Steve Wozniak

Apple didn't chase the business market.

The business market came to them because the spreadsheets program revealed something nobody knew existed.

Every middle manager's desire to become their own financial analyst.

Apple thought they were selling to hobbyists.

Instead, they'd accidentally built the perfect business machine.

With money pouring in, they turned to the Apple III.

After everything they'd learned, what could possibly go wrong?

On December 12, 1980, Steve Wozniak became one of the richest people in America.

That morning, Apple went public.

The company that four years earlier had been two guys in a garage was now worth almost $2 billion.

It was the most successful IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956.

The IPO created an estimated 300 millionaires.

Steve Jobs' stake was worth $217 million.

Mike Markula saw his $250,000 investment turn into tens of millions.

The parking lot at Apple headquarters changed overnight.

Hondas and Toyotas were joined by Porsches and Mercedes.

The company built on the joy of making something new suddenly had shareholders, quarterly earnings reports, Wall Street analysts.

The freewheeling culture that had produced the Apple II is now subject to the relentless demands of public market.

But something else happened that December morning, something that revealed the fundamental difference between Steve Wozniak and almost everyone else in Silicon Valley.

Wozniak looked around at his colleagues, the engineers who'd helped him debug code at midnight.