9-809-063
REV: FEBRUARY 4, 2011
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Professor Noam Wasserman prepared this case with transcription assistance from Research Associate Rachel Galper. This case was developed
from published sources. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements,
sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
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NOAM WASSERMAN
Apple’s Core
In 1983, Steve Jobs was featured on the cover of Time magazine when the personal computer was
named “Machine of the Year.” His co-founder, Steve Wozniak, was quoted as saying, “Steve didn’t
do one circuit, design, or piece of code.”1 The two had launched Apple Computer seven years before.
The Two Steves
Steve Wozniak grew up in suburban Santa Clara, California. At an early age, under his father’s
influence, he developed a strong view of ethics and an interest in technology.
Extreme honesty, extreme ethics, really. That’s the biggest thing he taught me . . . I never lie
even to this day. . . . The other thing my dad taught me was a lot about electronics. I so clearly
remember him telling me that engineering was the highest level of importance you could reach
in the world, that someone who could make electrical devices that do something good for
people takes society to a new level.2
The dream of building a personal computer was sparked for Wozniak when his father showed
him an article about the original ENIAC computer. The article speculated about computer technology
reaching “a point where anyone could buy a computer and put it in your house and learn how to use
it yourself. I thought that would be just the best thing, and that was The Dream . . . the single force
that drove me for years afterwards.”3 A zest for laughter also infused Wozniak’s life. He believed that
“[i]n my head, the guy who’d rather laugh than control things is going to be the one who has the
happier life.” In high school, Wozniak created the very first Dial-a-Joke service in the Bay Area, a feat
he jokingly says he would rather be known for than for having created the first personal computer.4
While in college at UC-Berkeley, Wozniak was introduced to Steve Jobs by a mutual friend named
Bill Fernandez. Jobs, who was still in high school, was four years behind Wozniak in school.
One day Bill told me, “Hey there’s someone you should meet. His name is Steve. He likes to
do pranks like you do, and he’s also into building electronics like you are.”. . . Steve and I just
sat on the sidewalk in front of Bill’s house for the longest time, just sharing stories—mostly
about pranks we pulled . . . I liked him. He was kind of skinny and wiry and full of energy. We
talked electronics, we talked about music we liked, and we traded stories about pranks we’d
pulled. We even pulled a few together.5
For the exclusive use of M. Nguyen, 2021.
This document is authorized for use only by Michael Nguyen in MAN 327H MURPHY FALL 2021 – 9:30 AM taught by MELISSA MURPHY, University of Texas at Austin from Aug 2021 to Feb
2022.
809-063 Apple’s Core
The two Steves had very different personalities and goals. When Jobs and Wozniak were
struggling to make money early on, they worked in a mall dressed as characters from Alice in
Wonderland. Wozniak recalled, “Steve didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. I remember years and years
later, I was commenting to him how much fun that Alice in Wonderland mall job was and he said,
‘No, it was lousy, we hardly got paid anything for it.’”6 However, Wozniak added, “What one of us
found difficult, the other often accomplished pretty handily.”7 Another observer said that the two
shared “the willingness to attempt the unlikely or the unachievable.”8
In his free time, Wozniak enjoyed creating computer circuit boards. “I wanted to put chips
together like an artist, better than anyone else could and in a way that would be the absolute most
usable by humans.”9 However, Jobs had a different perspective on Wozniak’s hobby: He saw a way
they could profit from it. Wozniak explained: “One day Steve Jobs came along and said, ‘Hey, let’s
sell these.’. . . We sold them for $150 and split the revenue.”10
After his third year at UC-Berkeley, Wozniak landed his “dream job”: Designing calculators at
technology pioneer Hewlett-Packard (HP), which had a very engineering-driven culture. “I really
thought I would spend the rest of my life there. That place was just the most perfect company.”11
Break-Out, and the Homebrew Spark
After high school, Jobs decided to attend Reed College in Oregon to study Eastern mysticism, and
became a vegetarian. At one point, though, he remembered, “I started to realize that maybe Thomas
Edison did a lot more to impact the world than Karl Marx and Neem Kairolie Baba put together.”12
He became a “wannabe businessman and Zen devotee,”13 and at 18, dropped out of college. Jobs later
said:
I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working–
For the exclusive use of M. Nguyen, 2021.
