My protege’s 1

This blog is about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. I just finished the Isaacson book on Jobs after being encouraged to read it by several close friends who know my connection to the events.

Both of these men are my protégés in business. In the next blog I will take credit for the good things they did and deny responsibility for Jobs’ bad behavior.

Why are they my protégés?

The definition of protégé is: ‘One .. whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence.’

Both of these men were hippies and I had a direct influence on the business values of the core group of hippies.

I breakdown the hippie population into three groups. First there was the group of a quarter of 1 million (250,000) people who lived fully in the hippie milieu: sex, drugs, clothes, hair and values. Both Jobs and Wozniak were in this category. The second category was 2.5 million people who used drugs and moved in and out of the complete hippie domain on weekends and other times. The third category were about 25 million who were influenced by the hippie movement and accepted most of the hippie behavior and values.

I was a dominant influence in the business values of the hippie world from 1970 for the next 20 years. I was president of the Whole Earth Catalog foundation, wrote dozens of articles for the Whole Earth magazine on business, and founded the Briarpatch Network of businesses that included well over 1000 Bay Area businesses from 1974 into the1980’s. I organized the original Greens restaurant, Steve Jobs' favorite San Francisco restaurant. I called on and gave advice at the Homebrew Computer Club where both Steves were active members. I was a friend of many of the significant influences and mentors for both men.

I also wrote prolifically, one of the few, on simple living which had a big influence on both Steves. Their formative hippie years were from 1970 to 1982.

Tomorrow's blog will deal with more specific elements of my influence.