Steve Wozniak Says Apple Got Arrogant

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Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and all around nice guy, had a few choice things to say about the company he helped build. The interview is in audio format so you don't even have to read it, you can just listen. ;)

TalkCentral editor Duncan McLeod asked Wozniak, who is in Johannesburg to speak at First National Bank’s leadership summit, for his views on the mobile platform wars, the patent disputes between Apple and Samsung, the emergence of the post-PC era and much more besides. It’s an interview you simply don’t want to miss.
 
Woz talked to Duncan McLeod of the Clan McLeod? Hmmm, interesting... :D
 
of course, yet girls likes arrogant people. and guys like girls.

so apple wins the market
 
I sure like his outlook on the patent wars. It's worked well for Intel and AMD as well as others, it would only make sense between Apple and Google and the Android camp. Plus it could well be mutually beneficial to both sides.
 
Shareholders are certainly glad he doesn't. Woz is great, but he'd run the company into the ground.

I think the greed that companies have will run them into the ground. Woz was one of the original founders of Apple, and for good reasons. Also lets not forget that Apple wasn't always successful. For a good long time Apple was creating ugly and slow computers. I would call their PowerPC era of computers a laughable display of arrogance. How often did we hear how much faster their machines were compared to Intel processors?

The truth is the iPod gave Apple a second chance, and paved the way for things like the iPhone and iPad. Their computers are still relatively unsuccessful. Who knows how long their iOS devices will stay successful as well? If Apple doesn't change their methods soon, history will repeat itself. Apple needs a guy like Woz who is down to earth. Bring them back to reality, rather then focus squarely on profits.

A company that's too profit oriented will eventually collapse.
ah011209gcttg.jpg
 
Apple needs a new face. It should be Steve Wozniac, or Guy Kawasaki.
 
Maybe so, but I think he'd be a great consultant for projects, maybe for a bit of PR as well.
I'd like to say that he'd make a good frontman, but he just isn't the type to tow company lines. From a public relations perspective, that's an incredibly dangerous thing, especially with a company as valuable as Apple.

It's possible the good he could do might outweigh the damage, but I don't really think that's the case.
 
Woz was the technical genius behind Apple, whereas Jobs was the marketing guy. Neither would succeed with Apple without the other. I wouldn't want Woz as the head of Apple. He's a nerd, like us. Now, if he were head of development, that'd be a different story.

Out of all my Microsoft fanboy dreams, I'd rather meet Woz than anyone from Microsoft.
 
Shareholders are certainly glad he doesn't. Woz is great, but he'd run the company into the ground.

He also doesn't wear turtlenecks and scream at his fellow employees.

Honestly though Steve would probably make a good CEO in terms of ideas but he would suck at marketing which is 90 percent of the success on a product these days.
 
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that Steve wozniak is right and that apple is arrogant -groklaw
 
Out of all my Microsoft fanboy dreams, I'd rather meet Woz than anyone from Microsoft.
I wouldn't want to meet anyone from Microsoft. I think they're all crazy. Woz though created the personal computer, and started a massive chain reaction. You could say he was the catalyst to everything computers today. The fact that he's a nice guy and is charming would be enough reason to have him working at Apple. Would rather have him on stage then Tim Cook.
 
Apple needs a guy like Woz who is down to earth. Bring them back to reality, rather then focus squarely on profits.
We live in a capitalistic economy where maximizing profit is everything. Companies actually fire managers and drop divisions if they have a decline in revenue, even while they're still producing a profit(ex: Jack Welch was well known for doing this at GE).
 
I actually saw Ballmer walk by today in the commons :eek:. Surprisingly he wasn't talking about developers.
 
Shareholders are certainly glad he doesn't. Woz is great, but he'd run the company into the ground.

Lots of tech guys run tech companies. The best tech companies were started by tech guys not businessmen. When companies get rid of the tech guy, and have a businessman run things, innovation declines.
 
He lost me when he started to praise iTunes.

However, I do somewhat agree with him about Apples systems being too closed & the problem with one-size-fits-all. This lack of choose will eventually lead to Apples decline.
 
We live in a capitalistic economy where maximizing profit is everything. Companies actually fire managers and drop divisions if they have a decline in revenue, even while they're still producing a profit(ex: Jack Welch was well known for doing this at GE).

Sure capitalistic, cause that's why our government bailed out American car companies and banks. That's capitalism right?
 
I think the greed that companies have will run them into the ground. Woz was one of the original founders of Apple, and for good reasons. Also lets not forget that Apple wasn't always successful. For a good long time Apple was creating ugly and slow computers. I would call their PowerPC era of computers a laughable display of arrogance. How often did we hear how much faster their machines were compared to Intel processors?

The truth is the iPod gave Apple a second chance, and paved the way for things like the iPhone and iPad. Their computers are still relatively unsuccessful. Who knows how long their iOS devices will stay successful as well? If Apple doesn't change their methods soon, history will repeat itself. Apple needs a guy like Woz who is down to earth. Bring them back to reality, rather then focus squarely on profits.

A company that's too profit oriented will eventually collapse.
ah011209gcttg.jpg

Saying their computers are unsuccessful is a big stretch. They're very successful, especially in the notebook space.
 
Saying their computers are unsuccessful is a big stretch. They're very successful, especially in the notebook space.
I think that's about to change. I've seen a shift on college campuses over the past few years where 90% of the laptops in lecture halls are all Macs. Given most of those people will stop buying them after college when mommy and daddy aren't paying the exorbitant prices for them but that loyalty and familiarity will carry over to their adult lives.
 
Lots of tech guys run tech companies. The best tech companies were started by tech guys not businessmen.
It's not the fact that Woz is a tech guy that's the problem. The problem is that he's not going to run the company the way the others have run it (namely Jobs), because he's Woz. He just isn't a maximize-profits-at-great-costs kind of guy. That was who Jobs was, and it's hard to argue that it didn't work out pretty well for the company.

You and I could probably sit down with Woz, listen to all the things he'd do differently, and find all of his proposals pretty agreeable. The problem is that what we find agreeable and what investors find agreeable are often two entirely different things.
 
We live in a capitalistic economy where maximizing profit is everything. Companies actually fire managers and drop divisions if they have a decline in revenue, even while they're still producing a profit(ex: Jack Welch was well known for doing this at GE).

No we don't.

We have a psuedocapitalistic economy in which large corporations act in lockstep with the state to screw people over.
 
No we don't.

We have a psuedocapitalistic economy in which large corporations act in lockstep with the state to screw people over.

In order to...maximize profit perhaps? What, you think corporations' sole purpose in life is to screw people over? Step away from the podium mr ventura
 
In order to...maximize profit perhaps? What, you think corporations' sole purpose in life is to screw people over? Step away from the podium mr ventura

Big corporations are like big government. They are both bloated, inefficient, and unsustainable on an even playing field. Government "sustains" itself through the forcible theft of people's money; if it had to earn its money honestly, it would have collapsed under its own weight.

Big corporations sustain themselves by co-opting the government that is supposedly "by the people for the people" and buying laws and regulations that favor them over smaller competitors who cannot afford to buy laws of their own. In a true, free market, capitalist society, there would be no state to give a coercive advantage to those who have more money. The agile would run circles around the big and bloated and they too, would collapse under their own weight.

Apple is a perfect example of this. Rather than actually compete, they chose to bully their competitors and to use force and state-sanctioned violence to force their competitors to stop competing with them. They have an insane amount of money with which to get the state to do whatever they want. Their arrogance will be their undoing, but I fear the damage they will do in the interim will be permanent.
 
I wouldn't want to meet anyone from Microsoft. I think they're all crazy. Woz though created the personal computer, and started a massive chain reaction. You could say he was the catalyst to everything computers today. The fact that he's a nice guy and is charming would be enough reason to have him working at Apple. Would rather have him on stage then Tim Cook.

Agreed. Bill Gates was a 'Softie, and I wouldn't mind meeting him (couldn't stand him - hated the guy until he left MSFT). Woz, though, is in a league of his own. He's really humble, but he's done so damn much. I do credit him with the birth of the PC, though the Apple 1. Yes, it would have happened otherwise, blah blah blah, but he DID it. The guy is AMAZING. I've read some stuff about him doing stuff for Jobs when Jobs worked for Atari and the early Apple days and saw some Kathy Griffin days. Love the guy.
 
Apple has always been run by arrogant evil ass holes and worshiped by clueless fucking hipster that feed off that evil like a cancer and never know how much the stuff they buy sucks balls.

if woz ran apple i might buy some apple crap again like I did with the fucking apple 2 back in the 80 s when they did not suck.
 
Big corporations are like big government. They are both bloated, inefficient, and unsustainable on an even playing field. Government "sustains" itself through the forcible theft of people's money; if it had to earn its money honestly, it would have collapsed under its own weight.

Big corporations sustain themselves by co-opting the government that is supposedly "by the people for the people" and buying laws and regulations that favor them over smaller competitors who cannot afford to buy laws of their own. In a true, free market, capitalist society, there would be no state to give a coercive advantage to those who have more money. The agile would run circles around the big and bloated and they too, would collapse under their own weight.

Apple is a perfect example of this. Rather than actually compete, they chose to bully their competitors and to use force and state-sanctioned violence to force their competitors to stop competing with them. They have an insane amount of money with which to get the state to do whatever they want. Their arrogance will be their undoing, but I fear the damage they will do in the interim will be permanent.

+100
There's an amazing amount of truth in your post, too many people just don't get it.
 
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