Congrats on sticking to your guns

Hi “Woz,”
I’ve had a great time reading your website. Good stuff, all around. I esecially liked your one response:

“I can lose all my money or get no credit for inventing the personal computer that started things or many more things. But never should my ethics and moralities and principals challenged in a way to make it seem that I sold out or acted out of less honesty or just looked after my own interests or was selfish.”

A very honorable and rare stance it seems, nowadays. :-/ This resonates for me, as I’m slaving away in the “ivory towers” of academia, amidst people who are driven primarily by ego and to whom the truth is mutable and stretched by careful phrasing and hand-waving. I’m certainly not as niave as when I started my PhD degree five years ago, but I’m hopeful I can emerge from this with my ideals in tact, and not having to screw someone else to finish my degree.

It’s sad when so much emphasis is put on results (“publish or perish”) and the desperate pace at which they much be attained. The business world can be much the same, if not worse, I know. It doesn’t matter if someone is a total jerk and chews up and spits people out, if he/she can produce results and bring in the cash.

Anyway, congrats on sticking to your guns and going the direction you want to go; it’s not easy at all. I hope I’ll find my niche out there with a minimum of politics and conflict. I suppose I’m a “sensitive soul” as well, because conflict and posturing among coworkers really kills my productivity and makes me want to be anywhere else.

I’m really surprised that people have written and called you egomanical, etc. There’s a huge difference in being proud and self-assured in one’s accomplishments versus recognition-seeking for “ego stroking.” I think the authors of those posts need a good dose of maturity and some psychological counseling.

Anyway, I think I’m starting to ramble at this point, so I’ll just close by saying that some of my fond memories of first being exposed to computers and learning to program involved a “Bell and Howell” all-black Apple (I or II?) and later a “signed” Woz-edition IIgs. Fun stuff!

It’s also fun to look at what I’ve owned since then: Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Amiga 500, Amiga 3000, Mac IIvx, PowerMac 7100, and now a “beige” G3. Too bad the Amiga didn’t catch on. Lots of potential there with full pre-emptive multitasking in 512K of RAM. 🙂

Best wishes,
B