Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak at NAMM Breakfast

Saturday morning at the Anaheim Hilton, Pacific Ballroom. The lights go out. A clip of The Big Bang Theory, Season 4, Episode 65, begins playing on every screen in the room. We see Sheldon, Penny, Leonard, all the usual suspects, but then lo and behold, Steve Wozniak himself is on screen. It’s a surreal moment, and the room is silent. The crowd laughs at his witty exchanges with the character, Sheldon, and before anyone knows it, Steve Wozniak materializes on stage next to NAMM CEO and president Joe Lamond. He is met with a standing ovation.

“There’s a saying in our business,” Lamond begins, “about how to make a small fortune in this business, and the answer is to start with a large one.” This leads into a little bit of back story about some of Wozniak’s early endeavors, one being the Us Festivals, which were two music and culture festivals sponsored by Wozniak in the early 1980s. “The first year, it lost 10 million dollars; how’d that work,” Lamond asked Wozniak, to which Wozniak responded, “The intent was not to lose money… I figured if you make a good product – I was young, and my learnings had come from Apple – you make a good product, you’ll make money, and it didn’t make money, so I didn’t do it anymore.”

While Wozniak is most well known for being one of the co-founders of Apple Computer with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, as well as a celebrated electrical engineer, he at a young age had ambitions of becoming a teacher, specifically a fifth grade teacher. “I wanted to teach, I was giving computers to schools, but giving a computer is like giving money, and money doesn’t have a lot of meaning. Give yourself. So I decided I’ll start teaching how to use the computer to get better grades, how to do better homework, every subject in school how can you apply it to a computer, and I started teaching fifth graders and I got up to teaching full time, seven days a week, fifth graders, sixth through ninth graders, teachers, I was teaching for eight years, no press allowed. Because I didn’t want press around young kids.”

“A lot of us in the room, our audience here, are involved with the music business, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with technology and music, but you do think this is moving us forward?” Lamond asked Wozniak. Wozniak said he believed in his youth that technology was always moving us forward, and commented on how his experiences with young children and how they really took to computers makes him think that all of this progress is good. “Progress has to be good,” said Wozniak, “we create it.”

Wozniak spoke briefly about his feelings towards music and how music influenced his life. “The first real concert I went to was Junior Walker playing the saxophone, and I just died,” Wozniak said, “music that just got right into my soul and changed my life forever.”

The conversation between Lamond and Wozniak ping-ponged back and forth between technology, the Atari, young Wozniak’s trials and tribulations, Steve Jobs, John Draper aka Captain Crunch, Wozniak’s equation for happiness (Happiness = s-f [smiles minus frowns]), generosity, giving back, and how generosity relates to music. “I gave 20 million of my own stock to them,” said Wozniak of the key people who were involved in Apple’s success who initially weren’t granted stock, “they didn’t show that in the movie,” said Wozniak. A lot of people in the room on this day – musicians themselves, students, music educators, etc. – would say one of the most generous gifts you can give to another human being is music. “I am so lucky for everything that I did in my life that got me here tonight… the music is like a magic dust in my mind, bringing magic to people,” Wozniak said.

“I can’t think of a better note to end it on, because we’ve devoted our lives, all this year, we’ve spent every waking and sleeping moment towards [bringing] more music and music education to this world, because we believe exactly what you just said,” said Lamond.

“Music has had such a huge meaning in my life,” said Wozniak at one point. Wozniak had played the guitar for 20+ years. “I don’t play now because I have a tendon problem… it’s just now healed enough where I might be able to play,” said Wozniak. “Remind me, I think there’s an exhibitor here who can help with that, I saw something,” Lamond replied.

“Hmm,” said Wozniak in a demure, but excited tone, “what a good use of technology.”