There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him • Hacker News Board

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#121

Post by mrexcess » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #50

hyperhello wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs dealt with people and respected the machines. Woz dealt with machines and respected the people.

Jobs fucked over a lot of people and respected the machines. Woz dealt with the machines and respected the people.

>Jobs fucked over a lot of people

Oft repeated, and not untrue, but very incomplete.

Jobs also made a lot of people. A lot of fortunes in SilVal only exist because of Steve Jobs.

He also virtually single handedly and without much fanfare at the time or credit in the history books created the employee compensation model that came to define SilVal success, with workaday employees and especially engineering contributors receiving stock options to reward them and keep them invested in the company's success.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#122

Post by mghackerlady » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #107

mghackerlady wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Stallman there wouldn't be GNU, so the operating system used to host this site and the majority of the web wouldn't exist. The compiler used to build that operating system wouldn't exist. The free software movement that later birthed its little cousin "open source" wouldn't exist, neither would the free culture movement to some extent. The ideals of the free software movement inspired the architects of the Wo…

Most of that is incorrect and revisionist history. The Web was developed on a commercial system (the NExT from Steve Job’s company) and initial implementations were made on various commercial systems by differing groups. Even today, Linux is at most 50% of the web servers on the Internet.

It was developed on a proprietary system (free software can be commercial) and yes, various implementations were made on said proprietary systems, but there were always free ones like lynx (the oldest browser still in development). Plus, Tim Berners-Lee was likely inspired by the GNU and BSD projects when he made the protocol royalty free

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#123

Post by mrexcess » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

f1shy wrote: post #116

simonh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to believe. I know he was incredibly demanding, and I've heard the stories, but he also inspired a lot of loyalty and commitment from plenty of very talented engineers who were not short of other options.

As a person he didn’t want to recognize the daughter, if I remember correctly.

Everybody makes mistakes, and this is definitely a huge one to have made, and a sad aspect of his legacy, but if this is all you know about Steve Jobs, you don't know anything about Steve Jobs.

He made up with Lisa - to the extent one can after all that - in the end. And he raised three other kids, after becoming older and wiser as a dad.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#124

Post by davisr » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #107

mghackerlady wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Stallman there wouldn't be GNU, so the operating system used to host this site and the majority of the web wouldn't exist. The compiler used to build that operating system wouldn't exist. The free software movement that later birthed its little cousin "open source" wouldn't exist, neither would the free culture movement to some extent. The ideals of the free software movement inspired the architects of the Wo…

Most of that is incorrect and revisionist history. The Web was developed on a commercial system (the NExT from Steve Job’s company) and initial implementations were made on various commercial systems by differing groups. Even today, Linux is at most 50% of the web servers on the Internet.

It's not revisionist. The entire NeXT codebase was literally compiled with GCC.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#125

Post by mrexcess » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #55

People are crediting Woz here with great things but not going far enough. Woz invented the consumer personal computer. That is one of the greatest inventions in human history, perhaps the greatest.

>Woz invented the consumer personal computer.

Definitely had a hand in it. If you want to dime out the singular technical innovation that Woz contributed that really changed everything, IMO it was figuring out how to make the Apple II do color on the cheap. That was the real competitive differentiator at the time that made personal computers attractive to consumers, and cheap enough to contemplate for folks without a garage full of electronics equipment.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#126

Post by mghackerlady » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #107

mghackerlady wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Stallman there wouldn't be GNU, so the operating system used to host this site and the majority of the web wouldn't exist. The compiler used to build that operating system wouldn't exist. The free software movement that later birthed its little cousin "open source" wouldn't exist, neither would the free culture movement to some extent. The ideals of the free software movement inspired the architects of the Wo…

Most of that is incorrect and revisionist history. The Web was developed on a commercial system (the NExT from Steve Job’s company) and initial implementations were made on various commercial systems by differing groups. Even today, Linux is at most 50% of the web servers on the Internet.

Linux is at most 88 percent of servers, since windows is only estimated to be used on 11% of servers and the other unices aren't used outside of very specific circumstances

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#127

Post by alwa » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #64

postalcoder wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wait that was me. I mean, yes you're right that vc and startups are inextricable. But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same. I realize that’s a normative claim. Like the blind men and the elephant, we’re each touching a different part.

> But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same. And your argument is based on the fact that you’d like this to be true as well as the fact that the vc company behind this site said, “Trust us bro!” How is that different from the cow saying, “The farmer told us we’re walking through a fun maze!”

I mean

Marketing budgets can fund stuff whose authenticity is independent of who’s writing the check, right? Especially when their audience is extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity. Xerox can be an evil megacorp and also be sugar daddy to the PARC.

If the fun maze is taking YC’s money and using it to start a company, sure, I see your point. I’d say (right here on YC’s digital estate!) probably don’t do that.

If the fun maze is the community that’s emerged on this site, which is indeed something the VC firm sponsors (surprisingly cheaply)…

Then in my case, it’s different because I frequently walk through the fun maze for as long as the maze is fun, then I wander back out to my fields. If the maze stopped being fun, or started requiring me to set aside my values, I would stop coming, and the farmer knows that.

The farmer doesn’t prod me, much less sneak up on me with a captive bolt. He doesn’t try to milk me while I’m walking through his maze. If I’m ever considering selling my steak, I’ll probably apply commercial reasoning to my choice of abattoir, regardless of how fun the maze was.

I contribute voluntarily, I enjoy the voluntary contributions of others. It’s a maze where people want to come.

I’d like this to be true, so I contribute to it being true, and I observe others contributing to sustaining its truth too. Intersubjective belief creates reality!

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#128

Post by mghackerlady » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #105

volkercraig wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the gnu projects, software would have remained in the domain of universities and industry. Distributing it for free and encapsulating it with an actual legal license was radical in and of itself, but the notion of being required to distribute source was even more radical. Without that, people don't learn to code outside of industry, people don't share ideas and software remains in corporate silos with no/low…

> outside of industry, people don't share ideas and software remains in corporate silos with no/low interoptability unless a business decides to form a strategic partnership. Computer science and computing was taught and done at universities long before Stallman and GNU came along. I was using C++ Release E at college before GNU started, provided by Bell Labs at no cost.

Sure it was free (as in beer) but was it free (as in speech?) Could you modify and improve the compiler? If you did, could you redistribute it? Knowing bell labs, the answer is a definite no to the last one

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#129

Post by mghackerlady » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

davisr wrote: post #124

NetMageSCW wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of that is incorrect and revisionist history. The Web was developed on a commercial system (the NExT from Steve Job’s company) and initial implementations were made on various commercial systems by differing groups. Even today, Linux is at most 50% of the web servers on the Internet.

It's not revisionist. The entire NeXT codebase was literally compiled with GCC.

There's even a funny story in there about how NeXT almost bypassed the GPL until GNU got Lawyers involved since them using a loophole would be very bad for peoples freedom

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#130

Post by calmbonsai » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #56

I once approached Woz about potentially speaking at Hacker News London, fully expecting my email to be completely ignored. A few days later, he actually responded enthusiastically and mentioned an upcoming trip to the UK. He loved the grassroots nature of the meetup and was really up for giving a talk (for free!) to the community. I then had multiple delightful interactions with his wife who managed his logistics. De…

I once had sushi (at a group table) with the man at a JavaOne.

They say "don't meet your heroes", but he was exactly as gracious, humble, funny, and knowledgeable as you would expect.

This was just after the first "Embedded Java" specs came out and we all had grand fun recognizing the over-engineering and dead-on-arrival of that architecture.