Steve Jobs is the focus of not one but two new films coming out as the anniversary of his death approaches. The world has been fascinated with the Apple cofounder and his charisma, entrepreneurial spirit, flair for business, and imagination for decades. He was even the focus of a third film which came out about two years ago, and his office at the Apple headquarters is practically revered as hallowed ground.
Giving Steve Jobs too much credit?
But just how much of a hand did he have in developing Apple’s first products. Not much, at least on the Apple I and Apple II computers, according to fellow Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who is affectionately called “The Woz” by fans. He told Sarina Khemchandani that Steve Jobs did not play any role at all in the design of Apple’s first two computers, reports Julie Bort of Business Insider. Of course this isn’t exactly breaking news as he made similar comments in a 2013 interview.
At the age of 14, Khemchandi is already an entrepreneur, and The Woz agreed to let her interview him late last month. She asked him about the role Jobs played in the design of the Apple I and Apple II computers because of the controversy surrounding the 2013 film about Jobs’ life, which starred Ashton Kutcher.
The Woz actually gets the credit
It will be interesting to see if either or both of the upcoming films about Steve Jobs will be accurate in telling this part of the Apple story. Wozniak told Khemchandi that he had been making computers since he was in high school, and he was experimenting with ways to build computers using fewer parts.
As it turns out, he actually designed the Apple I and Apple II computers before he even met Jobs. In fact, while the world credits Steve Jobs with incredible ingenuity and innovation, Wozniak said Jobs didn’t even know much about technology in those early days.
“He’d never designed anything as a hardware engineer, and he didn’t know software,” Wozniak told the young entrepreneur. “He wanted to be important, and the important people are always the business people. So that’s what he wanted to do.”
