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Comment by robotfactory | Hacker News Reader

I can't imagine a guy like The Woz allowing his name to be associated with something sub-par which he has no control over. He understands the importance and weight of his personal brand.

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He has a big heart. A few years ago Steve gave an interview with Patrick Bet-David, which was simply a marketing piece for Patrick's company, PHP Agency. PHP Agency is a financial firm founded on the power of "network marketing". The idea behind network marketing is to turn your social network into pyramid, positioning yourself at the top of the pyramid. I don't like network marketing companies, and I believe they are all sub-par. In this interview, which you can find on YouTube, Steve Wozniak described PHP Agency as a hit.

> The idea behind network marketing is to turn your social network into pyramid, positioning yourself at the top of the pyramid.

Isn't this the idea behind Patreon?

Patronage [1] is the idea behind Patreon.

Viewed as a pyramid it's one that goes only one level deep and markets only yourself as a worthy cause to support ;-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage

He's an idealist and "too good" of a person and believes in people too readily to be a cutthroat business guy. I can see a situation where he'd be talked into a situation you describe, because he doesn't have a personality that first questions others' motives and agendas.

It's odd we've allowed our society to accept cut-throat business as the norm.

So Woz’ strengths are marketing etc.? Always seemed that was precisely the part he didn’t play too well.

Can't announce it without taking a bit of a leap of faith, because there can't be a track record before announcement. Intentions are easy, execution is hard. Few bad schools started off with "bad" as a founding principle.

Trump University

There is a pretty long history of The Woz being taken advantage of, starting prior to Apple when his best friend ripped him off.

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