Wozniak: 'I begged HP to make the Apple I. Five times they turned me down.'

Steve Jobs may have marketed Apple into the gazillion-dollar business it is. But another Steve launched the products on which Apple became a platinum-plated brand. Apple, as we know it, emerged from the "hobbies" of a young Silicon Valley engineer named Steve Wozniak. If Jobs was the face of Apple, Wozniak — simply referred to as The Woz — was the brains. In front of a packed ballroom at Georgia State University on Wednesday, Wozniak spoke about entrepreneurship, the future of technology, and the company that turned him into a geek prophet. Wozniak has an engineer's sartorial style — he wore a black suit, over a black polo shirt, and blue Puma sneakers. The way Wozniak tells it, Apple's seed was planted in a Hewlett-Packard cubicle. While designing scientific calculators at HP during the day, Wozniak developed what would become the Apple I at night and on weekends — often in his HP cubicle. Wozniak designed the hardware, circuit board designs, and operating system for the Apple I. "I was such a nerd coming out of high school, that in those days I had little chance of having a girlfriend, or a wife,", Wozniak said. "So, when I finished designing calculators at HP in the daytime, I went home, watched Star Trek and then (worked on his computer projects.)" The scrupulous and loyal Wozniak first took his "project" to his employer. "I begged (HP) to make the (Apple I)," he said. "Five times they turned me down." Instead, it was Jobs who recognized the potential in Wozniak's hobby. "I constantly build things for the fun of it," Wozniak said. "Every great thing I built, I would have just given away, if I hadn't been talked into going into Apple."