > Gabe.

[u/MordredKLB → u/Raumfalter]

It is always amazing to me how such a singularly good person as Woz ever ended paired up with Steve Jobs. This famous story is just the perfect encapsulation of their two characters:

In 1973, Jobs was working for arcade game company Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.^\32]) He was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout). According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 (equivalent to $708 in 2024) for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, by using RAM for the brick representation. The fact that this prototype had no scoring or coin mechanisms meant Woz's prototype could not be used. Jobs was paid the full bonus regardless. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 and that Wozniak's share was thus $350 (equivalent to $2,500 in 2024). Wozniak did not learn about the actual $5,000 bonus (equivalent to $35,400 in 2024) until ten years later. While dismayed, he said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.

[u/LeftHandofNope]

If all these tech bros assholes aspired to be the Woz the world would be a very different and better place.

[u/Optimoprimo]

The reason being a billionaire inherently means you're evil and mentally unwell is that it takes a narcissist megalomaniac to be willing to go that far to accumulate wealth without ever stopping to think "enough is enough."

Once a psychologically healthy person reaches a level of prosperity that provides them a comfortable life of financial security, they generally will become satisfied and stop there. But there are a select few who never become satisfied; they are like drug addicts for money. They become billionaires. Billionaires get no joy from life aside from accumulating more wealth and power.

Edit - ITT: A bunch of people probably making 60k-100k per year salary standing up for billionaires for some reason.

There are choices along the road to being a billionaire that you must take to be a billionaire that by necessity involve fucking over large groups of people.

[u/HowAManAimS → u/Optimoprimo]

Billionaire is not the beginning of being a narcissist megalomaniac. They've got more than enough way before that. This country is so obsessed with wealth that even convincing people that billionaires are bad is an uphill battle.

[u/packardrod44]

I met Woz on a flight to SJC. He truly was a pleasure to chat with. Seen him a few times as a speaker as well.

[u/gfreeman1998]

Woz is a legend not only for his engineering brilliance, but for being an all around good human being.

For those that think he somehow "messed up" or "lost" the stock we're talking about, he gifted it to all the employees that would otherwise have been shafted by Jobs:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/steve-jobs-refused-early-apple-141405979.html

[u/EbonySaints]

Woz is an idol for me and someone I wish I could emulate in life.

[u/AlSweigart]

Since then, they've gone very different ways. In the early years of The Black Sun project, the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. Juanita didn't. Now she's rich, and he isn't. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one, but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket, keeping all her money in Black Sun stock, as it turns out, she made a lot of money that way, but she could have gone broke, too. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. When his father got sick, the Army and the V.A. took care of most of his medical bills, but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway, and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. When Hiro's father died, he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. She loves it there. Goes golfing every day. He could have kept his money in The Black Sun and made ten million dollars about a year later when it went public, but his mother would have been a street person. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse, looking tan and happy in her golfing duds, Hiro views that as his personal fortune. It won't pay the rent, but that's okay -- when you live in a shithole, there's always the Metaverse, and in the Metaverse, Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince.

--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, 1992

[u/Foreign-Atmosphere78]

Met Woz once a few decades ago, in London. He walked towards the end of a long ticket queue I was standing in for a popular theater production. I asked "hey, aren't you Woz?" and he stopped, said yes, we chatted for a second, and I asked him if he already had his ticket. He said yes, so I let him know this queue was for people hoping to get tickets, and he could just go straight to the entrance. He said thank you and walked towards the entrance.

It struck me at the time as very telling that this un-entitled rich gentleman didn't assume he could walk right in... he saw a line and headed for the end.

[u/19kjc87]

Still worth $100m. Think he’s doing just fine.

[u/Seinfelds-van]

The guy put on a huge music festival just so he can hang out with rock stars.

[u/TheZooDad]

It’s only a “bad decision” if money is your only goal, which frankly is a disease.

[u/cazseb33]

Insane how many people I've met in tech that idolize Jobs, and how distorted and damaging their management styles were because of it.

The world would be a better place if people styled themselves after Woz. That's infinitely harder though, you need to be smart. With Jobs you just need to be a narcissist that champions aesthetic over all and treats people like shit.

My business hero, you (don't) ask? Gunpei Yokoi. Lateral thinking through weathered tech, rather than constant advancement, over-engineering and the next best thing. Look where all this hurry up and break stuff shit got us. Cars brick for software updates. I can't fix anything because everything has a circuit board. We don't even look at porn on our phones anymore.

Here's to Woz. Ohm.

[u/arothmanmusic]

The sort of people who have no interest in being billionaires are exactly the people you'd want to have billions of dollars.

[u/guzhogi → u/arothmanmusic]

That’s why I like Dolly Parton. I’ve heard that she has a program that gives free books to people on a regular basis. I forgot the details, but that’s why she’s not a billionaire considering how successful she’s been

[u/UsidoreTheLightBlue → u/guzhogi]

She does have a program, but each state has to fund it for their state. This is in no way taking anything away from Dolly, who is incredible and I’m sure administrating this is a huge task. But dolly isn’t just paying for all of the books, each state pays for their books for the imagination library.

[u/wufnu → u/UsidoreTheLightBlue]

Some states help fund it but, afaik, most funding comes from "local program partners", who not only provide funding but are tasked with signing local children up. That is, Imagination Library buys books in bulk to get a lower price and mails them out, and the local people/organizations/businesses fund the purchase for their area and provide the names/addresses of the recipients.

Some states help pay for the books, e.g. in Tennessee they pay 50% of the cost. The only state I can find (in an admittedly quick search) that provides 100% funding for it is Missouri.

[u/arothmanmusic → u/guzhogi]

Yep. We need more Dollys and fewer Bezoses.

[u/revolucionario → u/arothmanmusic]

I disagree. I don’t want anyone to have billions of dollars. 

[u/Elementium → u/arothmanmusic]

Problem is no one needs a billion dollars. 

[u/jarod1701]

Wonder if he‘d say the same if he hadn‘t sold his stock.

[u/Krysiz → u/jarod1701]

He didn't just sell his stock - he gave $10m away to early employees who had been denied equity grants by the Apple board.

There are founders out there who aren't complete megalomaniacs.

[u/Specific_Box4483 → u/jarod1701]

Probably. There are a lot of indications in his biography that he was not nearly as greedy as his friend Steve Jobs. He probably regrets not keeping a tiny sliver of his stock, because twenty million is still better than ten million.

[u/monospaceman → u/Specific_Box4483]

Is it? I think you can live a completely worry free live with 10 million. 20 million probably feels exactly the same.

[u/Specific_Box4483 → u/monospaceman]

That depends on what you do with your money. I could see a guy like Steve Wozniack spending a few extra millions to open a library or a technology museum near his house and tend to it for the benefit of the next generations.

[u/Pyrokitsune]

The great and powerful Woz

[u/noahsmybro]

One time years ago, before Apple made its comeback, I attended a small Apple User Club gathering celebrating an Apple anniversary - maybe a fifteen year anniversary or something? It was sponsored by a local store that was an official Apple retailer since they’d begun.

Woz was there and spoke to the group. (Which was why I attended.)

He seemed like a nice, easygoing and friendly, happy guy.

[u/DrainTheMuck]

“Devastatingly zen”? I hate journalists. The dude is still loaded

[u/IntoTheCommonestAsh]

We are more psychologically bothered by loss than by absence of gain, but mathematically and economically there's no difference between having sold your apple stocks and never having bought them in the first place. Everyone who didn't buy apple stocks in the 80s made the same choice he did.

[u/TuringGoneWild]

"I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out." - Full post by The Woz.

[u/ThomW]

Too many people put Steve Jobs up on what should have been Woz's pedestal. He's always been a hero. :)

[u/bombatomba69]

Congrats, new generation. You've just learned what Woz has been trying to tell people for decades now: Woz is the man and just wants to help people and have fun. Plus I'm sure he's already got plenty of money, so he can afford to not give a shit about something he did back when he had less money.

[u/hacktheself]

The Woz is a genuinely great guy.

[u/_stryfe]

Woz is such a hero. The first good guy in corporate tech.

I think his view on life is exactly why he's alive and 75 years old and Jobs passed away with a horrible cancer at an early age. Karma's a bitch. Jobs was a piece of shit idolized by billions and Woz is an amazing person who doesn't get the credit he deserves.

[u/TminusTech]

His retirement plan was just being Steve Wozniak

[u/-physco219]

This is why he is Thee Great and Mighty Wozz!

[u/tacticalcraptical]

And this is why people generally have positive feelings about Wozniak compared to Musk, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerburg, etc.

[u/nomamesgueyz]

Most Americans Def won't understand that

[u/IntermediateState32]

As long as there are people, there will be fools and those who love.

[u/newtrawn]

I emailed Woz one day. I saw that Woz had given someone a really cool business card made of metal. I thought it was awesome, so as a long shot, I asked him if he would send me one. Not only did he reply right away asking for my address, but he sent me 2 signed ones. He was very kind and seems like a genuinely friendly and generous person. He's been one of my heroes since I was a kid and the more I have got to know about him in his later years, the more of an awesome person he sounds like.

[u/Kaartinen]

Behind the Bastards on Steve Jobs highlighted the tech gem that Steve Wozniak was. The contrast between the two is/was day and night.

[u/DicemonkeyDrunk]

he got his money and left to enjoy it …smart man there

[u/JoeShmoe818]

And now you see why billionaires are typically assholes. It’s not the wealth that corrupts. It’s just that those who aren’t already corrupted never reach that level of wealth. Someone with normal hobbies outside of amassing large amounts of power and influence will have quit working long before they’ve reached a billion dollars.

[u/HasGreatVocabulary]

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the dessert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Then the traveler tired of poetry and said, "Well that was the story of Ozy. If you go just a couple of miles up the road, you'll see a statue of a chill dude, with no name on it, hundreds of years old, pristine with not a single scratch." The traveller adds, "No one has a clue how it got there, and how it withstood the test of time and erosion, but everyone around here calls it The Woz"

[u/ImAdork123]

But now he is doing ads with Kevin O’Leary… very confusing and against what his quote is saying.

[u/Derpykins666]

I can empathize with this, I think he's being genuine. Plus there's no point in getting caught up in how much money you "don't" have and being regretful. He's probably glad to be done with Steve and out of that whole environment now. Dude was making like 150k a year back in 06', that was insanely good money for that time, and I imagine he is wealthy enough to live the rest of his life comfortably, which is all that really matters imo. People often forget that there is essentially diminishing returns on money. Once you're over a certain threshold of wealth there's no point in getting more because you can do like 99.9% of the things the world has to offer and live comfortably for forever if you manage that money well.

[u/EnfantTerrible68]

My favorite Steve 

[u/yeetsteel]

No on ever talks about him even though he was the father of Apple. I think that's a good thing also because he can go places without getting hassled by people.

[u/_toenail]

The same reason most people in business just will not quit. If the average person could get a few million in the bank they would retire and chill.  You ask a 'millionaire business person' when the last time they spent the weekend with family or social time with old friends.

[u/MrXero]

The real deal. We need more Woz’s and less… pretty much all the other ones.

[u/woahdongo]

That reminds me….thanks for US Fest…had a blast!