Steve Wozniak's participation in Apple as an engineer was overrated

In the late 80's, Steve Wozniak left Apple because he felt like he would not get far in his career had he stayed with Apple. But he became a relative unknown in other places. Pretty much zero.

Wozniak probably left with stacks as fat as he could since Burrell Smith was the true hardware wizard at Apple during that time, and Woz didn't want to get embarrassed. Burrell did most of the Mac designs. Woz took his money and ran. At least Jobs risked everything and spent his money on NeXT, which eventually became modern day Apple and OS X (NextStep).

There is a reason Tim Berners Lee used a NeXT computer to make the World Wide Web, and there is a reason that John Carmack and John Romero used a NeXT computer to make DOOM. A 1993 NeXT computer was way ahead of anything for years to come. So Woz was overrated in that regard as his impact wasn't really felt beyond the foundation years. Especially when you compare him to a true chip and computer designer, like Jay Miner, the father of the Amiga.