Long before former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and cofounder Steve Wozniak created computers that changed history, they were just neighborhood pals.
In a recent interview with TechRepublic's Jason Hiner, one of Apple's earliest employees Bill Fernandez describes the first time Jobs and Wozniak met.
In fact, Fernandez was responsible for introducing them back in 1971.
Back then, Fernandez was friends with both Wozniak and Jobs separately, but hadn't introduced the two yet. One day, Fernandez was walking around the neighborhood with Jobs when he saw Wozniak outside washing his car. This was the perfect opportunity to introduce the two, he thought.
To little surprise, Wozniak and Jobs hit it off immediately. Fernandez figured the two would get along with one another since they shared a love for technology and playing pranks.
Before long, Jobs and Wozniak started hanging out together on their own, without Fernandez. They would work together on practical jokes and tech projects, and before long, they started working together professionally, too.
Fernandez also told Hiner what it was like being friends with Jobs back when they were in middle school and high school. Some of the traits that stayed with Jobs throughout his whole career were evident back then, according to Fernandez's account. The two became friends in middle school when Jobs moved to the same school district as Fernandez in Cupertino.
Here's how Fernandez described their friendship to TechRepublic:
We were both nerdy, socially inept, intellectual, and we gravitated towards each other. We both also were not at all interested in the superficial bases upon which the other kids were basing their relationships, and we had no particular interest, and we had no particular interest in living shallow lives to be accepted. So we didn't have many friends.
Fernandez and Jobs loved technology, and would often take long walks around the neighborhood to talk about it among other things. This was a practice that Jobs carried with him throughout his career, as he was known for taking long walks to discuss important matters with employees.
Here's what Fernandez told Hiner about it:
He and I also spent endless hours walking around the neighborhood, particularly in some of the nearby, undeveloped wild lands, talking about life, the universe, and everything.
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