DWTS Profile: Steve Wozniak

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Stephen Wozniak, 58, has been an inventor, engineer and philanthropist for the past three decades, and is best known for co-founding Apple Computer with Steve Jobs. Wozniak created the Apple I and Apple II computers in the mid-1970s, and the Apple II computer eventually became of the top selling personal computers of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

 

Wozniak, whose nicknames include “The Woz”, “Wonderful Wizard of Woz” and “iWoz,” was born in 1950 in San Jose, California. He became friends with Steve Jobs in 1970, and the two young men sold some of their possessions to raise $1,300 and assemble their first computer prototypes in Jobs' bedroom and garage.

 

By 1975, Wozniak withdrew from the University of California at Berkeley and came up with the computer that eventually made him famous, the Apple I. In April 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer. In 1980, Apple went public and Wozniak and Jobs became multimillionaires.

 

In February 1981, Wozniak crashed his own airplane while taking off from a California airport. As a result of the accident, he suffered from retrograde amnesia and could remember nothing about the crash. Wozniak did not return to Apple after recovering from the plane crash and returned to UC Berkeley to finally earn his undergraduate degree in 1986.

Wozniak permanently ended his full-time employment with Apple in 1987, 12 years after creating the company. He remains a company shareholder, however, and has maintained his friendship with Jobs.

 

Wozniak received the National Medal of Technology from former President Ronald Reagan, and an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Colorado. In September 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

 

In September 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.