Steve Wozniak: When I die these are the moments I want to remember
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These days, I take the most pleasure out of building careers and mentoring younger engineers. I remind them of this lesson. I think, when I die, I'll be more proud of the people on my teams and what they went on to do than any software we shipped.
This is wild! How can you be so sure?
I'm sure-ish some of my code from 10 yrs ago is still in production. Though I'm far removed from where it actually runs. Maybe even some of the older code I wrote (which at this point is ~ 15yrs old) might be still around (at a different place)
5 yrs ago? No problem. I even have to still maintain the darn thing.
Of course, different companies, different cases, etc.
The oldest code I think is still in production I wrote in 2002, so it's old enough to drink. Still powers a web form as far as I am aware. Funny story - it was in ASP/JScript, so I've been doing "full stack JS" for close to 25 years now?!
I guess you were lucky that you didn't have any cases of cancer in the family (if you had, then I apologize and I'm sorry). No important problems that are only easily solved by lots of money. But if it's just luck, then it's really inappropriate to build a world view based on what you were lucky enough to avoid.
Parent's advice is about favouring team and striving to be an enabler/multiplier rather than sweating over individual perfection of craft. It's a fairly common conclusion that some people arrive at.
What are you contrasting that to? How does that relate to money problems and health problems?
Is becoming a multiplier mutually exclusive from chasing financial success in your opinion?
EDIT to elaborate on the concept of a multiplier. Say you can become a mythical 10x engineer or you can become a mentor. If you can mentor 5 normal engineers from 1x to 2x then you've now got 10x engineering and the org also has reduced bus factor.
What about if those 5 2x engineers can bring another 25 0.5x engineers up to 1x engineers. Suddenly your org can become much more than a single 10x engineer can accomplish.
This is quite spurious and 9 mothers can't have a baby in 1 month but it's a useful mental model for the value of individual contribution vs coaching/managing.
In reality while people like to balk at the idea of the 10x engineer, the truth is there are probably 100x and 1000x engineers out there. Von Neumann is probably a 1000x or more. Linus and Page&Brin are probably at least a 100x etc - those multiples are made up, power laws make numbers go big
I only had the impression that the OP tells his subordinates that "they shouldn't oversweat, do some meaningful stuff but remember it won't really matter in the end". This is while working for a company that was created by a person who has probably worked their ass off, and maybe even sacrificed their private life for pursuing a dream of having a large company.
All I'm saying is that money, success, power, connections are so important in life that they give happiness even for other people. If we're poor, then where do we go for help? To those who are richer or more powerful. They enable our happiness in our time of need (that is, if they choose to help us).
However almost no money had to be thrown at the problem, and the outcome was the best that could have been wished for.
I live in Europe where we generally have universal healthcare.
Perhaps the author you responded to is also living in a similar situation?
I for one would take the same view as them. Work to live, and try only to do meaningful work. Life really is too short and fragile not to.
My mother when visiting a "universal healthcare" doctor (queues are several months long) for digestion problems AND having a genetic history of cancer was given Xanax for depression. She fortunately tossed out the receipt for it after leaving the doctor office, because she's not stupid, certainly not depressed.
So I think mentioning a mythical "universal healthcare" in my direction doesn't have the outcome you'd like it to have. Even more, it kind of proves my point, that you don't need money if everything goes well. You need it when things go to sh*t.
In "universal healthcare", you can only go to a doctor once, or two times a year. Because the waiting queues are so long sometimes. And even if you change the doctor, the previous diagnosis will be in the same system, so if the doctor will get lazy, they'll just repeat the diagnosis. There's no motivator here (well, during communist times, a popular form of motivator was a "present" for doctor, so people found ways to motivate doctors).
I know from friends there are places where the public health system is so underfunded (e.g. Bulgaria) that they basically had to get private health insurance to get good treatment. In other words YMMV.
Meanwhile, on HN, the only reaction I can count for is a downvote for telling my life experience. That's why I love HN, you often disappoint, correcting my life expectations closer to reality :heart: !
In fact I immigrated to Germany from a country with shittier (underfunded) health care system myself so I can very much relate.
2. Public healthcare does not prohibit people from using private doctors. People who can afford to go to the private doctor can still do it. Whereas people who can't (or can, but just choose not to), get their lifes saved by the state.
3. Profit motive is deeply flawed in all businesses, but it's especially problematic in something as critical as healthcare. If the doctors are primarily driven by money and not by doing their job properly, they'll fleece their customers. It's not uncommon among dentists (who are largely privatised even across Europe) to make up expensive, unnecessary procedures so that they can buy their next Porsche or a house on the Spanish coast etc.
2. Yes, public healthcare does not prohibit from using the private sector, fortunately. But the amount of money I pay for the "universal free public healthcare" every month dwarfs my expenses to private sector. It's like I'm paying for a really expensive service, and I can use it twice a year with questionable effects. So not only public healthcare is extremely expensive for me, I need to pay above that to use the private sector. I understand what the money is for -- so that other people can use it that are less fortunate than me. So they kind of rely on my sacrifice, on my life choices, my risk.
3. Maybe it's flawed, but it's the reality. Trying to change that isn't really my fight. If you know how to fix that then by all means go ahead. I need to spend my energy elsewhere.
This was also my experience with the private health care system as well.
Alot has to do with the lack of specialists in certain fields. This is not an easy problem to fix because there are only so many residency slots available, and its hard to increase them. The best you can do is poach from other countries.
And it's those people that are in my head when I think about my world view and shape my views on engineering management. So yeah, my advice to young adults would be (and has been) "plan for waking up one day and finding that work isn't all that important anymore and have a diversification strategy. The real startups are the friends we made along the way."
Even stranger, I've never had anything to show as the code never "existed" in the physical sense.
Agreed.
In my 20 years as a dev.. I am sure my fingerprints (code I wrote) still exist in past jobs... the past companies I have worked for.
Sadly, going back to my first job, I know the project I wrote came to an abrupt end a few years after I left. I am sure that codebase has long since disappeared... though I might still find some code in USB sticks, somewhere.
Even my previous job, some front end gui projects are likely terminated due to structural changes in the company. Going all-cloud with a product which would have changed bespoke applications.
All comes down to experience. If I could go back in time to my first job, I could "hack" out that code in days.. rather than months, but I am diverting the topic a little. lol.
> These days, I take the most pleasure out of building careers and mentoring younger engineers
Again -- agreed!
Doing my bit to help find their feet is very rewarding. Being in my 40s and seeing "kids" that are 10, 15, or near 20 years younger than me is a reality-check for me! It comes a point when my humour in the room no longer lands... because they have no idea what I refer to. I nearly get a heart attack when I hear someone say "I have not seen Robocop"
The other reality-check, and a more serious one, is that I am at an age of guidance... for them. I remember being their age, with little help or guide from the older, senior devs in the room. I swore I would never be like this. Well, I am now at that age they once were.
I know at least a couple of guys I have worked with, for different reasons, have moved on and are successful. If I can claim atleast 2% of their good decisions.. I will take it. Very happy for them!
Getting good pay is one thing. Mentoring new careers is heart warming.
"When the work is done, it is forgotten. That is why it lasts forever."
- Tao Te Ching (Chapter 2)
Same. Sometimes the company disappears, sometimes they just stop maintaining your code after you leave, and it eventually dies.
The only code of mine that has stuck around is the open source stuff. And even then... a large open source project I started 15 years ago was wildly successful, but after I left (with another maintainer in place) it languished, and one of these days I expect even its website and git repo will disappear.
It's discouraging :-(
A bit unsettling when I think about the varying quality of software though.
> A bit unsettling when I think about the varying quality of software though.
That's just the business.
I had a similar perspective on gratitude when I was broke. I wasnt unhappy necessarily.
But when I became “rich” things definitely changed and I don’t even have Woz money.
Being “rich” helps in that you don’t worry about money anymore at least not in the way you did before…
But as Larry David said as soon as “making money” disappears as a worry than something else tends to take its place in your head. A good example would be “losing money” or “trusting others.”
The biggest goal should be becoming debt-free and avoiding consumerism. If you can do this you can reduce money as a worry and focus on gratitude as Woz says.
It can be hard to be happy and find direction when you’re broke.
I think there's a subtle difference between living a happy life and looking back being proud of the life you lived. Of course having money is better. Money opens up possibilities for the future. However, on your deathbed when there isn't much future left, possibilities don't matter much and all you're left with is wondering what your legacy will be. In the difference lies hedonism.
1. Like most of the things he said, he got it somewhere, though I can't find a consistent attribution. The oldest seems to be Beatrice Kaufman.
This is one of the reasons I'm a free software enthusiast. Outside of capitalism and trade secrets, programs I wrote 10-20 years ago can be just fine.
I saw some comments in code last week from the founders of my current employer, written back in the '90s when I would've just been entering high school. That code and much more is still there in a product used and beloved by millions.
At an employer in the middle there, the oldest code was from the mid-2000s but it's still kicking around. Code I wrote there a decade later is still in production use today.
I can only think of a single employer where this isn't the case and it was a shitty startup that I never should've accepted an offer for.
Life outside the FAANG-adjacent-or-worshipping community is completely different.
That's what we're talking about here. Sure, it'd be nice if I built a knockout startup with code so great it lived beyond me, and that's a worthy thing to pursue. However, in the end looking back you may, like Woz, find that was less important than other things.
Not at all how I took it, but okay. I worked in embedded, medical robotics, and am now in games. People use the shit I've built, I wish more people in this stupid industry had a similar experience. That's what I was talking about.
> When you're on your death bed, is "my code was in production longer than average" going to be what you want your legacy to be?
This is just weird. No. I don't believe that I'll think about it much. God willing I won't think about it at all starting as soon as I retire but let alone on my death bed.
This is a very popular stance to take for every millionare out there.
Also, the absence of daily worries, the lack of problems induced by money, and the presence of an everlasting feeling of security can lead to a detachment from the concept of wealth. What I mean is, if you don’t experience the problems that money can easily solve—and there are many of them—and you possess a great deal of money, then you might not feel that money solves anything, simply because you haven’t encountered such problems in a long time. This could create the impression that money has no value, but it actually indicates that we’re detached from reality, not that we’ve achieved any form of moral enlightenment.
And because if you've vanquished the problems that money can solve, the only problems that occupy your attention are ones money can't solve, so those seem disproportionately important.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-happiness-study-daniel-ka...
Also, many non-millionaires who are older and have the perspective common to the old like Wozniak too probably. Their kids are grown if they had any, they’re probably retired and no one expects them to change the world and they’re unlikely to have any ambition to do so. They know more people in the cemetery now than those who are alive. Because of that they know that life and its struggles are a passing thing and you have to enjoy it while you can with others while they’re with you. That is a legitimate kind of moral enlightenment that even the young with their whole life and its struggles before them can benefit from contemplating.
With money, it depends on where your focus is. If it's still money, then it's sad. But if it's in other people WHILE having lots of money, then you're happy. If you get your priorities straight.
The phrase "money doesn't bring happiness" is one of the most silly things I've heard in my life. It's true that money shouldn't be the source of happiness, but it's enough to see all those fundraisers for children in need of medical assistance. In these cases, money can indeed bring a great deal of relief and happiness.
It's easier to enjoy life when you're not worrying about providing for one self and their family, though.
Some people work two jobs to provide for themselves or their family. Even here, some people work crazy hours.
You need to have enough left over lucidity, energy, and will power in you to enjoy life after dealing with life's challenges.
I'm ignoring the health aspects too, and it's becoming increasingly more expensive to stay healthy in urban settings too.
It can be vacuous rich people speak, but there is definitely something in untangling happiness from material circumstances (any kind).
Note: I’m definitely not a millionaire.
“Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.”
If you've never heard of him, it's well worth reading some of his books (see Memoirs), especially of his time serving during the Second World War.
He is in the unusual position to have achieved a great level of accomplishment.
There's a zen binary koen in there somewhere
People who aren't in a position to worry about self-actualization because they're trying to stay fed and clothed are unlikely to agree that money doesn't matter that much, if asked on their deathbed at presumably a young age.
Lets be real though, almost everyone who reads HN are in the self-actualization phase, instead of the "how not to starve" phase.
Can be hard to get beyond those, and money isn't the deciding factor there.
Dont get me wrong -- I genuinely agree with this.
However, such comment means little when you have achieved an (unusual) high level of success. You have experienced something the vast majority does not.
To be in a position when you will be thankful taking your last breath around your close family, but will be mourned ALL OVER THE WORLD... and be remembered in the computer industry alongside Fred Brooks, Ken Thompson, Steve Jobs, etc... not to mention others (when they pass) like Linus Torvolds, John Carmack, Brian Keringhan... to name a few!
In the back of his mind he know this. He is just letting nature run with this, while focusing on family. He has acheived a lot and I respect that.
Does not change my point, considering I "genuinely agree" with his comment.
Sounds like you just want to shout across the room as if I insulted you or something.
> Finding things to be grateful for in the midst of hardship — like your loved ones or good health — can shift your brain into a more optimistic mindset and help you overcome those challenges, Wozniak added.
I guess this is what it all boils down to. The default human setting is to be always unhappy, wanting more, but it's a never ending cycle with little satisfaction. Step out of the hamster wheel, appreciate what you have and live in the moment.
We don't know who Jobs or Woz are.
At best, even most people in the field are using 3rd or 5th hand information. Quotes from Jobs or Woz don't show even the tiniest real glimpse into who a person is. Stories about persons, especially those with significant media presence, are often tailored, and invariably seen through the optics of the author of the article. Certainly, anyone who has been through an interview knows that what they say is cut, altered, quoted in partial context, etc.
Only people who have actually worked with Jobs and Woz know them. And even then, they often only know them at work. A brief interjection into a work day once a month isn't "knowing someone" either. Sitting in a room of 1000 people for a company wide meeting isn't knowing them.
My point is, these sorts of deep thoughts aren't something we can gauge from 2nd party discussions about someone. You need to know a person, personally, to actually be able to gauge what they actually believed.
I've always been sort of... sad that so much of the world looks at people from so far away, and then takes stock in what they hear/gleam. Quotes from figures religious, from every religion, are a popular theme here. "Some guy said something 2000 years ago", filtered through a half dozen translations, and church dogma, are taken as if a person had known the person for 20 years. Meanwhile, we literally haven't a clue what was said in such cases.
Yet the same is true of all hearsay strewn about all such figures. It's just word snippets taken out of context, of a single hour in a person's life.
For example, if I asked anyone here the same question 10 years apart, would the answer be the same? Would the response even remotely resemble the prior? If the answer is "yes", then the topic isn't complex, or the person hasn't learned anything in their life.
So to this I would say, irregardless of how many dislike Job's work ethics re: employee interaction, what would a 70 year old Jobs say? And say in person, without being "on"? Or worried about a quote in the media, where single words uttered could shatter or change the image of a cult icon?
I mean, sure, but at the same time these were public figures and we have ample evidence of what they said, and how they acted. Whether they were putting up a persona or not is irrelevant, as we can only go by whatever someone tells us, and by how they behave. Besides, people can have different personas even among people closest to them. Since we can never know the truth, it's easiest to assume that what someone says aligns with what they think.
The historic record is powerful in this way, and the reason why historical figures become myths and legends. Humans are story tellers after all, and once we were able to record stories for future generations, it transformed our culture and catapulted our progress as a civilization.
We don't need to "know" someone to learn from their beliefs and ideas.
This being HN, I reckon there are people here who knew Jobs and Woz personally.
My very next sentence:
At best, even most people in the field are using 3rd or 5th hand information.
See the "most" there? Context counts. The media is far worse than a forum such as this, where at least my words are shown. A reporter will let someone speak for 10 minutes, then quote one sentence completely out of context.
If you watch video of them talking, or read their writing (or know them personally) then it is 1st hand.
It's fairly easy to get 1st and 2nd hand info about a contemporary figure, so I would suggest most interested people are not using 3rd or 5th hand info. Maybe the general public is.
So? What's your point here? At no point did I say the above logic was wrong, infer it, say that it was so. You're literally arguing against something I never said, and me pointing that out, and showing you where I said "most", hasn't resulted in you modifying your argument.
I get the impression that you're not reading my entire comment, and then responding with all of the info in mind at once.
For example, I discussed how "knowing someone" has caveats. That talking to someone once, doesn't give context, doesn't equate to "knowing someone". That working with someone doesn't equate to "knowing someone", if the result was "I'd talk to the guy for a few sentences once per month" or "occasionally seem them talking to other people".
The entire context of this conversation revolves around understanding the world view of someone. Not seeing how they act for an incredibly tiny slice, non-contextualized slice of their life. And to "know" someone, you need to have actual, detailed conversations with them.
Further, I've covered how "watch video of them talking" isn't actually 1st hand in many respects. That's because often context is removed. You've just skipped that part.
One other thing you've also missed, is how people change. Part of my post was also about how Jobs wouldn't be the Jobs known by anyone. He'd be "Jobs plus > decade more experience". People change as they age.
If you wish to reply, I'd ask you stop handpicking parts of sentences to respond to, and respond to context as well.
It's always easy for people who have everything to say that, they're not the ones lying in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall with no dad to phone and stop it all.
You might have modest ambitions and achieve this soon, or you might have a great capacity for making money and achieve it soon, or your reach might exceed your grasp and you never feel as though you've done it.
I guess Woz made a lot of money and it was more than enough for him to do what he wanted with his life. That's great.
And when that time comes - the memories you made will be your sole company, so while you are healthy, go out and make those good memories.
I barely remember anything that happened to me 20 years ago (almost all of it is thanks to some journal entries I made back then and some files I have saved from then). I've surprised myself with what I've read in my journals relatively often, especially the further back I wrote them. Didn't remember those things happening to me at all. I mostly just remember major events and general trends.
Vacations I took more than 10 years ago I almost might as well not have taken because I remember at most maybe one or two brief anecdotes and a handful of mental images. And conversations I had with people are basically all lost if I didn't commit them to journals at the time.
Not outright disagreeing with you, btw, but sometimes it seems like I waste a lot of money chasing memories where I could have chased a few less memories, and be a lot closer to retiring by now.
Especially if we're talking media consumption, like CDs/movies/games I watched or played once, if that, or eating out so often in restaurants.
Love this mentality. I've not seen such a concise phrase to describe such a positive perspective that truly embraces the "gift" of life. Like, be real/legit, find the good in everything/everyone, and help people out or life people up. Woz seems like a pretty cool guy.
It's good to take note of his positive attitude, but I do also think it's healthy to take anything multimillionaires say with a grain of salt.
Dependent customers does work, even when they're miserable and they hate you. Consider some examples, from worse is better through addiction.
Without 2 min intro - https://vimeo.com/935633920#t=1h50m0s
While in the EU/UK you need to learn to get around censorship, you have to work past your cyber-agoraphobia, leave your region. Use a VPN or Tor or Proxy
Or it tells you what to do, get a login.
yt-dlp or https://cobalt.tools might even work.
On Topic: Why they wanted to have accessibility for the blind is they were good people, also the famous blind phreakers at the time - https://www.eetimes.com/the-blind-hacker-who-inspired-apple/
It surprised me surveying 10,000's of students for accessibility how many used Apple over products you pay for. The failure is government, they should be creating these tools, not Apple, and the specialized private industry in this space is also incompetent.
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/935633920" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Open it via browser.
His myth has greatly outgrown his accomplishments and I have a feeling even he is not comfortable with it, he'd rather be showing off his Nixie watch to friends.
He could not have done it without Steve Jobs. But Steve Jobs could not have done it without him, either.
Steve Jobs was a major believer in the idea of the 100x engineer. During his entire career, he always tried to hire them.
And why did Steve Jobs believe in hiring 100x engineers? Because he knew and worked with Steve Wozniak.
I don’t know if there is a real myth around him but it doesn’t looks like he is trying to maintain it.
The guy really looks like he just wants to be happy in life and would prefer not be a celebrity.
It looks like he is a worse entrepreneur than Jobs, sure, but a better father and a better human overall, that’s pretty sure. I feel like that’s a pretty mature behavior if you ask me.
He sought out Woz because of what he could do.
I suppose you feel you are a better engineer, no? It's good to see hubris is still alive and well in tech.