Steve Wozniak: Apple starting in a garage is a myth

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has admitted that the story about forming the company in a garage is “a bit of a myth”.

The commonly shared tale is that Apple was not only founded in the garage of 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California – Jobs’s family home – but that the first Macs were designed and built in the garage as the company was bootstrapped.

“The garage is a bit of a myth,” Wozniak told Businessweek. “We did no designs there, no breadboarding, no prototyping, no planning of products. We did no manufacturing there.”

Wozniak single-handedly designed and built the first Apple I kits in 1976, which went on sale for $666.66, and also designed the 1977 follow up Apple II computer. By the time the Apple III came along in 1980, Apple had staff and a production line.

“The garage didn’t serve much purpose, except it was something for us to feel was our home,” said Wozniak. “We had no money. You have to work out of your home when you have no money.”

Despite not playing a major role, the myth was enough to see the garage designated as a listed historical site in 2013, joining the garage where computer company Hewlett-Packard was founded in the neighbouring town of Palo Alto.

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