It’s hard not to like Steve Wozniak, both for his contributions to modern computing and his winning personality. In this recent interview, where he recounts the moment he solved bringing colour to computing, you get a healthy dose of both.
His description of those moments between awake and asleep when inspiration strikes is a familiar one, although my epiphanies are generally more along the “hey, I bet I can deep fry that” line. The quote I like best, though, is this one:
“Sometimes you’re not sure if it’s going to work, because it didn’t follow all the methodology, all the science in the books, all those numbers. Yet it’s similar enough, it might work. And in this case it did.”
And that’s how innovation happens. Thanks, Woz! This makes me even sadder that you got robbed on Dancing With the Stars. [ForaTV via 9to5 Mac]
matt
February 7, 2010 at 1:15 AM
that is brilliant, what a great guy.
It is so true what he says, about stuff coming to you in your near sleep. and about it being completely random. happened to me at least once, of course what came to me was so mind bogglingly obvious and I was just an idiot for not realising it earlier, but the fact remained that I couldn’t solve it when I was thinking about it logically/systematically, as soon as I gave up and went to bed, ping!
its amazing how active an useful your mind is when the pressure’s off.
I think, the Steve/Steve pair really sum up how I see apple, On the one hand you have their really quite good tech and technical innovation, and its all covered in the veneer of a marketing and business evil genius.
Report Permalink