It's a shame. The truth of their relationship is entertaining and fascinating in itself. I suspect it would be even more so if Woz wasn't such a humble mensch and would rather be polite than talk trash. It's just a shame that he doesn't get more popular respect so that more people aspire to be like him...for every Jobs, we need someone as good as Woz
The more I learn of Woz I'm more impressed. Like listening to him. I agree that he's a good role model But is his personality conducive to driving a business? It seems the tyrants are more successful.
I think just about everyone agrees, including Woz, that Woz would still be building calculators at HP if it weren't for Jobs. But Jobs would've never had the necessary early success without Woz's genius.
So the second point, about Jobs not succeeding without Woz, is only speculative (but highly likely, given Woz made technically possible). But the first point is as indisputable as history can get.
When Jobs decided to create Apple, Woz declined to quit HP at first. Only when Woz was convinced that he could remain an engineer even while heading the company did he consent to join.
So back to the speculative point: Jobs was incredibly desperate to have Woz come on board, even to the point of having a crying fit. IIRC, both Issacson's biography and iWoz (Woz's autobiography) say that Apple's third man, Mike Markkula, was convinced that they should go on without Woz.
To Jobs' credit as a genius, he apparently realized that Woz was essential to his success.
Just a side note on the subject of "learning about Woz," If you haven't already, I highly recommend his book iWoz. it's a really interesting recounting of his early days as an engineer.
Steve Wozniak was working on the prototype Apple I as a hobby and that's all it would have been without Steve Jobs.
Jobs convinced him it could be a business. Jobs had to sell his minivan and Wozniak's calculator to build the first batch of computers to sell at local computer shops. Jobs had to cajole and motivate Wozniak into being part of Apple Computer Inc rather than just an HP employee who gave away circuit board diagrams at HomeBrew meetings in his spare time.
Once the story of the Mac begins, Wozniak was practically retired, working mostly on education and coming up with neat ideas for remote controls. Jobs was motivating and cajoling the generations of brilliant engineers that would make the Mac, the NeXT Cube, the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Jobs was never a sales guy, he needed other people to do that. He was a motivator and a critic.
I'm aware of all of that, but it doesn't change anything that I said. Steve still depended on others to produce the goods - what you posted there just confirms my point.
Also, I will concede that he's more than a salesman - as you stated about him motivating. However that doesn't make him an inventor, creator, designer, engineer nor any of the other attributes people credit him with.
By that argument, no director could have been said to have ever created a film. The cinematographer did the photography, the scriptwriter did the writing, the SFX department did the effects, etc.
Woz did a spectacular job with the Apple I design, but it wasn't the only kit available at the time. And even then he used off-the-shelf parts like the MOS 6502. Matter of fact, a kit that slightly predated the Apple I was the KIM-1, which also used the 6502. Difference was that the KIM-1's designer Chuck Peddle also designed the 6502 processor (yep, the one Wozniak used).
Steve Jobs kept going throughout the years, long after Wozniak stopped: the original Mac, the NeXT computer, NeXTSTEP, Mac OS X, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iOS, all of these were as much the creation of Steve Jobs as Yojimbo was Akira Kurosawa's creation or 2001: A Space Odyssey was Stanley Kubrick's film.
