Woz Admits Apple Was Not Started In A Garage, That's An 'Overblown Myth'

Every budding entrepreneur is familiar with Apple's humble beginnings in a garage. From there, the company grew. And grew, and grew, and grew to where it is today -- a firm with a market capitalization just shy of $680 billion, and that's after the recent (and inexplicable) stock drop.

Budding business owners use that story as motivation, just as teenage athletes are told that Michael Jordon was cut from his high school basketball team before going on to become one of the best NBA players of all time. The thing is, we as a species tend to romanticize history, and while Jordan really was cut from his high school squad, the story of Apple starting out in a garage isn't entirely accurate.

So says Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The revelation came during an interview with Bloomberg, with Woz calling the story of Apple's startup days an overblown myth. That's not to say the garage didn't play a role, it just wasn't nearly as meaningful as the legend would have us believe.

"The garage is a bit of a myth. It's overblown," Woz says. "The garage represents us better than anything else, but we did no designs there. We would drive the finished products to the garage, make them work and then we'd drive them down to the store that paid us cash."

On most occasions, there were never more than two people in the garage, and usually they weren't being productive, Woz recounts. And as far as tinkering with finished products inside the garage, it was short lived, as the two Steves "outgrew" to location rather quickly.


These are the kinds of exaggerated details that make for good stories and docudramas, which is likely why the so-called "myth" has lived on for so long. Often times, however, reality doesn't live up to the hype, as appears to be the case here. So there's your buzz kill for the end of the week.