In the 1990s, I had an internship at Apple here in Austin, in a building they were leasing off 183, just east of I-35. They’ve long since expanded to a new campus in northwest Austin, much fancier, reflecting what a massive company Apple has become. I still often drive by that old building, though, which is currently empty and for lease again.
But that’s not the point of this story. The point is Steve Wozniak, and leadership, starting with a moment in the 1990s when it felt like everything was happening.
One week during my time at Apple, I was asked to fly out to Cupertino to help with an internal web app database project. I worked in an unused cubicle, coordinating with Carl de Cordova, one of the co-founders of WebEdge, where I worked back when webmaster was a job title. I was young and naive, so of course I thought I knew everything. The week was something of a blur, exciting. It was a time that you could build a new system in a few days that today would take months in a big company bureaucracy.
At lunch one day we went to a Chinese restaurant in Cupertino. We sat down at our table after coming back from the buffet, and Carl said to me, half whispering, half trying not to laugh, “I think that’s Steve Wozniak shining a laser pointer at us.”
Woz was a few tables away, enjoying himself, presumably with family. We debated whether it would be rude to introduce ourselves. Yes, it would be too intrusive. I was also nervous and a little dumbfounded. Maybe it wasn’t even him, just someone who looked exactly like him and who would do something so obviously Woz-like as play with a laser pointer in a restaurant.
The moment slipped away. We finished our lunch and left, feeling a sliver of regret for lost chances.
That was 30 years ago. It’s hard to believe that Woz is now in his mid-70s, which means the rest of us are getting older too. As I get older, I’m torn between impatience to build something new, still do something that matters, and slowing down, becoming content with what has already been set in motion.
One thing I’m sure of — and something that Woz has clearly known for a long time — is that it’s not about the money. From the recent comment that Woz left on Slashdot:
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.
Today feels like a very different climate for VC-funded companies than the 1980s when Woz sold his shares of Apple, when he even gave away many shares to early Apple employees who weren’t granted stock options. It’s hard to imagine a founder doing that today. But then it’s hard to imagine anyone else like Woz.
Scan today’s TechCrunch headlines and you’ll get dozens of stories of new companies with often ridiculous valuations and equally ridiculous business plans. There’s a new negativity toward big tech companies and CEOs, a sort of resentment after years of user-hostile, unethical behavior. Users are distrustful, feeling burned by entrepreneurs who prioritize profit over principle.
Anil Dash blogged last week about the mayor race in New York City, but let’s ignore the politics and candidates for now. I want to instead fast forward to the end of his post, where Anil writes:
I had gotten a little embarrassed about my past as someone who had been a CEO in tech, honestly. The very worst of the industry had tainted it so much that I’d worried people would never believe that it could ever have been something people could go into with a good heart, or honest intentions, however imperfect.
That Anil was even a little embarrassed shows to me how twisted the impression of entrepreneurship has become. I’ve also received this kind of misguided negativity directed at Micro.blog, lumping me in with wealthy tech leaders in Silicon Valley who I have nothing in common with.
After Apple all those years ago, I never worked at another large company again. At one startup, just 3-4 of us, the founder sometimes struggled to make payroll on time. That is surely a much more common scenario for small-business CEOs. Someone with an idea, hopefully creating good work for others, putting something new into the world along the way, even if ultimately failing.
When we judge others based only on labels — these entrepreneurs aren’t people, they’re CEOs, they’re all the same — we strip away a little of their humanity, and so we lose the truth, as if giving up on an individual leader to make their own fair and moral decisions.
In Woz, I see a reminder to balance joy in the hard work. He is one of a kind. I would love to build a business that is deliberate, helpful, mission-oriented, and content to solve what it set out to do and no more. Perhaps in leading anything we’ll inherently be misunderstood, cast with the popular narrative instead of nuance. That would be unfortunate, but I could accept it, because worrying about it only distracts from the work.
