Additional comments here,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44903803 ("Steve Wozniak: Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about happiness (slashdot.org)"—593 comments)

[dupe] Main discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44903803

I met Woz briefly at a Coffee Shop in NYC, many years ago. I was pitching investors for funding and had no idea what I was doing.

He gave me some quick feedback that made a world of difference in SF (years later, when I tried raising angel money): get closer to people first. You don’t have to be their friends - just show up to where they show up (bars, meetups, library - anything), then tell them what you’re doing, and they’ll write you checks without you asking.

This is still the key reason why raising money in the Bay Area is so much easier than anywhere else.

I didn’t get any check from him that night, but he came across as such a human person - like someone you know for years - even to a complete stranger trying to go straight for his wallet.

Tech would be amazing if we had 1000x more Wozes around.

Whereas I am not trying to take anything away from Woz (I’ve never met that Steve, but by all accounts he’s a really nice guy), I can’t help but feel that his personality and the ethos he espouses have been made a lot more possible by the fact that he had a lot of disposable income…

Other tech pioneers who rode off into the sunset:

Blackberry co-founder (sold stock when iPhone launched), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Fregin

Facebook co-founder (pushed out), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin

MySpace founder (pushed out after sale), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Anderson, "If you knew me before Myspace, you'd probably thought I'd have been a scholar teaching philosophy in a university my whole life. If you met me before college, you'd probably have thought I'd be a musician for my entire life ... I like change.

The only thing I feel is 2nd hand regret for Woz. What if he didn't cash out? What would his net worth be today?

I am so caught up in the rat race, that I can't even understand what Woz want's to say, or what makes him happy. I only feel sad for him.

But if you think about it, I actually feel sad for myself. If I were in Woz's position with ~$20m or so and had missed the Apple cash cow (assuming $500m at the very least), how would I react? Would I live my entire life with regret and remorse? Would I be bitter?

Huge props to Woz for figuring out what makes him happy and doing exactly that.

>I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever.

Those juxtaposed sentences do not compute for the vast majority of ultrawealthy engineers/CEOs/upperclass/1%. It certainly proves that after a fuzzy but real number of dollars, there exists a point where you simply have a superfluous amount of money.

Woz lives not too far from me and is a regular at the park I go to, walking his dogs. The first time I saw him, I wasn't sure if it was him, so asked a person nearby - he has a very distinctive look with his facial hair and smile.

Since then, I've seen him a bunch of times, chatting with people and being friendly.

I used to be a software millionaire back in the 80's. My discovery is that money does buy happiness so the phrase should actually be "Money does buy happiness, but can't cure clinical depression." The list of wealthy people who have committed suicide is long, starting with my contemporaries Kurt Cobain, Chris Cantrell, Anthony Bourdain... and almost me. The money is gone now but I'm happy with enough to live comfortably.

Money doesn’t cause happiness, but poverty does cause grief.

Too bad the world isn't run by people like him.

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I would be as well.

To me Woz is a connection back to the hippy-libertarian utopian engineering roots of Silicon Valley, decades before the current leaders, who seem to be much more misanthropic and ethically challenged than the generation of CEOs before them.

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It kidna sucks having accomplished so much very early in life and then being "now what?" It's like he was never able to relive that glory of Apple, not that he necessarily wanted to. But it's like, 'what do you do to fill the time?'

I'm sorry, but without your time at Apple, people would probably not pay so lavishly to hear you speak. Your speaking money very much is a continuation of your "Apple wealth." I'm not sure how you can legitimately separate them.

Anyways. Money. It buys happiness. Whoever says otherwise is a fool.