Steve Wozniak is a legend, rather better known as one of the co-founders of Apple, rather than the less-of-dapple contestant in a recent series of Dancing With The Stars.
He's also widely known as the Ying to Steve Jobs' Yang, a man who dug deep into his own pocket to offer his fellow workers $10 million in shares, while Jobs and the Apple board refused to do so. He's the nice guy.
While never as charismatic as Jobs and who never made the fortune that Jobs amassed. According to many sources, Wozniak is still worth $100 million, who travels widely and attracts a loyal audience wherever he goes.
He turns up in some strange places. Earlier this year he was in Manchester, UK for the Business Rocks conference and recently he was the keynote speaker of the BDL Accelerator event in Beirut, the first time he had visited the Lebanon. He was also there to receive an award for his contribution to technology.
Many would say that Wozniak, The Woz or whatever people like to call him represents the past and not the future. What he did at Apple has been superseded and surpassed by modern-day innovators. I think we know who they all are.
Wozniak, however, was certainly cool in Beirut. Out of a total audience of 24,000 people, he was speaking on the main stage, where people were literally crawling other each other to be one of the lucky 8.00o who got to see him live and in person.
He remains relevant without being constantly involved in investing in technology or Silicon Valley. While some of the Beirut audience were there to hear Steve Jobs stories by Wozniak-osmosis, others were emerging entrepreneurs working out of garages (nowadays known as accelerators) who just wanted to know how to scale their own companies.
Moreover, Wozniak had stories and good ones. His collectors' piece business card is made out of metal and looks like something Captain Kirk may have assembled on the Starship Enterprise 3D metal printer. He told the audience that after 9/11, even on private jets, diners would have to use plastic cutlery.
As Woz was fond of a decent steak, he built and designed such a business card to use to cut his steak. Even if this story is in any way apocryphal, it was still a good one.
Moreover, and this is where readers may like to sit down, Wozniak was one of the first people to see one of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's children born.
As friends of the couple, Wozniak and his wife had booked in a lunch with West and Kardashian only to hear of the birth. Presuming lunch was off, they were surprised to be invited to the hospital to see the new-born. Strange bedfellows indeed, but true.
Samer Karam was the organizer of the BDL conference and the invitation to Wozniak was deliberately aimed at inspiring the emerging tech ecosystem in Beirut, despite the strife in the countries beside it.
"I created the conference to bring the world to Lebanon once a year to recognize and celebrate the successes of the startup ecosystem. It was part of my vision for the sovereign wealth fund of this country to ensure we are part of the global playingfield.
"Steve helped us this year to continue as the startup megaphone in Lebanon to the world facet of this strategy and he gave the audience huge inspiration. We would have him back any time", he said.
While Wozniak has no current plans to return to reality TV and even as the crowd pleaded with him to show some steps, he cited the 'Reality TV union' as forbidding such behaviour. In Beirut, he may not have danced with the stars, but he certainly showed that, even after all these years, he remains a star.
