iWoz is Steve Woziniak's autobiography to set the record straight, or essentially telling people what an asshole Steve Jobs was . There were several events as mentioned in the book that leads me to conclude that Jobs could be an asshole.
On p.109
"In the meantime, trembling with fear, Steve passed the Blue Box to me. He didn't have a jacket on, but I did. I slid it into my pocket."The Blue Box was one of Woz's brilliant hacks to make free (read illegal) phone calls. Jobs passed the Blue Box to Woz thinking that the police approaching them knew they were making illegal phone calls. So Jobs shit his pants and just wanted Woz to have the Blue Box when the police came.
On p. 147-148
"... Steve paid me half the seven hundred bucks he said they paid him for it.... Later I found out he got paid a bit more for it - like a few thousand dollars - than he said at the time."So Jobs was a greedy liar, even to his friend and partner. Woz on the book says "I was hurt. But I didn't make a big deal about it or anything." Yeah, right. Many years later, like now, he still remembers and writes about it so the whole world knows Jobs was a liar and cheated him more than a thousand dollars. This was about the video game Breakout the two Steve's did for Atari, then Jobs employer. They did it in four days and ended up with mononucleosis.
On p. 195
"Steve Jobs made what I thought was the most ridiculous statement. He said, 'You might just want to buy this product for a few hundred thousand dollars. I was almost embarrassed....Steve added, 'A few hundred thousand dollars, plus you have to give us jobs working on this project."Woz was talking a meeting they had with Commodore's bigwigs when they tried to raise money for their Apple II personal computer. So Jobs was not only greedy but ridiculously so.
It just gets better, on p. 269
"From what I heard, he threw it against a wall and put in a box and said, "Send it to him." As if Apple owned it. The Frog guy told me that Steve told him they couldn't do any work for us because Apple 'owned' Frog."Woz quit his work at Apple (but still an employee and draws a salary up to this day) and started his own company CL 9, to make, gasp, universal remote. He was trying to get Apple's design firm, Frog Design, to do the prototype but Jobs wouldn't have any of it. So Jobs was a greedy asshole. (As an aside, Woz emphasizes more than once that the Wall Street Journal reportage was wrong on saying that he wasn't happy at Apple and was disgruntled. Woz says his reason to leave Apple was to start his company making universal remote. I wouldn't believe it let alone The Wall Street Journal.)
So you see it's not too farfetched that Apple has this option backdating scandal, because like Woz mentioned Jobs could be very not honest and greedy. Jobs name was cleared of any wrong doing by some internal committee, though the whole thing is still under SEC investigation as far as I know.
Also, Woz likes to point out that it was he and only he who single handedly designed Apple II, not he and Jobs. They didn't found Apple in Jobs garage as the legend would have it. It was HP, Woz beloved company that was started in the garage. Woz worked in his room in his apartment while Jobs worked in his room in his parents' house. Apple II, the one designed by him rocks while Apple III really sucks ass. Woz blames the constant crashing of Apple's OS 7 on Internet Explorer, at the same time without citing any evidence, at least in my mind.
In conclusion, Woz gives some words of wisdom to todays engineers, screw the committee and team work. Work alone. He promises it is worth it.
The book is easy to read, even I can finish it in a few days. I think any parent, engineer, entrepreneur can benefit from reading it.
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