Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had a bit of advice for students at the University of Colorado: don’t quit your day job, but make time for yourself to tinker.
“Once you get out of college, the first thing to do is pay your rent,” Wozniak told the audience inside a mostly full Macky Auditorium on Monday evening. “But leave yourself time to sit back and think out ideas and work on projects at night … don’t throw away your life. ‘I’m done with work in the day time, I’m just going to go party at night.’ That won’t get you to the real big success.”
Wozniak, who delivered the keynote address for this year’s Conference on World Affairs, attended classes on the Boulder campus for one year in the late 1960s but left when he was put on probation for “computer abuse” by the university, according to his autobiography.
Chancellor Phil DiStefano, who took a selfie with a student on stage during the event’s introduction, joked that Wozniak was “quite a prankster” while on campus.
The conference, which is in its 68th year of providing free panels, speakers and performances for a week in April, landed Wozniak through a new partnership with the Cultural Events Board, a group funded by student fees that paid him $50,000 for his talk.
Speaking at an often frantic pace, Wozniak discussed his relationship with Steve Jobs, the early days of Apple, his views on robots and the future of technology and the importance of early education.
Throughout the conversation, which was guided by two student moderators, Wozniak frequently drew laughs from the audience by asking, “What was the question?” and, “What was I going to say?” because he was speaking so quickly.
Wozniak reminisced about his days on campus, describing the first time he saw snow and his joy at being able to experiment in his first year living on his own.
Wearing sneakers and a black pullover, he described taking an introductory computing course, which, at the time, was a graduate-level class.
“There wouldn’t be an Apple without this campus,” Wozniak said.
He described several formulas he’s come up with in his lifetime, including “happiness = food, fun and friends” and “happiness = smiles minus frowns.”
Wozniak also said he created “Woz’s law” for the day when robots are advanced enough to take care of all human needs.
He suggested that one of the solutions to elementary classroom overcrowding might be artificial intelligence.
“My theory is we should always be friends with the robots so they’re always helping us,” he said. “No human can harm a robot that thinks and feels.”
Wozniak also described at length his relationship with Jobs, saying that the two had complementary personalities and goals in life.
Jobs, Wozniak said, was more interested in becoming an important person in the world, whereas Wozniak wanted other engineers to be impressed with the quality of his work. That split worked for them as partners, he said.
“Steve (Jobs) didn’t know computers, that’s why we have the beauty that we have today,” Wozniak said referring to Apple’s products. “He wanted a computer that he could understand and use.”
Sarah Kuta: 303-473-1106, kutas@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/sarahkuta
