Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios.
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: it is Friday. That means it is time for another
Speaker 1: classic episode. And this episode published on January second, two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. It is also Chris Palette's final episode as
Speaker 1: a co host of tech Stuff. Chris and I created
Speaker 1: tech Stuff back in two thousand and eight, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen he decided to step away from the
Speaker 1: show to focus on other things, and he definitely put
Speaker 1: his imprint on tech Stuff. Tech Stuff would not be
Speaker 1: the show it is without Chris Palette. This was the
Speaker 1: topic he decided he wanted to cover as his final episode.
Speaker 1: The wonderful wizard named was Steve Wasniak. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoy the curtain sweeps down, the spotlight goes out
Speaker 1: on our beloved Chris Palette. It is his final tech
Speaker 1: Stuff episode. This is not a joke. We may eventually
Speaker 1: be able to get him back on as a guest,
Speaker 1: but he's this is his his final episode as a
Speaker 1: host of tech Stuff. And uh, and he got to
Speaker 1: choose whatever topic he wanted. Unfortunately, almost all of them
Speaker 1: were ones we had already covered. Well. Actually, it surprised
Speaker 1: me that we didn't have a podcast on the person
Speaker 1: that we wanted to talk about today. Yeah. We we've
Speaker 1: mentioned him in several podcasts. Yeah, but yeah, we definitely
Speaker 1: one of text more colorful characters, right, and that, of
Speaker 1: course is the wonderful wizard named was was, yes, Steve
Speaker 1: Stephen Gary Wazniak. Yeah, um, one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of Apple. And he was born in on August eleventh,
Speaker 1: nine and uh. He came from a family that was
Speaker 1: technologically inclined. His dad was an engineer at a little
Speaker 1: company called lockeed Martin. I feel like I've heard of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah and uh and yeah he um. As a as
Speaker 1: a kid, he became very interested in engineering and electronics.
Speaker 1: Did you did you hear about what his favorite book
Speaker 1: series was that kind of inspired him? Actually it was
Speaker 1: the I looked at a lot of interviews. He's actually
Speaker 1: if you've never seen an interview with Wozniak, he's a
Speaker 1: very animated individual, well spoken, very passionate about what he does.
Speaker 1: It's clearly he truly enjoys technology like there's no irony there.
Speaker 1: He just loves it. And though he doesn't necessarily love
Speaker 1: all the things that we do with technology or the
Speaker 1: way that companies handle technology, he's not He actually is
Speaker 1: not so not in such a big fan of big companies.
Speaker 1: But we'll get an to that. But no, as a kid,
Speaker 1: his favorite book series was the Tom Swift series. So
Speaker 1: Tom Swift, if you don't know, he's a young man
Speaker 1: who is a kind of an engineer who could build
Speaker 1: just about anything in his own company. He would fight
Speaker 1: evil and and solve mysteries and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: And in fact, just as a tangent, Tom Swift plays
Speaker 1: a role in a in a totally different technology has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Wozniak. Do you do you happen
Speaker 1: to know what Tom Swift? It's actually his. Tom Swift's
Speaker 1: name is lent in a way to this technology. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Taser. Oh right, Taser stands Taser's technically an acronym.
Speaker 1: It stands for Thomas A. Swift's electric rifle. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we mentioned that a long time ago when
Speaker 1: we talked about the Taser. Yeah, I think so. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he in an interview. He credited the Tom Swift books
Speaker 1: as igniting his imagination at the idea of creating things
Speaker 1: electronics and being able to have kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: the equivalent of these adventures, and having a dad who
Speaker 1: was an engineer at Lockeed Martin didn't hurt because it
Speaker 1: turned out he had a really good person to go
Speaker 1: to when those science fairs came up in elementary school.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, and uh it certainly wouldn't have hurt
Speaker 1: his interest in technology to have a family that understood
Speaker 1: and supported those interests too. They go, oh, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: this is something I like too, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should uh stop clowning around, he said foolishly. I
Speaker 1: was a a Tom Swift e nice, he's a he's
Speaker 1: a Yeah, he had a He credited his dad and
Speaker 1: some of his teachers in elementary school as really inspiring him. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he said that, uh, you know, when he started to
Speaker 1: excel at science, Uh, the teachers responded, and that just
Speaker 1: drove him to make even more accomplishments in that area.
Speaker 1: So by the time he was in sixth grade, he
Speaker 1: actually built a fairly primitive but a working computer that
Speaker 1: could play Tic tac toe and you know, we all
Speaker 1: know from the documentary War Games that it's just a
Speaker 1: short hop, skip and a jump from Tic tac toe
Speaker 1: to thermonuclear war. Of course, you know, shall we play
Speaker 1: a game? Thanks Whopper? Hey nice you remembered the name
Speaker 1: and everything. Yeah, I've I've watched that documentary several times.
Speaker 1: So the old cup modems where you actually had to
Speaker 1: put the phone and I'm sure actually it's probably remembers
Speaker 1: those days. Oh yeah, we'll get into that a little
Speaker 1: bit too. Well. I was has also got a bit
Speaker 1: of a mischievous streak in him. Um a bit, yeah,
Speaker 1: a bit of a mischievous streak. That was a bit
Speaker 1: of an understatement. Yeah, well to it well. In sixth
Speaker 1: grade he also got his ham radio license, So obviously
Speaker 1: he was very much interested in electronics and technology and
Speaker 1: can indication all of these things would play a very
Speaker 1: large role in his choices further down the line. And
Speaker 1: according to laws, he said, he never took any courses
Speaker 1: on building electronics or computers. He just learned how to
Speaker 1: do that all on his own, at least at least
Speaker 1: in the elementary in high school years. Once you get
Speaker 1: to college, he actually was pursuing originally Uh. When he
Speaker 1: when he first enrolled, he was pursuing a degree in
Speaker 1: electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California
Speaker 1: at Berkeley. Yeah, and that's that's sort of a lesson
Speaker 1: for all of us. You know. Um, sometimes programming and
Speaker 1: fiddling with electronics and those kinds of things can seem
Speaker 1: really daunting, and it feels like, you know, you start
Speaker 1: dabbling in and it feels like you need a degree
Speaker 1: in computer science or electrical engineering to do these things.
Speaker 1: You don't. You just have to have an interest and
Speaker 1: get the right right place to start. And it also
Speaker 1: helps to uh surround yourself within other fellow enthusiasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it didn't hurt that was is categorically a genius
Speaker 1: in certain arenas, so that gave him a leg up
Speaker 1: as well. But tales details. Yeah, Well, while in while
Speaker 1: in the both in high school and in college, he
Speaker 1: began to associate with other people who are really interested
Speaker 1: in electronics and technology. Uh and uh he was part
Speaker 1: of a homebrew computer club. Yes, that would be v
Speaker 1: homebrew computer club. Yeah. Back back in the mid seventies,
Speaker 1: um was was at the University of California at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, he was he was interested in attending this, uh,
Speaker 1: this nearby computer club, the Homebrew Computer Club, and uh
Speaker 1: there were actually quite a few people of note who
Speaker 1: are part of this UM. But they were interested in
Speaker 1: before you get into the details of that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: this group was really kind of interested in what you
Speaker 1: could do with computers because, uh, in the mid nineties seventies,
Speaker 1: we weren't talking about uh, machines like the Apple too,
Speaker 1: where you had a monitor toing on top of a
Speaker 1: computer with a keyboard and you would program stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were uh, they were interested in in the large
Speaker 1: part and things like the Altaire, which had no monitor.
Speaker 1: You you would read, um, the the output of this
Speaker 1: device by the blinking lights or you know, in German
Speaker 1: dust princing light, as many a many many jokes have gone.
Speaker 1: But really, I mean, it wasn't It wasn't something that
Speaker 1: the average person would probably be likely in picking up,
Speaker 1: simply because there was kind of a barrier of entry.
Speaker 1: It was hard to understand for people who were sort
Speaker 1: of passingly interested in it. And we talked about the
Speaker 1: IBM s and the machines that corporate customers would use
Speaker 1: where you had punch cards and and you know, printing
Speaker 1: and large storage devices and things like that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean those were far more easy in some ways
Speaker 1: to understand because there were more ways to interact with
Speaker 1: those machines, but they were also hugely expensive and took
Speaker 1: up a lot more space than something like the Altair.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of divice ice that got people thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, I could have a computer in my house.
Speaker 1: I could do things with a computer. I could program
Speaker 1: this thing this, this could be fun. What could I
Speaker 1: do with this? And that's really what this group was
Speaker 1: all about. And there were other people, uh interested in
Speaker 1: this as well, like a guy named Jobs, and I
Speaker 1: believe a couple of guys named Alan and Gates to
Speaker 1: show up in the logs, and there were there were
Speaker 1: other people who interacted with all of those guys that
Speaker 1: that floated in and out of that culture out there
Speaker 1: in California around that time. Yeah, this is this is
Speaker 1: the birth of the personal computer age. And we're talking
Speaker 1: about the the very early days and uh and you know,
Speaker 1: of course Bosniak plays a very large role in that,
Speaker 1: but also uh he had other interests in in finding
Speaker 1: out how stuff works, which you know we can appreciate, um,
Speaker 1: like the phone system. He was, he was known to
Speaker 1: engage in a little phone freaking now and then. We
Speaker 1: actually have talked about phone freaking in the past. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what phone freaking was was finding out how the telephone
Speaker 1: system worked and then exploiting that knowledge by being able
Speaker 1: to UH to create things that would allow you to
Speaker 1: make free phone calls. Um. Usually it would involve recreating
Speaker 1: a certain kind of tone that the phone would then
Speaker 1: um not recognize the fact that you were dialing. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't register that, so it act as if the line
Speaker 1: had not been engaged, whereas you could actually make the
Speaker 1: call for free. So UM, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different kits that you could do this with. There, of course,
Speaker 1: was the famous UH whistle, Yes, UH, the the Captain
Speaker 1: crunch whistle, or you could whistle into a phone and
Speaker 1: with this particular toy whistle that came in the Cereal
Speaker 1: and UH it would recreate the exact pitch you needed
Speaker 1: in order to UH to hack the phone system. That
Speaker 1: changed before too long and they had to start creating
Speaker 1: electronic devices that could generate Normally it would be two
Speaker 1: tones together to be able to UH to actually hack
Speaker 1: into a phone system. Yeah. Well, um, if if you
Speaker 1: haven't done any research into into phone freaking or listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast from Man that was a long time. UM.
Speaker 1: Basically that the deal was that they had the system
Speaker 1: in place so that the phone company could do maintenance
Speaker 1: work and the phone technicians out in the field could
Speaker 1: use these certain codes. UM. In the case of one
Speaker 1: of them, it was a high E played three times
Speaker 1: and that would unlock the system. It was a very
Speaker 1: analog system at that point. And uh, you know they
Speaker 1: the phone company actually published information on this in their
Speaker 1: Bell Technical Journal, which was available at your local library,
Speaker 1: and certain people figured this out and any whistle. This
Speaker 1: is famous because a famous phone freaker named Captain Crunch
Speaker 1: named that because he realized that the toy whistle that
Speaker 1: you found in a box of cereal, I'll let you
Speaker 1: guess which brand, Um, yes, exactly. How How did you know? Um?
Speaker 1: You could you could play exactly that note. That's all
Speaker 1: you needed. You all you had. All you had to
Speaker 1: do was know that the code and have that whistle. UM.
Speaker 1: And of course Bell went nuts trying to get the
Speaker 1: technical that copy of the technical Journal back off the shelf.
Speaker 1: That this was a mistake to let that information get
Speaker 1: outside the door of Bell. Yeah, that was not not
Speaker 1: a great move. We published this, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: want to read about it. Yeah, but people who were
Speaker 1: interested in electronics, I mean, clearly something as complex as
Speaker 1: the telephone uh system would be fascinating to them, and
Speaker 1: that included people like wasn't it Yes? Absolutely? And uh
Speaker 1: it's it's famous that he and Steve Jobs were actually
Speaker 1: building phone freaking systems for other people, um and and
Speaker 1: trying to sell them, which they did on a small scale,
Speaker 1: and that which kind of set the ground for for
Speaker 1: their future endeavors together. They He actually did withdraw from
Speaker 1: the University of California before completing his degree and began
Speaker 1: to work for Hewlett Packard and was an an engineer there.
Speaker 1: He actually worked specifically on designing calculators. Meanwhile, Jobs kind
Speaker 1: of came up with this idea. Now, but when you
Speaker 1: talk about Jobs in Wosniac, they had very different roles
Speaker 1: when in those early days of Apple, right, Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: was an idea guy, he was a business guy, and
Speaker 1: he was a marketing guy most more than anything else.
Speaker 1: He was a marketing genius. Yeah. I've been reading Isaacson's
Speaker 1: biography of Steve Jobs, and I'm still not quite done
Speaker 1: with it yet, but I have passed through the early
Speaker 1: stages of Apple. There and apparently when they were working
Speaker 1: on the Apple one, which was a very basic computer. UM.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you had the the very
Speaker 1: early machines weren't really machines. They were a set of boards,
Speaker 1: basically motherboards and pieces that you would assemble into a
Speaker 1: case and use it as a computer UM, which sold
Speaker 1: for as Jonathan likes to point out, the sum of
Speaker 1: six sixty six dollars and sixty six cents. Wozniak likes
Speaker 1: repeating digits. Yeah. Apparently, well, according to them, it had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the symbolic nature of this in uh,
Speaker 1: in religion, it was more THEO there was no but
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that it it's an Apple computer. Yes.
Speaker 1: Of course they also say that Apple was chosen for
Speaker 1: other reasons than the Yeah. That's funny because because Wozniak
Speaker 1: said that he had just guessed at some point that
Speaker 1: the reason why Steve Jobs wanted to call the company
Speaker 1: Apple was that Steve Jobs had worked for a while
Speaker 1: in an orchard in either Washington or Oregon, and that
Speaker 1: that perhaps gave him the idea which may or may
Speaker 1: not be the case, because he said the thing about
Speaker 1: Jobs was that he would come up with ideas but
Speaker 1: not necessarily explain to you how he came up with him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. We also should point out that there was
Speaker 1: this time in jobs life where he was expanding his
Speaker 1: consciousness a little bit. Yes, yes, Um, Jobs attended read
Speaker 1: college up in Oregon and did not finish there, but
Speaker 1: was was very interested in a number of things, including, uh,
Speaker 1: expanding one's horizons to the use of chemical substances. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very very diplomatic way of putting it. That's not
Speaker 1: I don't get the sense that that was is interested
Speaker 1: in that. I think he likes to expand his consciousness
Speaker 1: through technological means, which again shows that difference. Jobs was
Speaker 1: this marketer and Wozniak was the engineer. He was the
Speaker 1: guy who was really designing the technology. Yeah, well that
Speaker 1: was That was actually exactly My point is according to
Speaker 1: the isaacs and story, Um was wanted to give away
Speaker 1: the design for the original boards for the Apple One,
Speaker 1: and Jobs said no, no, no, we could sell this thing.
Speaker 1: We can make a company, And that intrigue was just
Speaker 1: enough to go, Okay, yeah, let's give it a try. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because before at at the Homebrew Computer Club, Wasniak would
Speaker 1: distribute designs that he would come up with for for
Speaker 1: computer kids. He would design them on paper and then
Speaker 1: he would just distribute copies of it to the other members.
Speaker 1: And jobs was getting to the point where he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if we didn't give these away for free,
Speaker 1: I bet people would pay for them. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: he he convinced Wozniak to go in with him on
Speaker 1: a venture together, and this was the idea of Apple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't It wasn't easy, Um, you know, Wasosniac
Speaker 1: was a little reticent to leave HP. I mean, you
Speaker 1: think about it if you were if your buddy is
Speaker 1: telling you, hey, let's go start a company. Meanwhile you're
Speaker 1: in with a very strong technology company and you're you know,
Speaker 1: you've got a good job, it's secure, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: they're on on the one hand, you got the allure
Speaker 1: of of you know, this opportunity to do something really cool,
Speaker 1: but hey, you know, there's not a lot of security,
Speaker 1: and it's starting your own company can be a challenge,
Speaker 1: and it can be a lot of work, and it
Speaker 1: can be scary. Yeah, And a first guarantee, right at first.
Speaker 1: He did continue to work with HP, didn't quit immediately.
Speaker 1: And in fact, one of the stories about founding Apple
Speaker 1: is that they had to in order to raise the
Speaker 1: capital they needed, which was not that much by today's standards.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if you were to convert into today's dollars,
Speaker 1: they it was a fairly low investment. In fact, that
Speaker 1: was one of the things that Steve Jobs was able
Speaker 1: to to use to convince Bosnia to try. It was
Speaker 1: because the investment was not going to be prohibitively large,
Speaker 1: but it's still required that they raised some capital, and
Speaker 1: they did it by selling off stuff that they owned,
Speaker 1: and Wozniak sold off his beloved scientific calculator, Yes, which
Speaker 1: at the time was a pretty hot piece of technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for around something something to the tune of around five
Speaker 1: dollars at the time, which you know in the seventies.
Speaker 1: That's that's it's still a good chunk of change, right,
Speaker 1: It's it was even more so back then. And uh,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing to me was that when I read
Speaker 1: an interview, a more recent interview, wasn't he act really
Speaker 1: downplayed that? He said, he said, uh, well, here's the
Speaker 1: thing I'm still technically working for HP, and because I
Speaker 1: worked for HP, I could buy the next new calculator
Speaker 1: before it came out and at a lower price than
Speaker 1: I did the older calculator. So uh so I thought,
Speaker 1: even at this company that I'm working on with jobs
Speaker 1: goes belly up, I still, um, I still have the
Speaker 1: protection of working for this other company, and I can
Speaker 1: get my calculator back. Yeah, that's um, which is an
Speaker 1: important part of context that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people miss. Um. But yeah, the the Apple one did
Speaker 1: reasonably well within those circles, and they started working on
Speaker 1: the Apple too. Um. Jobs play, I mean, jobs played
Speaker 1: a good part in the getting it into stores, But
Speaker 1: Wazniak had a lot to do with the back end
Speaker 1: of that machine, especially the the Basic language implement implementation.
Speaker 1: There you go. He was unfamiliar with Basic at first,
Speaker 1: and uh, just kind of funny. It's funny, it's hard,
Speaker 1: but not with Basic. It's also funny that he got
Speaker 1: really uh he started to really say the basic version
Speaker 1: that HP uses, which is not the same as the
Speaker 1: Basic language that that Bill Gates was working on. So um,
Speaker 1: it was he was coming at it from a different
Speaker 1: approach because he was you know, I think at the
Speaker 1: time he was actually working under the assumption that was
Speaker 1: essentially the same thing, but turned out it was two
Speaker 1: different versions of basic to two pretty significant different versions. Also,
Speaker 1: I should point out, so so they founded Apple in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, and it wasn't it was just nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven when Apple two came out, so that that
Speaker 1: first Apple, we should really point out, it was more
Speaker 1: like a almost like a run of prototypes. It would
Speaker 1: they only made a small, a relatively small number of
Speaker 1: these because, for one thing, they didn't know how big
Speaker 1: the demand was going to be. They knew that their
Speaker 1: fellow computer enthusiasts would enjoy this kind of thing because
Speaker 1: they also shared the vision that computers would one day
Speaker 1: be an integral part of our lives. But at the time,
Speaker 1: the average person, like the average consumer, didn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: any desire or need for a computer, or at least
Speaker 1: they didn't think they did. And uh, and so it
Speaker 1: was it was definitely not a sure thing when they
Speaker 1: were first getting started. But nineteen seventy seven, Apple two
Speaker 1: comes out, and I think, uh, I think you could
Speaker 1: describe its success as being meteoric. Oh yeah, yeah, Well, Um.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons that Wozniak says that he
Speaker 1: worked so hard on the basic HUM structure for the
Speaker 1: two microprocessor was was simply that he realized that basic
Speaker 1: was going to be a big help to people who
Speaker 1: were going to adopt these and he wanted people to
Speaker 1: understand that computers could play a significant role in their
Speaker 1: personal lives. And so he said, you know this is
Speaker 1: you know, I basically hunkered down to do this because
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be important. And that's
Speaker 1: that's something that you see when you look at that
Speaker 1: Steve Wozniak's career is that he obviously he's willing to
Speaker 1: put his his back into it and really work on
Speaker 1: something that he is very passionate about like this, Um
Speaker 1: the very other you know, there are other things too.
Speaker 1: He talks about having to write the disc operating software
Speaker 1: for the the earlier machines, and he didn't this was
Speaker 1: not something that he was familiar with. Yeah, he had
Speaker 1: never really used magnetic storage like that, but he made
Speaker 1: it work because he knew it was important. Um. Not
Speaker 1: that not downe to discount other people all over the
Speaker 1: world who do this every day. But I'm saying you know,
Speaker 1: as we're looking at Steve Wozniak, this is uh technology
Speaker 1: is is clearly part of his DNA, and it's it
Speaker 1: he he needs to to make it work. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I read about him too in the
Speaker 1: Isaacs and um biography of Jobs was that uh um,
Speaker 1: apparently he was just really good at finding innovative solutions
Speaker 1: to the challenges that that came up while they were
Speaker 1: creating the actual machines. His engineering expertise, it's more than
Speaker 1: just It's sort of like a virtuoso and a musical instrument.
Speaker 1: You have people who can play the instrument, but there
Speaker 1: are very few people that can that can pick it
Speaker 1: up and do something really brilliant with it that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't expect to do because they don't teach that. It's
Speaker 1: just the thing that you sort of innately have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently he is. He just got that um ability
Speaker 1: to to look at a technology and know how it
Speaker 1: works and go, well, you know what, I know, this
Speaker 1: isn't work in this way just for kicks, Let's plug
Speaker 1: this in this way and see if that works. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he had a real interesting attitude too. He said that,
Speaker 1: you know, in general, in a broad stroke. He said,
Speaker 1: if he could build a machine that had two hundred
Speaker 1: chips in it, he would then look at that design
Speaker 1: and say, how can I build a machine that does
Speaker 1: the exact same thing this thing does, but with a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty chips? And he would do it. And then
Speaker 1: after that he'd say, okay, well, how can I build
Speaker 1: a machine that does all the things this machine does,
Speaker 1: but only with a hundred chips and just continuously refine
Speaker 1: that design so that it was more and more elegant
Speaker 1: and more efficient in each iteration. That was sort of
Speaker 1: his thought process, which is, you know, that's a good thing. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny you should mention that because there there is
Speaker 1: another story that jobs in Wosniak were working to get
Speaker 1: there at Atari to develop a game machine. Now I
Speaker 1: don't think Wosniak was that, if my memory serves, It's
Speaker 1: been a few days since I've read that, Uh if
Speaker 1: Memory Serves Wasnac wasn't actually working for Atari. Um Jobs
Speaker 1: actually kind of convinced him to work on this project,
Speaker 1: but they they were supposed to. They were trying to
Speaker 1: create this machine and the challenge was it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if you can do this with uh fewer
Speaker 1: chips in this time period, we'll go ahead and go
Speaker 1: with this idea. So Jobs knew that Wosniak had the
Speaker 1: the expertise to make it work, and he did that.
Speaker 1: The point of doing this was to save money because
Speaker 1: these chips were not cheap UM, so the fewer components
Speaker 1: that you could use on the circuit board, the more
Speaker 1: money you could save. And doing that and make the
Speaker 1: project more cost efficient in the end, and uh, thanks
Speaker 1: to was they actually made it work. Of course. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're known for Breakout The two of them both worked
Speaker 1: on Breakout UM, which is a classic Autari game. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that that paid off both on
Speaker 1: that project and their work they did for Apple because
Speaker 1: they would continually revise the design to make it, to
Speaker 1: make it more cost efficient and make it more effective.
Speaker 1: Because what was is one of those people that believes
Speaker 1: that UM technology should be accessible to people. Um. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, well, you might say, well, hey, Apple
Speaker 1: is known for having high priced computers. What are you
Speaker 1: talking to? High price computers and closed systems. Yes, two
Speaker 1: things that you would imagine would be antithetical to that philosophy.
Speaker 1: Well that's true, and uh, but I would argue that, Um,
Speaker 1: we need to take a look at the exit of
Speaker 1: Wozniak from Apple because, um, a lot of that did
Speaker 1: not surround the Apple to the Apple two was a
Speaker 1: very affordable machine, which is why it ended up in
Speaker 1: a lot of people's homes, in a lot of schools. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So in order to get there, we need to we
Speaker 1: need to to get back to like about nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: when Apple went public, and that was of course a
Speaker 1: big event. Chris and I will have more to say
Speaker 1: about the laws in just a moment, but first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. One was a huge year for
Speaker 1: Wazniak in both triumph and tragedy. Uhe he returned to
Speaker 1: UC Berkeley to finish out his degree in electrical engineering
Speaker 1: and computer science under an assumed name. I would also
Speaker 1: guess that he probably cruised through a lot of that. Probably, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that the fact that there may have been
Speaker 1: courses that were referring to his own work might have
Speaker 1: might have done that. But also that year, he um,
Speaker 1: he was the act a man who has a lot
Speaker 1: of different interests in one of those was piloting airplanes,
Speaker 1: and he owned his own private airplane. At this point,
Speaker 1: because Apple very quickly was a huge success. You know,
Speaker 1: I launched in nineteen seventy six, and by one he
Speaker 1: had enough to have his own private plane. And he
Speaker 1: was piloting his private plane and crashed while trying to
Speaker 1: take off at the Santa Cruz SkyPark And it was
Speaker 1: pretty serious crash and he was very badly hurt in that.
Speaker 1: In that accident, I suffered from amnesia for quite some time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of different injuries, memory loss. It
Speaker 1: took about two years of rehabilitation for him to get
Speaker 1: back to how he was before the accident. But around
Speaker 1: that time, the Apple two was really starting to become
Speaker 1: a true success story, like a huge success story in
Speaker 1: personal computing. And uh and by three, so this is
Speaker 1: just a couple of years after Apple has gone public.
Speaker 1: Three years after Apple's gone public, it was valued the
Speaker 1: company was valued at nine hundred and eighty five million
Speaker 1: dollars if you looked at its stock, if you were
Speaker 1: to value the company by how much stock was out
Speaker 1: there and the price that stock was trading at, so
Speaker 1: just under a billion dollars. And again the company is
Speaker 1: not even ten years old yet. So you know, Wazniak's
Speaker 1: work was really starting to pay off for the company
Speaker 1: and for Wozniak at the time. Yep. He also uh
Speaker 1: in addition to this, while he was going through his
Speaker 1: recovery period, got involved in another one of his passions,
Speaker 1: which is music. Hosted the now infamous US festivals in California,
Speaker 1: UM which were both were which were known for being huge,
Speaker 1: I mean very very large events. Think of um things
Speaker 1: like um Um, you know Lollapalooza now or Lilith Fair.
Speaker 1: I mean kinds of events like that where they're I know,
Speaker 1: I am, but but I don't go to large outdoor
Speaker 1: events like that or the festive Well. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: did have a diverse line of different kinds of Yes,
Speaker 1: actually they were. They were sort of incompetent Asian into
Speaker 1: some degree because Coachella had then had been out for
Speaker 1: many years, more than a decade out in California. UM,
Speaker 1: but they it was sort of a blend of technology
Speaker 1: and music, which makes me think more of south By
Speaker 1: Southwest now than than that. But at that time that's
Speaker 1: not the kind of events that we're going on. There
Speaker 1: were more I think inspired from the many years earlier
Speaker 1: Woodstock and events like that, where it was just the
Speaker 1: large outdoor music festivals, but they were also known for extravagance. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there were some artists like uh van Halen
Speaker 1: and David Bowie who were taking home more than a
Speaker 1: million dollars in early eighty two and eighty three, the
Speaker 1: early eighties, I mean, um and, which were tremendous sums
Speaker 1: of money at that point. Um and and it's I
Speaker 1: think regarded by a lot of people now the US
Speaker 1: festivals sort of a a sort of a punch line
Speaker 1: to a joke, although I'm not sure what the setup
Speaker 1: would be uh um, but I don't know that it
Speaker 1: was completely unsuccessful. I just think that, uh, it was
Speaker 1: sort of a tribute to was his generosity and the
Speaker 1: fact that he paid people really uh, you know, generous
Speaker 1: sums of money. But I think he was just having
Speaker 1: a good time with a lot of people. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: also took this time to start getting into philanthropy. He
Speaker 1: began to really invest, specifically in the education system near
Speaker 1: his own home. He began to uh to help UH
Speaker 1: schools get computers and training on how to use the computers.
Speaker 1: He was very enthusiastic at fostering education, which is no
Speaker 1: surprise considering, you know, his father had helped him, and
Speaker 1: he does credit his you know, several teachers went in
Speaker 1: his elementary school days as really being the inspiration for
Speaker 1: him to pursue his interests. So it's not a big
Speaker 1: surprise that he wanted to to kind of pay it
Speaker 1: forward and and do that on himself. So he began
Speaker 1: to do that and Uh. In fact, his his contributions
Speaker 1: to technology and philanthropy led up to him receiving the award,
Speaker 1: the the National Medal of Technology in He was awarded
Speaker 1: that by the United States President, who at the time
Speaker 1: was Ronald Reagan and received that and it's the highest
Speaker 1: honor bestowed on America's inventors and innovators. Yes, the award
Speaker 1: has come up several times over the course of tech stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, probably was it one of the people we
Speaker 1: would actually have heard of. Um they were losing. Jobs
Speaker 1: were sort of rock stars in the early eighties because
Speaker 1: of the the the prominence of the Apple two. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, there were there were cover stories on magazines,
Speaker 1: business magazines, UH and UH and news magazines about these guys.
Speaker 1: They were they were sort of well known. Of course,
Speaker 1: Jobs is a little bit more outspoken. He's known as
Speaker 1: the UM you know, more of the the marketing face
Speaker 1: of the company, especially UM recently, but even back then
Speaker 1: in the in the early days of the company. UM
Speaker 1: as technology went on at Apple, though, as things started
Speaker 1: to change and they started focusing on, uh, diversifying the
Speaker 1: lines UM was, you know, was sort of not as
Speaker 1: integral to the the creation of machines like the Apple three,
Speaker 1: the Lisa, and the Macintosh like he had been with
Speaker 1: the Apple too. And I think that was partially due
Speaker 1: of course, to the to the accident and the need
Speaker 1: for his recovery. Just he just wasn't as um as
Speaker 1: UM available during that time as he would have done otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then UM and by Ve big changes were happening
Speaker 1: at Apple. Uh. The biggest was that Steve Jobs left
Speaker 1: the company and that depending on how you define it,
Speaker 1: he was either fired because he was having some really
Speaker 1: nasty conflicts with the with Apple's board of directors, or
Speaker 1: he was just marginalized to the point where he just
Speaker 1: stopped showing up to work. UM. But really, I mean
Speaker 1: essentially they kept giving him a d a smaller role
Speaker 1: over time and distancing him Steve Jobs, that is, away
Speaker 1: from the main operations of Apple, and so Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: left in five Niac stuck around with Apple for a
Speaker 1: couple more years. He would not leave the company until Yes,
Speaker 1: and to some degree he still holds a consulting role
Speaker 1: with the company today. His and he left the company,
Speaker 1: but Apple still I guess it's safe to say they
Speaker 1: never completely severed their relationship, although he doesn't go into
Speaker 1: work there like he used to. Um. And he's and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily call him an Apple evangelist either. I
Speaker 1: mean he says in frequent interviews he will say or
Speaker 1: frequently interviews I should say, he will say he loves Apple.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, he is not shy to
Speaker 1: criticize Apple for things that he views as as uh
Speaker 1: as a as as failures or as mistakes. He is
Speaker 1: very He's known for being very honest and very upfront
Speaker 1: and just uh, you know, giving his opinion. He's a
Speaker 1: straight shooter when it comes to that, and not in
Speaker 1: necessarily a mean way, but very matter of fact. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: actually uh. When he started to work on some other
Speaker 1: projects that one of the first was cl nine. This
Speaker 1: is a company that was known for creating the first
Speaker 1: programmable universal remote YEP. And so this again shows that
Speaker 1: wozniak interest in electronics was still very, very high. He
Speaker 1: just I think wosnia X one of those guys who
Speaker 1: really likes to find a new challenge, and you know,
Speaker 1: once he's done that, once he's managed to to accomplish
Speaker 1: whatever that challenges, then he ready to move on to
Speaker 1: the next one. In fact, again from listening to him talk,
Speaker 1: I would say that that's just one of those things
Speaker 1: he really values, is the idea of innovation, research and development,
Speaker 1: building new stuff and not just making constant improvements over
Speaker 1: older technology. In fact, that might have been one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why he left Apple, was that he was
Speaker 1: starting to see Apple turned into this company that was
Speaker 1: more interested in releasing incremental updates to its technology rather
Speaker 1: than truly innovating and building something that's really cool. And
Speaker 1: in fact, that's a that's a criticism that he has
Speaker 1: leveled recently at Apple over the last few years, saying
Speaker 1: that Apple seems to be content to release new versions
Speaker 1: of truly innovative and amazing products. You know, he loves
Speaker 1: things like the iPad and the iPhone and all that.
Speaker 1: He thinks those are great, But why he doesn't think
Speaker 1: is great is that Apple seems to be content to
Speaker 1: just give updates to those products rather than try and
Speaker 1: create something wholly new. Now that may not be completely fair.
Speaker 1: There may be some things developing an Apple about which
Speaker 1: we know nothing that could blow our minds any day now,
Speaker 1: like the Apple TV that we keep on hoping will
Speaker 1: come out. But you know that that the perception that
Speaker 1: Wozniak has is that, uh, Apple's not currently really in
Speaker 1: that innovative space. In fact, recently he said that Microsoft
Speaker 1: was showing more of that sort of innovative approach. Doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean it's going to be a success for Microsoft,
Speaker 1: but he was saying that you know, Windows eight, Windows Phone, Ate,
Speaker 1: the surface tablet, all of that was kind of pointing
Speaker 1: there was such a radical departure from the stuff that
Speaker 1: Microsoft had been doing that it was a much more
Speaker 1: innovative approach than what Apple was currently doing. Right well, um,
Speaker 1: you know he uh he ended up butting heads with
Speaker 1: c L nine with Apple. Um. He was trying to
Speaker 1: contract the design firm Frog Design, uh to get the
Speaker 1: product designed for him, and Apple had brought Frog Design
Speaker 1: to California with the idea that they were going to
Speaker 1: be their designers, their product designers, and Apple said no,
Speaker 1: you cannot do that. That was part of their their
Speaker 1: U their UM contract with them. UM. But yeah, he
Speaker 1: very much, uh you know, had an idea because he
Speaker 1: knew that these guys were innovators in the way things
Speaker 1: looked and felt. UM. So it doesn't surprise me much
Speaker 1: that that was likes um the kinds of products that
Speaker 1: Apple comes out with. But uh, you know, they had
Speaker 1: a similar design sense. But Apple did not appreciate that
Speaker 1: at the time. UM. Oh and uh, we didn't mention,
Speaker 1: but well, it's probably looking at the timeline here, UM
Speaker 1: probably should mention some of the other things that he
Speaker 1: got into over the years. Of course, he's been a
Speaker 1: speaker UM for many, many years now, including dating back
Speaker 1: to that that time he was sort of a coveted
Speaker 1: personality for m keynotes and different kinds of addresses. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh. He started several companies. See all nine was
Speaker 1: just one of them. Wheels of Zeus was one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. Yes, the acronym Wheels of Zeus is laws
Speaker 1: in in two thousand one, and that was back uh
Speaker 1: in the early days of trying to come up with
Speaker 1: uses for GPS. Yeah. The idea being that if you
Speaker 1: can have a wireless GPS UH network, then you would
Speaker 1: be able to locate stuff. Really, that was one of
Speaker 1: his ideas. He said he wanted to help people be
Speaker 1: able to locate things. Yes, all right, that was you
Speaker 1: know so, yeah, and was or as in Wheels of Zeus,
Speaker 1: not Wazniac, but Wheels of Zeus lasted for about five
Speaker 1: years that it closed up in two thousand six. Ye
Speaker 1: also and uh he in uh going back a bit. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's fine. I just wanted to mention, you know, being
Speaker 1: a co founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I mean
Speaker 1: this is huge. The Electronic Frontier Foundation or e f F,
Speaker 1: is an organization that advocates for openness and freedom on
Speaker 1: the internet in the computer world. They are also known
Speaker 1: for doing things like helping provide legal assistance to hackers
Speaker 1: that are being pursued by by government officials or or
Speaker 1: you know, by law enforcement. They're known for helping out
Speaker 1: folks who might otherwise be seen as troublemakers. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's really all about promoting the freedom of information and
Speaker 1: the trying to keep as as much of the uh
Speaker 1: the manipulation or or or um, the just just trying
Speaker 1: to keep the government out of controlling technology in all
Speaker 1: its forms. Mainly it tends over the last several year,
Speaker 1: it tends to mostly be about the Internet, but it's
Speaker 1: it goes beyond that. Yeah. Yeah, and then they are
Speaker 1: very interested in uh, you know, privacy issues issues. Uh,
Speaker 1: not to uh, not to protect what you might call
Speaker 1: black hat hackers, um, but more to give people the
Speaker 1: opportunity to uh control their technology lives a little bit
Speaker 1: more openly and and do more with it rather than
Speaker 1: having that spoken for for them. Yeah. Wozniak has has
Speaker 1: really come across as someone who who wants the individual
Speaker 1: to have as much control and say in that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and less of that should go to things
Speaker 1: like corporations and governments. So uh, you know this, it's
Speaker 1: obvious why he would want to co found that organization
Speaker 1: like BFF. And in two thousand he was inducted into
Speaker 1: the Inventor's Hall of Fame and also receive the Hinz
Speaker 1: Award for Technology, the Economy and employe. Yes, I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention the Hines Award, So I'm glad you did that.
Speaker 1: And it's not the Hines Stefenschmertz Award. Curse you bury
Speaker 1: the Platypaus We've got a little bit further to go
Speaker 1: with Chris Polette's final episode as a co host of
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff. But before we get to that sad moment,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. This is a period, um
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's where we kind of didn't hear
Speaker 1: a lot from him. I mean, he's not the kind
Speaker 1: of person that that, um, you read about in the
Speaker 1: society pages so much. Although until the late two thousands, well,
Speaker 1: you know, making appearances on shows like Kathy Griffin in
Speaker 1: My Life on the d List. Yeah, he was dating
Speaker 1: her at the time. Yes, yes, Um. He's also been
Speaker 1: on The Big Bang Theory and of course Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars cutting a rug on a segue, yes, yes
Speaker 1: he uh he showed. I watched some of that, and
Speaker 1: I have to admit he showed a tremendous sense of
Speaker 1: humor about being on that show. Um. And uh he's
Speaker 1: as a dancer, he is a really incredible programmer. Nice.
Speaker 1: Um an excellent compliment and uh, I am neither. So
Speaker 1: I really can't talk, but I will. I will say
Speaker 1: that that, but I think he would probably agree. Um
Speaker 1: yeah he um, uh, yeah, he seemed to really kind
Speaker 1: of have fun with his own you know, public persona,
Speaker 1: although he's not you know, he's not like a celebrity
Speaker 1: in the sense of jumping out and trying to attract attention.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem to really be his his style. He's
Speaker 1: even been known, like on on launch days for Apple
Speaker 1: products to go and wait in line at an Apple store.
Speaker 1: There was one story where, uh he I remember it
Speaker 1: was one of the early iPhones, I want to say,
Speaker 1: where he was walking to the Apple store to go
Speaker 1: get in line, and then he got ushered into the
Speaker 1: front of the line, and he actually felt badly about
Speaker 1: it because he was like, you know, he didn't feel
Speaker 1: that he should necessarily be treated any differently than any
Speaker 1: other customer. Um. And but a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were in line are like, dude, that's woznia. He could
Speaker 1: totally go in It's okay, Yeah I would. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that that he has enough of a following where
Speaker 1: you know, there there would be a certain amount of
Speaker 1: tolerance among the other shoppers that day. Um. He's also known,
Speaker 1: of course, over over time to be a rather uh
Speaker 1: playful prankster of sorts. He's famed, of course for many
Speaker 1: different stunts with two dollar bills. Um. I have actually
Speaker 1: tried to pass two dollar bills, which are completely legal,
Speaker 1: and they have people confused by them because you don't
Speaker 1: see them all the time, which of course lends itself
Speaker 1: to was a sort of sense of humor. Now you
Speaker 1: can buy, as he will point out, complete sheets of
Speaker 1: one dollar, two dollar, and five dollar bills from the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Engraving and Printing. You can get a sheet
Speaker 1: of an uncut sheet of bills. They're completely legal, they
Speaker 1: just haven't been cut apart. In fact, they're perforated. So
Speaker 1: he has been known to buy sheets of these, you know,
Speaker 1: separate them and have them laminated into a pad, and
Speaker 1: go in and buy stuff and peel off a series
Speaker 1: of two dollar bills, which are of course are numbered sequentially.
Speaker 1: It's very weird. Two dollar bills are weird to begin with,
Speaker 1: and then you add that it looks like this guy
Speaker 1: just peeled off money and handed it to me, am
Speaker 1: I supposed to take it. Apparently he's been to Vegas
Speaker 1: and tried to stunt and had security people come and
Speaker 1: uh talked to him about exactly what's going I've encountered
Speaker 1: Vegas security. I know exactly what you're talking about. And
Speaker 1: of course if it were me, I would be sweating
Speaker 1: like about it. He keeps doing. Really, I didn't know
Speaker 1: that that the government doesn't, you know, make these perforated
Speaker 1: bills available. Really, I bought these from some guy. What
Speaker 1: what's great is that I wouldn't have had the nerve.
Speaker 1: I should also point out that while two dollar bills
Speaker 1: are unusual here in the United States, in other places
Speaker 1: there are two dollar coins. So for our friends in Canadia, yes,
Speaker 1: and our friends in Canadia, your twnis are very adorable,
Speaker 1: like I actually do like tunis. I like Looney's and tunis. Yes,
Speaker 1: I agree. If you would like to send me Looney's
Speaker 1: and twnis, do so at the house Stuff Works address,
Speaker 1: Carroll Jonathan Strickland. Kids, go check your parents. No, never mind,
Speaker 1: um but uh but but yeah, what you were talking
Speaker 1: about about innovation and openness and technology. He has recently,
Speaker 1: as of the time we're recording this, in late Ben
Speaker 1: photographed in front of the large uh different versions of
Speaker 1: Google androids. We have Android people, and people go, it's
Speaker 1: the Apple co founder in front of the Android androids. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he tries pretty much everything. Yeah, he's just a
Speaker 1: computer omnivore. He actually says that he will, you know,
Speaker 1: he loves he loves technology, and he loves Gadgy doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily love what corporations are doing or what governments
Speaker 1: are doing, but he loves the technology. And he specifically,
Speaker 1: I had an hour and a half of sleep last night, folks,
Speaker 1: I would and watch the Hobbit anyway. So he specifically
Speaker 1: really likes uh platforms that are are that allow you
Speaker 1: to do lots of stuff right, So the Android platform
Speaker 1: gives a lot of flexibility to users. It's something that
Speaker 1: can be overwhelming to someone who's not necessarily an enthusiast,
Speaker 1: but for someone who really likes hacking and getting their
Speaker 1: their hands dirty with technology, the Android platform is very
Speaker 1: attractive because it's you can make a lot of changes yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, and and Google facilitates that. Depending on which
Speaker 1: handset manufacturer and which carrier you're with, it may or
Speaker 1: may not be very easy to do. But he also
Speaker 1: says he likes to try everything because he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to form a a prejudice against any particular platform without
Speaker 1: giving it a real fair shot. And so he goes
Speaker 1: out when a new phone comes out, he'll go out
Speaker 1: and buy it. So often like, I've seen pictures of
Speaker 1: what Wozniak was carrying on a given day, and it's
Speaker 1: usually something like five or six smartphones and then maybe
Speaker 1: a tablet and then maybe two computers. It's like, you figure,
Speaker 1: it's got to be around fifty pounds of technology at least. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It It kind of reminds me of the nineties version
Speaker 1: of Dilbert where he used to have the gadget utility belt. Um,
Speaker 1: you actually knew some people like that? Um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to try and do that them. My pants
Speaker 1: kept falling down, dude, looking like a fool with the
Speaker 1: pants on the ground. I was, in fact. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: currently he's working at a food Fusion Io or Fusion
Speaker 1: EO Fusion HEO was Fusion dash Io as a chief
Speaker 1: scientist and that's the company is a data storage and
Speaker 1: server company. So he's he's currently that's you know, his
Speaker 1: technical job title at the moment. But he does do
Speaker 1: a lot of speaking events and you know, you'll still
Speaker 1: see him at things like a TED conferences and other
Speaker 1: big events where you know, they need to have someone
Speaker 1: there who who really knows the ins and outs of technology,
Speaker 1: who is truly an advocate for technology, for the consumer
Speaker 1: and who just you know, he's just very passionate and
Speaker 1: loves to share that with other people. That's it's a
Speaker 1: great couple of qualities to have, Like, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are really passionate about what they do,
Speaker 1: but they don't necessarily communicate that or share that with people.
Speaker 1: But wasn't he acts he's like, you know, you would
Speaker 1: have to tie him down for him not to to
Speaker 1: to be a brilliant over his love of tech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, from from just about all accounts I've read
Speaker 1: about about Steve Wozniak, He's he's not the kind of
Speaker 1: person who who hides his emotions very well. He's, uh,
Speaker 1: he's excited about a lot of stuff, and when he is,
Speaker 1: he you know, he shares that with you. Um, I
Speaker 1: should say that he doesn't hide his his excitement for
Speaker 1: technology very well because he's, uh, he's really gregarious when
Speaker 1: it comes to that. He may not be necessarily outspoken
Speaker 1: about his personal life as much or or want to
Speaker 1: jump into the spotlight. But if you ran into him
Speaker 1: and he had fifteen minutes to talk about some kind
Speaker 1: of technology with you, I don't think it would be
Speaker 1: much of a stretch. Based on Again, I've never met him,
Speaker 1: but uh, if he wanted to stry a cup of
Speaker 1: conversation with him about virtually any kind of technology, I
Speaker 1: don't think he would turn you down, or if he did,
Speaker 1: he would do it politely. Well, it seems like just
Speaker 1: a just a great guy. He does he does. I
Speaker 1: would be very interested to talk with him, except I
Speaker 1: would be intimidated that he had discovered that I'm a
Speaker 1: complete idiot within like two minutes of chatting with me. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't take the rest of us that long.
Speaker 1: You know. Maybe I'm hoping that he would just have
Speaker 1: a lot of optimism. And that wraps up this classic
Speaker 1: episode of text Stuff once again. I want to thank
Speaker 1: Chris Polette for the amazing work he did. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're six years past, almost seven years past
Speaker 1: when this happened, and uh, he's still very much a
Speaker 1: part of tech Stuff's culture. The puns, I would argue,
Speaker 1: are Chris Polette's contribution to this show. I love puns,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't really known for making them in the
Speaker 1: show quite like Chris was. I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes, of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Please reach out and let me know The email addresses
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, where you
Speaker 1: can drop a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: of both of those is tech Stuff hs W. Go
Speaker 1: to our website that's tech stuff podcast dot com. You
Speaker 1: will find a link to the archive of every episode
Speaker 1: we've ever published. You will also find a link to
Speaker 1: our online store, where every purchase you make goes to
Speaker 1: out the show and we greatly appreciate it, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is a
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