Stephen Gary Wozniak (born August 11, 1950), also known as Woz, is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer programmer, and inventor. In 1976, he helped start Apple Computer, which is now called Apple Inc., with his business partner Steve Jobs. His work at Apple during the 1970s and 1980s made him one of the most important people in the personal computer revolution.

In 1975, Wozniak began designing the Apple I, which became the first computer Apple sold when he and Jobs started marketing it in 1976. He was the main designer of the Apple II, introduced in 1977, which was one of the first widely successful computers made for the public. Steve Jobs oversaw the design of its plastic case, and an early Apple employee named Rod Holt designed its power supply.

From 1979 to 1981, Wozniak worked with human-computer interface expert Jef Raskin to help create the early ideas for the original Macintosh. After Wozniak temporarily left Apple because of a serious airplane accident, Jobs took over the project. Wozniak permanently left Apple in 1985 and later started a company called CL 9. In 1987, he designed the first universal remote that could be programmed. He continued working on other business and charity projects, often focusing on helping schools teach technology to students in grades K through 12. In 1990, he helped provide computers to schools in the former Soviet Union.

Wozniak has received many awards for his work in technology and charity, including being added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000. As of June 2024, he is still employed by Apple in a special, non-working role since leaving the company in 1985. In recent years, he has supported new business ideas in areas like GPS, telecommunications, flash memory, technology conventions, education, ecology, and satellites. In addition to being an American citizen, Wozniak is also a citizen of Poland and Serbia.

Early life

Stephen Gary Wozniak was born on August 11, 1950, in San Jose, California. His mother, Margaret Louise Wozniak (née Kern), was born in Washington state in 1923 and passed away in 2014. His father, Francis Jacob "Jerry" Wozniak, was born in Michigan in 1925 and worked as an engineer for the Lockheed Corporation until his death in 1994. Wozniak graduated from Homestead High School in 1968 in Cupertino, California. He has one brother, Mark, who was a former tech executive and currently lives in Menlo Park. He also has a sister named Leslie, who attended Homestead High School in Cupertino. Leslie works as a grant adviser at the Five Bridges Foundation, an organization that helps at-risk youth in San Francisco. Leslie has stated that her mother introduced activism to her and her siblings.

The name on Wozniak’s birth certificate is "Stephan Gary Wozniak," but his mother intended it to be spelled "Stephen," which he uses. Wozniak is of Polish and German ancestry. In the early 1970s, Wozniak’s design of a device called a "blue box" earned him the nickname "Berkeley Blue" in a group of people interested in telephone systems. Wozniak has said that watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions during his youth inspired him to start Apple Computer. In his autobiography, iWoz, he also mentioned that the Tom Swift Jr. books inspired him to become an engineer.

Career

In 1969, Steve Wozniak returned to the San Francisco Bay Area after being expelled from the University of Colorado Boulder in his first year for hacking the university's computer system. He re-enrolled at De Anza College in Cupertino before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. In June of that year, for a self-taught engineering project, Wozniak designed and built his first computer with his friend Bill Fernandez.

Before useful microprocessors, screens, and keyboards existed, they used punch cards and only 20 TTL chips donated by a friend. They named the computer "Cream Soda" after their favorite drink. A newspaper reporter stepped on the power supply cable and damaged the computer, but it helped Wozniak prepare for future work on the Apple I and Apple II computers. Before focusing on Apple, he worked at Hewlett-Packard (HP), where he designed calculators. During this time, he dropped out of Berkeley and met Steve Jobs.

Wozniak was introduced to Jobs by Fernandez, who attended Homestead High School with Jobs in 1971. Jobs and Wozniak became friends when Jobs worked at HP during the summer, where Wozniak was also employed, working on a mainframe computer.

Their first business partnership began later that year when Wozniak read an article titled "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" from the October 1971 issue of Esquire and started building his own "blue boxes," which allowed people to make long-distance phone calls for free. Jobs sold about 200 of these devices for $150 each and split the profit with Wozniak. Jobs later said that without Wozniak's blue boxes, "there wouldn't have been an Apple."

In 1973, Jobs worked for Atari, Inc., an arcade game company in Los Gatos, California. He was assigned to create a circuit board for the game Breakout. Atari offered $100 (equivalent to $725 in 2025) for each chip eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little knowledge of circuit board design and asked Wozniak to help. Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50 using RAM for the brick representation. Although the prototype was not usable due to missing features, Jobs received the full bonus. Jobs told Wozniak he was paid $700 (equivalent to $2,500 in 2025), but Wozniak later learned the actual bonus was $5,000 (equivalent to $36,300 in 2025). He said he would have given the money to Jobs if Jobs had asked.

In 1975, Wozniak began designing the Apple I, the computer that would make him famous. He worked on it to impress members of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of electronics hobbyists in Palo Alto. The club was important in starting the home hobbyist era, which led to the creation of the microcomputer industry. The Apple I had easy-to-use video capabilities, which attracted attention when it was shown.

Wozniak also created a fake computer called Zaltair as a parody of the popular Altair 8800. He and others made fake brochures for the Zaltair, including false trademarks and a shipping label for MITS, the company that made the Altair. He included a fake quote from MITS's president that mentioned a rival company. Steve Jobs received a copy of the brochure and believed it was real until Wozniak gave him a framed copy as a birthday gift in 1985.

By March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of the Apple I. He designed the hardware, circuit boards, and operating system. He tried to sell the design to HP but was refused five times. Jobs encouraged Wozniak to start a business to build and sell the Apple I. To raise money, Wozniak sold his HP calculator, and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.

On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) with Ronald Wayne, who left the company soon after. They chose the name "Apple" after Jobs visited an apple orchard in Oregon.

After forming the company, Jobs and Wozniak presented the Apple I to the Homebrew Computer Club. Paul Terrell, who owned a new computer shop called the Byte Shop, ordered 50 units of the Apple I for $500 each if they were fully assembled. Jobs and Wozniak built the first Apple I boards in Jobs's parents' home in Los Altos. Wozniak's apartment in San Jose was filled with monitors, electronic devices, and computer games he had developed. The Apple I sold for $666.66. Wozniak said he chose the price because he liked repeating digits and had no connection to the "mark of the beast." They sold the first 50 units to Terrell later that year.

In November 1976, Apple received funding from Mike Markkula, a former Intel engineer. At Markkula's request, Wozniak left HP and became vice president of research and development at Apple. The Apple I was similar to the Altair 8800, the first commercially available microcomputer, but it did not support internal expansion cards, which allowed the Altair to connect to additional devices.

Inventions

Wozniak is the only inventor listed on the following Apple patents:

• US Patent No. 4,136,359: "Microcomputer for use with video display" — for which he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• US Patent No. 4,210,959: "Controller for magnetic disc, recorder, or the like"
• US Patent No. 4,217,604: "Apparatus for digitally controlling PAL color display"
• US Patent No. 4,278,972: "Digitally-controlled color signal generation for displays"

Other

In 1990, Wozniak helped start the Electronic Frontier Foundation, gave some of the money needed to begin the group, and was part of the team that made important decisions when it first formed. He also started as a sponsor of the Tech Museum, Silicon Valley Ballet, and Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose.

Views on artificial superintelligence

In March 2015, Wozniak said he had first not agreed with Ray Kurzweil’s idea that machines could become smarter than humans. However, over time, Wozniak changed his view. He began to feel worried about artificial intelligence, even though he still believed in the progress of technology. By June 2015, Wozniak said he thought a superintelligent system taking control could be helpful for humans.

In 2016, Wozniak changed his mind again. He said he no longer worried about superintelligence because he believed computers would not be able to match human "intuition." He explained that while computers can make logical decisions, human intelligence works differently. Wozniak also said that if computers became superintelligent, they would become long-term partners with humans, not competitors.

In 2023, Wozniak signed a letter from the Future of Life Institute asking all AI research groups to stop training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months. During a 2023 interview with the BBC, Wozniak warned that AI could make scams harder to spot. He said, "AI is so smart it can be used by people who want to trick others."

Personal life

Steve Wozniak lives in Los Gatos, California. In 2012, he applied for Australian citizenship and has said he hopes to live in Melbourne, Australia, someday. He is often called "Woz" or "The Woz," and has also been referred to as "The Wonderful Wizard of Woz" and "The Second Steve" (a nickname related to his friend and early business partner, Steve Jobs). In 2002, he started a company called "WoZ" (short for "Wheels of Zeus"), which closed in 2006.

Wozniak joined the Freemasons in 1979 because he wanted to spend more time with his then-wife, Alice Robertson, who was part of the Order of the Eastern Star, a group connected to the Freemasons. He was initiated at Charity Lodge No. 362 in Campbell, California, which is now part of Mt. Moriah Lodge No. 292 in Los Gatos. He is no longer involved with the Freemasons and has said that the group does not match his personality. He contributed enough money for a lifetime membership but did not attend meetings after his divorce.

Wozniak was married to Candice Clark, a gold-medalist in slalom canoe, from 1981 to 1987. They have three children, with the youngest born after their divorce. He later married Janet Hill, his current spouse. He has described his religious views as being an "atheist or agnostic."

Wozniak is a member of a Segway Polo team called the Silicon Valley Aftershocks and is a strong supporter of the NHL team, the San Jose Sharks. In 1998, he co-authored The Official Computer Freaks Joke Book with Larry Wilde. In 2006, he co-authored his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon, with Gina Smith. The book was on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Wozniak has said he does not like having a lot of money and believes it can harm personal values. In 2017, he told Fortune magazine that he did not want to be in a position where he had "more than he could ever need." He also said he only invests in things that are meaningful to him. In 1980, when Apple went public, he offered $10 million of his own stock to early employees, a gesture Steve Jobs did not make. In 2017, he received Polish citizenship and visited Poland to meet with government and technology leaders and to visit his father’s ancestral hometown.

Wozniak has a condition called prosopagnosia, which makes it hard for him to recognize faces. He supports the right to repair movement, which encourages people to fix their own electronics. In 2021, he made a Cameo video in response to activist Louis Rossmann, explaining how the issue has affected him emotionally. He credited Apple’s early success to open technology from the 1970s. In 2023, he suffered a minor stroke while preparing to speak in Mexico City but recovered quickly.

In early December 2023, Wozniak spoke at a conference in Belgrade, Serbia, where he was granted citizenship through a special program called "Citizenship by Exception." This program allows individuals to become citizens if they can benefit Serbia’s national interests. The event received attention in Serbian media but was criticized by some political groups who claimed the government used it for political purposes. The government denied these claims. Wozniak said he was invited by Janko Tipsarević, a former tennis player who is part of the ruling party. During his visit, he expressed support for Serbia, saying he wanted to help promote the country’s interests for the rest of his life. He also mentioned his support for events like EXPO 2027, an international exhibition to be held in Belgrade.

Honors and awards

Because of his lifetime of achievements, multiple organizations have given Wozniak awards and recognition, including:

• In 1979, Wozniak was awarded the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award.
• In 1985, both he and Steve Jobs received the National Medal of Technology from US President Ronald Reagan, the country's highest honor for achievements related to technological progress.
• Later, he donated funds to create the "Woz Lab" at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1998, he was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for co-founding Apple Computer and inventing the Apple I personal computer."
• In 2000, Wozniak received the American Computer & Robotics Museum's George R. Stibitz Computing and Communications Innovator Award "for inventing the Apple I & Apple II computers & for co-founding of the Apple Computer Company." In 2022, Wozniak received the museum's Lifetime Achievement award for his role in the invention of the Apple I & II computers and the co-founding Apple. He has also personally signed and donated an Apple I to the museum, and is listed as one of the museum's "founders" level donors for this donation.
• In September 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and in 2001 he was awarded the 7th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment.
• The American Humanist Association awarded him the Isaac Asimov Science Award in 2011.
• In 2004, Wozniak was given the 5th Annual Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology.
• He was awarded the Global Award of the President of Armenia for Outstanding Contribution to Humanity Through IT in 2011.
• On February 17, 2014, in Los Angeles, Wozniak was awarded the 66th Hoover Medal from IEEE President & CEO J. Roberto de Marca. The award is presented to an engineer whose professional achievements and personal endeavors have advanced the well-being of humankind and is administered by a board representing five engineering organizations: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the American Society of Civil Engineers; the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers; and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
• The New York City Chapter of Young Presidents' Organization presented their 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award to Wozniak on October 16, 2014, at the American Museum of Natural History.
• In November 2014, Industry Week added Wozniak to the Manufacturing Hall of Fame.
• On June 19, 2015, Wozniak received the Legacy for Children Award from the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. The Legacy for Children Award honors an individual whose legacy has significantly benefited the learning and lives of children. The purpose of the Award is to focus Silicon Valley's attention on the needs of our children, encouraging us all to take responsibility for their well-being. Candidates are nominated by a committee of notable community members involved in children's education, health care, human and social services, and the arts. The city of San Jose named a street "Woz Way" in his honor. The street address of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose is 180 Woz Way.
• On June 20, 2015, The Cal Alumni Association (UC Berkeley's Alumni Association) presented Wozniak with the 2015 Alumnus of the Year Award. "We are honored to recognize Steve Wozniak with CAA's most esteemed award," said CAA President Cynthia So Schroeder '91. "His invaluable contributions to education and to UC Berkeley place him among Cal's most accomplished and respected alumni."
• In March 2016, High Point University announced that Wozniak will serve as their Innovator in Residence. Wozniak was High Point University's commencement speaker in 2013. Through this ongoing partnership, Wozniak will connect with High Point University students on a variety of topics and make campus-visits periodically.
• In March 2017, Wozniak was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 18 on its list of the 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs.
• Wozniak is the 2021 recipient of the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award "for pioneering the design of consumer-friendly personal computers."

For his contributions to technology, Wozniak has been awarded a number of Honorary Doctoral degrees, which include the following:

• University of Colorado Boulder: 1989
• North Carolina State University: 2004
• Kettering University: 2005
• Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale: 2005
• ESPOL University in Ecuador: 2008
• Michigan State University, in East Lansing: 2011
• Concordia University in Montreal, Canada: June 22, 2011
• State Engineering University of Armenia: November 11, 2011
• Santa Clara University: June 16, 2012
• University Camilo José Cela in Madrid, Spain: November 8, 2013
• Lincoln Law School in San Jose, California: May 19, 2023
• Technical University of Moldova (UTM) in Chișinău, Moldova: October 19, 2025

In media

Steve Wozniak has appeared in many media interviews and stories since Apple was founded. He has been featured in books, documentaries, and films about his life and work.

• Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015) – a book about Steve Jobs and his relationship with Wozniak.
• Camp Woz: The Admirable Lunacy of Philanthropy – a 2009 documentary about Wozniak’s charitable efforts.
• Geeks On Board – a 2007 documentary about early computer pioneers.
• The Secret History of Hacking – a 2001 documentary film featuring Wozniak and other early computer hackers.
• Triumph of the Nerds – a 1996 PBS series about the development of personal computers.
• Steve Wozniak's Formative Moment – a 2016 short film from Reddit about Wozniak’s early life.

• Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) – a TNT film directed by Martyn Burke. Wozniak is played by Joey Slotnick, and Jobs is played by Noah Wyle.
• Jobs (2013) – a film directed by Joshua Michael Stern. Wozniak is played by Josh Gad, and Jobs is played by Ashton Kutcher.
• Steve Jobs (2015) – a film directed by Danny Boyle, with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Wozniak is played by Seth Rogen, and Jobs is played by Michael Fassbender.
• Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates: The Competition to Control the Personal Computer, 1974–1999 – a 2015 National Geographic Channel documentary.

• TechTV – The Screen Savers (2002-09-27) – an episode featuring an interview with Adrian Lamo, along with Wozniak and Kevin Mitnick, a convicted hacker.
• After watching Kathy Griffin perform stand-up in Saratoga, California, Wozniak began dating her. They attended the 2007 Emmy Awards and appeared on her TV show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. Wozniak was her date at the Producers Guild of America award show. However, in 2008, Griffin said they were no longer dating but remained friends.
• Wozniak appears as a parody of himself in the TV series Code Monkeys. He plays the owner of a company before selling it to fund a new project. He also appears in a parody of the "Get a Mac" ads in the final episode of the show’s second season.
• Wozniak is interviewed in the documentary Hackers Wanted.
• Wozniak competed on Season 8 of Dancing with the Stars in 2009 with Karina Smirnoff. He received low scores but continued competing. He later claimed the judges might have lied about the scores, but he apologized after learning about the judging process. He was eliminated on March 31, 2009, after scoring 12 out of 30 for an Argentine Tango.
• On September 30, 2010, Wozniak appeared on The Big Bang Theory Season 4 episode "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification." He was dining at a restaurant where Penny works when Sheldon approached him using a robot. Leonard explained who Wozniak was, but Penny said she already knew him from Dancing with the Stars.
• On September 30, 2013, Wozniak appeared on John Wants Answers with early Apple employees Daniel Kottke and Andy Hertzfeld to discuss the movie Jobs.
• In April 2021, Wozniak joined the panel for the TV show Unicorn Hunters, a business investment series created by the makers of The Masked Singer.