#memeconnect #fio

This is a transcription of a short interview that John Furrier did recently with Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer Corp. and now the Chief Scientist of Fusion-io.

JF: I'm here with the co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak, the Woz. Steve, thanks for coming backstage before SNW, where you're giving the keynote on innovation. Quickly, what's your theme for your innovation talk today?

SW: Well, my theme is going to be the characteristics of innovation, some clever examples, what you should look for in people to get innovation, and how we stifle it.

JF: You're doing a gig as the chief scientist of Fusion-io, the hot SSD company in multiple markets, killer technology. Apple, though, was innovating with storage back in the early days, and Fusion-io is changing the game on storage. What's the big thing about Fusion-io and this whole movement they're pioneering.

SW: Fusion-io is really the leader in finding the innovative approaches and not the logical, easy to see, “Let's replace our hard disks with a solid state disk.” No. Finding the solution that actually pays back in dollars, in revenue, in efficiency, in how much you get done for how much money.

JF: Back in the day when you were hacking with Apple and and building the big machine we know as the Mac, you had to hack storage. Storage is a big deal. From floppy drives to hard disk. You had to innovate without a lot to work with. What message do you have to say to the culture out there today, the young guns working with cloud, working with storage, and with fusion and all this tech. What's the hacker message for them out there.

SW: Partly the message is to think the way a hacker does. Go down to the smallest elements and try to get more out of devices, more out of pieces of code than people think you can.

JF: Is storage a bottleneck for innovation going forward, or is it an opportunity in your mind?

SW: Storage is a huge opportunity. Right now we're seeing so much opportunity, so much innovation and change in that area. All of the huge network storage providers the SAN providers, everybody's retooling and going to the newer equipment. The hard disks are coming so far down in price. Then you've got the intermediate to higher speed higher access solid-state disks, and then you've got the storage solutions right in the PCI buss like Fusion-io and other companies. Oh no, it's a hotbed of innovation. Very competitive, too.

JF: Final question for you, what get's you excited these days? You've seen a lot in your day. Looking forward we're at this inflection point with cloud, mobile, social, data at the center of the value proposition, storage, etc. what gets you excited about what you see in the future?

SW: I get the most excited when you see something you couldn't foresee in advance. So I couldn't predict it. That's the future you don't see, that's exciting. And I also get excited when I see products that – woe! – have an incredible hop in performance, in speed, in appearance, in beauty, in how much they get done. Maybe it's just a 4G phone instead of a 3G phone.

JF: We're back here with the Woz back stage at SNW. You're going out on stage. Thanks for your time, and have a good trip to London.

SW: Thanks very much, John.