Steve Wozniak Is a Happy Guy

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Originally published at: Steve Wozniak Is a Happy Guy - TidBITS

After a Slashdot post linking to a CBS News profile of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak triggered comments about how he sold his Apple stock, the now 75-year-old Woz popped up to explain his situation, saying:

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

We enjoyed hanging out with Woz a bit on the MacMania Geek Cruise several decades ago, even though I apparently didn’t mention him in “Cruising with Mac Folk” (10 June 2002). I think of him every time I run across a $2 bill, since he gleefully explained to us how he enjoyed buying uncut sheets of $2 bills from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, having them professionally perforated and bound into pads, and then using them to tip waitstaff or confound cashiers. The prank even once got him interviewed by the Secret Service, to whom he gave a fake Laser Safety Officer ID and lived to tell the tale.

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I loved this. Thanks for sharing. He is a real hero!

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Most of us would be pretty happy in that situation! :joy:

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Love it. Thank you.

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One of the few mentally healthy people in the industry.

Live long and prosper!

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To be fair, a lot of tech titans give or will give their wealth away in one way or another. Gates, Ellison, and Cook being three of them.

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Though it’s often done as a tax dodge so they don’t end up any worse off financially. With Woz it seems like he is genuinely trying to do as much good as possible with his money without having an overriding goal to maximise how much he keeps.

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To be fair, most haven’t done anything close to that:

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Sure, I suppose. The same arguments are always going to be there, I guess…

  • Should the percentage of top wealth be the hands of so few, with a massive & growing wealth gap.
  • Is it good said members decide what causes money is spent in society, rather than where it may better be used.
  • Should tax incentives be used to incentivise said group to give, while also benefitting from said incentives.

… + another load of points, that’ll probably never be addressed. :man_shrugging:

[I’m sure this isn’t the forum for said discussions. So let’s stop there. ]

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Yeah, let’s wind this one down.

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