I gave up.

Edit: To give this a bit more depth, let me explain. Steve Wozniak is a brilliant man, a kind man, a wonderful man. I'd love to have him as a friend, family member, coworker (I said the opposite of Jobs when reading his biography). He just simply cannot write. Every page reads like an excited little boy who just came home from school (And then I built this project. And then I pushed the "on" button. And the lights didn't work. But I learned a lot. And I tried a new project for the science fair.), which I believe Woz still is, at heart. That's fantastic. That's lovely. But it doesn't make for good writing.

There is something to possibly be said about the fact that maybe Woz's life is a bit dull for this sort of thing. He had no issues with his childhood. He loved his parents. He's unblemished by his past. I'm telling you, he's an absolutely excellent guy, but such good-naturedness doesn't leave a lot of room for conflict.

Then again, I also think there's tons that's interesting about Woz. But it would have been better left to an autobiographer to tell, someone who could emphasize the important parts, locate them in the spirit of the times, or at the very least draw out broader thoughts from his subject. This leads me to my second problem: although this book was published earlier, I read the Jobs autobiography first. That means that any of the exciting little stories embedded here (the early days of phone phreaking, the Home Brew Club, Apple's early days) I had already heard--and frequently in much more fascinating detail.

So, no matter how many times I tried, I just couldn't finish this book. Sorry Woz! Let's be friends?

This book was an interesting read. I wanted to get a different view of Apple, one that didn't center around Steve Jobs and I feel I got that. In fact, I think he did a little too good of a job there. One of the main reasons I wanted to get a different perspective is to see the relationship between Woz and Jobs. This book talks about Jobs, but as it goes on and Apple begins, he is hardly mentioned. I can understand his reasoning behind this, as I'm sure there would be resentment toward the man that took a large part of credit for what you created, but don't omit him because of that. It was refreshing to hear it from a more technical point of view. I'm more of a software guy, but it was nice to learn about how these older technologies instead of the drama of the business world. As for those saying he is some stuck up, cocky prick... Its an memoir, what did you expect?

My 3 stars are simply because
1) lack of mention of Jobs, whom I'm sure make more of an impression as Woz let on (although not as much as the media portrays...)
2) The writing. I'm not a picky person, and by reading this review you'll know I'm no writer... But this story seemed like Woz was overly enthusiastic. I mean, it really does feel like a child trying to explain an action movie right after seeing it.

I got through the first two hours of the audiobook and then gave up. I admire Wozniak for his intelligence and contribution to modern computing, but just could not put up with the extremely arrogant and conceited tone in this book. I kept waiting for an insightful part where he would talk about his experiences with computers, but it never came. Not worth it.

Wozniak is a brilliant engineer, and this comes through quite clearly in the book. His approach to simplicity and minimalism in circuit design is well articulated throughout, and his description of how he came up with the design to manipulate the bits coming out of the chip to create a color display for the computer just blew me away. What also comes across clearly is his absolute desire to be an engineer and nothing else. He was happy at HP because of the culture surrounding engineers. Later, despite his influence, he completely avoided management roles. There is a lesson hidden in this book, and not explicitly stated, that if companies can somehow keep individual contributor, brilliant engineers in positions of influence, then great things may follow. Where Wozniak goes too far, in my opinion, is his disdain for teams. Wozniak believes that the best products and designs can only be produced by an individual engineer working in isolation. This is how he worked, but I’ve seen far more successes delivered by small, collaborative, inspired teams than by people working in isolation.

The autobiography itself is a little tough to read. Wozniak is a gifted engineer, and although he had Gina Smith co-writing this book, it is his language and voice that comes through. It is not the language or voice of a gifted writer. As such, the book suffers a bit. Additionally, Wozniak claims a number of firsts which, to be honest, I have seen a number of them disputed but I cannot judge which is correct.

All in all, this is an interesting read and I’m glad that I completed this book. Hearing a first hand account by one of the primary innovators of the Silicon Valley is not something to be passed by, and I do believe anyone building products, especially engineers, would benefit directly by trying to build products as efficiently as Steve Wozniak did.

See my other reviews here!

An honest book from a good man. Maybe it doesn't have the glitter n glamour of any Apple book centered on Steve but it's a good read for anyone who dreams to be part of a creative revolution that changes the world!!

Really liked this book, probably the definitive book to understand the early Apple. Never bothered reading any of the puff bios or accounts focused on Steve Jobs. Jobs, like Ray Koch at McDonald's, was important to Apple because of the idiosyncrasies of late-century American corporate enterprises. You needed a "face", and Jobs was it.

What prevented Jobs from being remembered as a snake oil salesman in the early Apple, was that he had a really good product, and the first few products were either engineered by Wozniak or had his influence on the board level.

At the core of this book are Wozniak's chip/board design/architecture challenges and the subsequent hardware concerns Apple had in developing the Apple 2, from the case design and composition, to batch producing components, to some of the more concrete design philosophies focused on chip/circuit/memory compactness. Unless you work with circuit boards regularly (I don't), a lot of Wozniak' s discussion on board real estate will fly over you, as it did me. Definitely requires a 2nd reading and notes.

The book isn't a technical manual though, and the reader gets a lot of glimpses at the personal/business interactions of the early Apple, as well as Wozniak's personal background, and his view of how came to develop the skills required for his gifted contributions to hardware engineering. From the early blue-boxes, his electronics pranks, and his childhood interests in boolean logic, Wozniak comes off as a really innovative self-taught engineer, who got used by Jobs. Although this isn't stated by Wozniak directly, who spends a few sentences between every couple paragraphs lauding Jobs, one can easily read this interpretation between the lines.

Wozniak isn't perfect either and his view is that he had no business sense (he quit Apple to start a TV remote control company), and only through Jobs business acumen, did Apple get those first few batch orders, that allowed Apple to survive and expand. "High level" people are a dime a dozen, however, and if it wasn't Jobs, I suspect others could have filled that space, at least in the early Apple. The late 90s comeback is a different story.

A definite recommend, a more substantive and honest read on the founding of Apple.

I really enjoyed Steve's book. It made me want to be an engineer so much that I actually opened up and played with my son's SNAPCircuits set! I think I missed my calling. But seriously, Woz is a fascinating character... a mix of brilliant engineer, and positive free-spirit, change-the-world man.

I was growing up at the time of the computer revolution and I'm now curious about the computers behind all those video games I used to play. The story of Wozniak's original creations and advancements ties directly into an industry that has greatly shaped my life (computers).

As for the writing... I just realized this was probably mostly transcribed from open interviews with structure added, but not a lot of rewriting. And it worked for me. The writing is NOT atrocious, it's just written like somebody talking about his memories.

I learned a lot, was inspired, and I'm glad Wozniak finally was able to tell HIS side of the story and set the record straight on a few things. His childhood, the pranks he pulled, his boyish excitement about discovery all through his life... I loved it. The serious engineer might poke some holes in his recollections, but they miss the overall point of the book: Build, invent, enjoy, live.

A very interesting autobiography. Steve Wozniak is an interesting character, and this book shows how he thinks from his own perspective. It really excited me about reading other autobiographies.

Solid autobiography of and by Steve Wozniak; essentially the modern era Leonardo da Vinci. Interesting both due to the information included and what he chose to include, both of which are good insights into his psychology.

I knew most of the content going in, but it was still refreshing, fun and interesting. Woz is my favorite of the Apple Steves. If you enjoy biographical works and are a computer junkie, I can highly recommend this. Even if you're not quite in that category, the historical insight to the PC revolution is truly interesting, especially if you haven't read a lot about it.

This book fits well into a group of really exceptional books that give us insight to the whole technology revolution from the late 19th century to the present. Here is my personal list of such books:
1.tQuantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, by: Manjit Kumar
2.tThe Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, by: Jon Gertner
3.tSurely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, by: Richard P. Feynman
4.tExploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell, by: Phil Lapsley
5.tCreativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by: Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace
6.tiWoz: How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the Way, by: Steve Wozniak & Gina Smith
7.tIn the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives, by: Steven Levy
8.tMoore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary, by: Arnold Thackray, David Brock , Rachel Jones

I’m sure there’s a book about Microsoft out there; I’m looking for such a book since one belongs on this list. I’m also starting a book about Elon Musk and will see if this makes it into my personal list. Cheers,
-Mike

I am surprised at how much I did not enjoy this book. I admit to being quite biased in favor of Jobs, Wozniak, and all their fruit-flavored technology. So imagine my surprise when I found myself struggling to finish this book. It was quite the let down. My first complaint is that it is poorly written. The tone is very conversational, and while sometimes that works well in a book, here it does not. Apparently, the author had conversations/interviews with Woz and those were made into the book. It was not successful, in my opinion. It also is not really as much of a biography as I had expected. For example, while Steve admits to having two failed marriages, we don't really learn much about his wives or any other relationships he had. The book was even light on his relationship with Jobs, which is surprising, given the history of Apple computer. The book was heavy on technology talk and that made the narrative slow down considerably. It wasn't until the last chapter when Woz seems to come alive through the written words and was really speaking from his heart. Too bad he couldn't have managed that throughout the entire book.

One of my favorite literary genres is the origin story. How did a great thing get invented, how did a great person become great. This one is the story of how Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer at a very young age, and helped found Apple Computer.

This is a very breezy read, pretty obviously dictated and barely edited. It’s like sitting in a room with Steve Wozniak as he tells you his life story, with some diversions and some humorous anecdotes thrown in. I finished it in a weekend, and I’m a slow reader.

The primary purpose of the book appears to be Woz claiming his place in history as the inventor of the personal computer. It’s a major achievement, an amazing piece of engineering history, and Woz puts it into an understandable context. His father was a very high-end engineer, and brought home equipment that few people had access to. By the time Woz was 11, he was building rudimentary electronic counting machines for the school science fair, at a time when few people had seen an electronic calculator. His Apple I computer was a hobbyist’s dream, but the amazing achievement is the Apple ][, which was years ahead of anybody else. And Woz put it all together himself, a one-man show.

Woz makes it clear that he had very little interest in forming a company, and he left Apple (for the most part) right after computers got too complicated for one individual to build them.

The story doesn’t get much deeper than that, but you do come away from it with a sense that you’ve met Woz and he’s told you his best stories, and you could do worse than that.

Postscript: It's not a great book, in itself, not impressive at all. But it is filled with interesting tidbits about the history of computer technology, I find myself (a few months later) quite glad I read it.