Jobs Cheats Wozniak on Atari Bonus | Generated by AI
That’s the famous Atari Breakout chip reduction story from 1973-74, and it’s one of the clearest examples of the complicated dynamic between the two Steves.
What Actually Happened
While working at Atari, Steve Jobs was tasked with designing a circuit board for the arcade game Breakout. Atari offered a $100 bonus for every chip eliminated from the design. Jobs, who had limited circuit board expertise, brought in his friend Steve Wozniak and promised him an even 50/50 split of the bonus money.
Wozniak delivered something remarkable: he reduced the chip count by 50 using an ingenious RAM-based design for the brick representation. Atari was so impressed they paid the full $5,000 bonus (worth about $35,400 today).
But Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only paid them $700, and gave Wozniak his 50% share: $350. Jobs pocketed the remaining $4,650.
The Aftermath
Wozniak didn’t discover the truth until about ten years later. When he did, he admitted to being hurt but didn’t confront Jobs. He later said that if Jobs had simply told him he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him willingly.
This incident foreshadowed a pattern in their relationship: Wozniak as the technical genius, Jobs as the business-savvy partner who sometimes prioritized his own interests. The design itself was ultimately considered too complex for Atari to mass-produce, but Jobs still collected the full bonus.
Ironically, this deception occurred before they co-founded Apple, where Wozniak’s technical brilliance would create the Apple I and Apple II—the products that launched their empire.