Steve Wozniak has always been a straight-shooter who speaks his mind. And the Apple cofounder is not shying away from some bold statements this week, telling Bloomberg News that he thinks the Big Tech companies should be broken up. And that includes Apple.
“I am really against monopoly powers being used in unfair, antitrust manners — not opening up the world to equal competition […] and I think that’s happening a lot in Big Tech,” Wozniak told Bloomberg News.
“I’m pretty much in favour of looking into splitting up big companies. I mean, I wish Apple on its own had split up a long time ago and spun off independent divisions to faraway places and let them think independently the way Hewlett Packard did when I worked there,” the Apple cofounder said.
“I think Big Tech has gotten too big, it’s too powerful a force in our life and it’s taken our choices away,” Woz continued.
Woz made clear that his primary concern when it comes to the way that tech companies treat their customers is honesty. And he feels that companies like Facebook haven’t been honest with their users.
“If you think you’re getting one level of protection — of your security and your safety and your knowledge about you — you should be getting that level,” Woz said. “If you send mail to somebody and say a few little things, ‘Hey my favourite colour is green’ to my wife, well, that should be kinda private. It’s kinda like whispering in an ear. And it shouldn’t be that anyone else had access and heard it.”
This is far from the first time that Wozniak has criticised Big Tech. The Apple cofounder said back in July that he thinks everyone should ditch Facebook, and has even made the plunge himself.
Beyond the issue of privacy, Wozniak said he was actually very proud of Apple for being able to branch out into so many different services beyond computers and said that he loves Apple Pay because it’s so easy.
“Making life easy is what we were known for in computers,” Wozniak told Bloomberg News. “And now Apple Pay, the Apple credit card, is even more secure.”
Wozniak admits that he’s not an expert on politics but has opinions on what’s happening geopolitically right now. Woz says that he leans toward free trade and fewer subsidies, admitting that it’s part of his own experience and background.
“We’re taught from the time we go to school, ‘my school right or wrong, my team right or wrong’, and that works its way up to ‘my country right or wrong’. I’m more into thinking and determining what is right and what is wrong,” Woz said.
Wozniak did take a moment to point out how terrible U.S. President Donald Trump is as a human being, even if he was trying to do so diplomatically. Diplomacy seemed to be his word of advice for current Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has been forced to engage with Trump’s toxicity on a regularly basis.
“I don’t think with this president [discussions] can be productive,” Woz said. “I would never raise a child of mine to be like that, to be ‘I’m the most important person in the world, I’m the only person who’s right in my thinking.’”
You can watch all of Wozniak’s interview in three parts on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.