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Q: Hi Steve, do you have any advice for the generation of dreamers who want to change the world with new ideas for computers and beyond?

A: [...] Don't expect success from the start. Go as far as you can making it perfect before you share it or seek funding. Have a working model or demonstration before you seek venture money. You could get funded and spend $100K on a video demonstration and then own less of your company and need further funding sooner. Or you could work hard to make a video for free, in your home (garage), and be that much better at the deal you finally work. And expect that many of your first tries will go nowhere. But they will get you experience toward the big one. You should have a job or live at home so you can work on your own passions on your on time. That implies not being too social or partying. Make good things when you are young and you've covered your needs for life.

Q: What advice could you offer young designers and aspiring innovators getting into programming? How do you think the web will affect products to come in the next ten years?

A: If you have college courses in CS, buy the books and spend day and night the few days before class going through the books and taking notes and answering questions and programming examples before the first class even starts. If you really want to do this in your life, that's what you should do, not just wait for the education to be handed you. Those who finish at the top will always be in high demand. You can learn outside of school too but you have to put a lot of time into it. It doesn't come easily. Small steps, each improving on the other, is what to expect, not instant understanding and expertise.

Q: Steve, any books that have inspired you or helped you along with your career? Or anything that is in your opinion a must read for someone interested in Computer Science?

A: Just the normal literature. I doubt that Farewell to Arms or Lord of the Rings inspired me this way. I got every computer manual I could at University bookstores and read them even if I'd never get a chance to touch that computer or run that programming language.

Q: Hello, Steve! We all know how successful you are. I would like to know what was the point at which you felt that "yes, I am successful"? What does success mean to you? Any advice on achieving guaranteed success in life?

A: I worked out lifetime philosophies of truth and happiness in high school and early college years. I worked out a few keys for my own life but they wouldn't necessarily work for someone else. Because I spent a lot of quiet inner hours, walking home from school for example, thinking out this philosophy, it was my own creation and much more important to me than any ideas that could have been shoveled my way, by parents or church or books. I had success for life based on my own internal keys and didn't need money or Apple or fame. In fact, those latter things fight it a bit. One of my philosophies was to be open. So I don't hide. I'm only one person and when thousands of people want me (email) I can't answer them all but I spend a lot of time trying. One of my keys was that if I'm open and truthful, I won't do things that I myself consider bad and wrong. You might get a clue why this fights what's needed in running a company. But it's great for an engineer.


Q: Hi Steve - who has had the largest influence on your career and why? 

A: My EE father had a brain and a heart. I wanted to be like him. He also spoke of pranks at Cal Tech.

My high school electronics teacher wrote his own lessons based on the equipment we had (better than any local college) and was the best teacher. He saw that I knew all the electronics (I'd had a ham license since 11 years old) so he arranged for me to visit a company in Sunnyvale that had a computer I could learn to program. We had no computer in our school.