Steve Wozniak is an American inventor, electronics engineer, and computer programmer with an estimated net worth of $100 million. Wozniak is most well-known for co-founding Apple Computer (now Apple, Inc.) with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne.
Stephen Gary Wozniak was born on August 11, 1950 in San Jose, California. He is the son of Margaret and Jacob Wozniak. Wozniak met Steve Jobs while working at Hewlett-Packard in 1971. At the time, he was enrolled in California University at Berkeley, but withdrew after just one year. He didn’t return to school until 1987.
In 1971, Wozniak continued to work with Steve Jobs at arcade game company Atari in Los Gatos, California. In 1976, he would create the computer that made him famous. Collaborating with Jobs, Wozniak created the Apple I computer to impress the Palo Alto-based Homebrew Computer Club, a local group of electronic hobbyist. The creation was a huge hit with the club and prompted Jobs to come up with the idea to sell the prototype. Wozniak was skeptical, and instead the two decided to start their own company by selling off the few possessions they owned.
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak created Apple Computer. They would eventually create the Apple I and Apple II prototype computers. Apple I sold for $666.66 in 1976. Apple would soon take off and continue to grow and innovate far ahead of competition. With other engineers starting to join the company, Wozniak felt he was no longer needed.
In February of 1987, Wozniak permanently ended his full-time employment at Apple. He is still currently an employee that receives a stipend estimated to be about $120,000 a year. He is also an Apple shareholder, which is a significant portion of his net worth. Wozniak had an interesting relationship with Steve Jobs. The remained connected throughout their lives, but in 2006, Wozniak revealed that they weren’t close friends.
Wozniak’s post-Apple career is full of business ventures. In 1987, Wozniak founded the venture CL 9, a company that brought the first programmable remote control to the market. In 2001, he founded Wheels of Zeus a company that created the wireless GPS system.
Outside of business ventures, Wozniak joined Scottevest as an Advisory Board Member. He also joined Fusion-io in 2009 as their chief scientist. He’s also appeared as himself in various guest spots on television shows. In 2009, he competed on the 8th season of Dancing With the Stars. In total he’s been in six films, mostly tech-related documentaries.
For his career work, Wozniak has been award 12 honorary degrees from various institutions of higher learning around the country. Wozniak’s departure from Apple before the company really skyrocketed cost him hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth. Yet, as the sole creator of the Apple I and Apple II Wozniak revolutionized the microcomputer industry. A figure that instrumental is surely going to be worth ten figures. Still, $100 million is nothing to sneeze at that is for sure, but you wonder what Wozniak who was just as important or perhaps even more to Apple than Steve Jobs COULD have been worth if things went down a little differently.
Photo by Hannes Magerstaedt/Getty Images
