Steve Wozniak Net Worth

Introduction: 

Steve Wozniak Net Worth, How did the American computer engineer amass his wealth? Read on to find out more about Steve Wozniak Net Worth and his career.

Steve Wozniak Early Life

He is an American computer engineer. Steve Wozniak grew up in San Jose, California where his father worked as an engineer for the Lockheed Corporation. 

Wozniak attended Homestead High School where Steve Jobs would also attend several years behind. For college Woz briefly attended the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was expelled after hacking the school’s computer systems to send prank messages.

Upon returning to California he attended De Anza College and UC Berkeley. Wozniak lives in Los Gatos, California. He has been married four times. He has been married Janet Hill since 2008. He has three children from a previous marriage.

Steve Wozniak Career

Stephen Gary Wozniak was born on 11th of August, 1950 in San Jose, California. He is probably most-famous for being one of three co-founders of Apple. He co-founded the company on April 1, 1976 with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne in Cupertino, California.

Jobs was later hired by video game maker Atari where company founder Nolan Bushnell offered a $100 bounty for each chip that was eliminated in a game called Breakout. With little knowledge of circuit board designs, Jobs brought the challenge to Woz and offered him half of the bounty they received. 

Wozniak ended up removing 50 chips from the game. There would later be some controversy over how forthright Jobs was with Wozniak about the money he ended up receiving from Bushnell. Jobs apparently told Woz that Bushnell only gave him $700 when in fact he had been paid $5,000.

In 1975, Wozniak began designing what would become the Apple 1 computer. Impressed by what he was seeing, Jobs prodded Woz to launch a company together. Woz felt guilty about creating the Apple 1 while working at HP so he insisted that HP be given the opportunity to buy the technology. When HP declined, Woz and Jobs set out to create their own company.

However, in 1974, Wozniak led the team that designed and developed what would become one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. 

He is credited with being the sole creator of the original Apple hardware, operating system, and circuit board designs. His machines and inventions are also credited with influencing the personal computer revolution in the 1970s.

However, in 1976, Apple’s revenues were $175,000. In 1977 revenues grew to $2.7 million. Apple went public in 1980 after doing $117 million in sales. The public offering made over 300 employees at Apple instant millionaires. 

Wozniak and Jobs would both soon be worth hundreds of millions of dollars on paper. Woz was worth less than he could have been thanks to his habit of giving shares away to co-workers he thought deserved a bigger stake in the company.

He was involved in a nearly-fatal plane crash in 1981 that left him with serious brain trauma. The event caused him to essentially stop working at Apple for several years, during which time he completed his degree ‘using a fake name’ at UC Berkeley.

Wozniak returned to Apple at some point but left again by 1985. Though, he never resigned or officially severed his relationship with Apple. He is currently listed as a current employee of Apple and receives an annual stipend of $120,000 for representing the company at public events.

After leaving Apple, Wozniak has provided all the money, as well as a good amount of on-site technical support, for the technology program in his local school district. Un.U.Son ‘Unite Us In Song’, is an organization Wozniak formed to support his educational and philanthropic projects.

Wozniak co-founded Wheels of Zeus ‘WoZ, also his nickname’ in 2001, to create wireless GPS technology in order to help the average person on the street find everyday things more easily. 

He helped form the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1990. He is a major donor to several museums and organizations including the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, the Tech Museum and the Silicon Valley Ballet. He provides all the funding and technical support to his local Los Gatos school district schools.

In November 2019 Wozniak revealed that he had given the vast majority of his wealth to charity, presumably hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Steve Wozniak Net Worth

As of today, Steve Wozniak Net Worth $100 Million. Steve Wozniak Net Worth is earned from his career as a computer engineer.

Summary: 

Stephen Gary Wozniak is an American computer engineer who is probably most-famous for being one of three co-founders of Apple, California which was founded on April 1, 1976 with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne in Cupertino.

As of 2020, Steve Wozniak’s net worth is $100 Million.