Long before co-founding Apple and inventing its first home computers, Steve Wozniak used to tinker with clever—and occasionally dangerous—pranks.
Teen Genius Turns Mischief Into Trouble
In a 2016 Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session, Wozniak recalled one of his most memorable pranks: rigging a school locker with a homemade electronic metronome.
“I put a little ticking electronic metronome in a school locker… when you opened the locker, a little tinfoil switch caused the ticking to speed up,” Wozniak said.
At the time, very few students had the skills to build such devices, making the prank both impressive and unnerving.
From Clever Prank To Police Intervention
The seemingly harmless trick quickly escalated.
According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, Wozniak removed labels from large batteries and taped them together to make the device look like a bomb, noted Business Insider.
School officials, fearing the worst, called the police.
The principal reportedly ran onto the football field clutching the device before carefully disarming it. Wozniak struggled to hide his laughter.
He was sent to a juvenile detention center for the night.
While there, he reportedly showed other detainees how to reroute wires from the ceiling fans to the bars, causing shocks when touched.
Early Hacker Spirit: Blue Boxes And The Vatican Prank
Wozniak’s love for pranks didn’t stop in school.
Alongside Steve Jobs and John Draper—known as Captain Crunch—he built a device which allowed them to make free long-distance calls by mimicking telephone operator tones.
One of their most audacious stunts involved calling the Vatican and impersonating then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Wozniak recounted, “I said, ‘Well, I’m Henry Kissinger with Richard Nixon at the summit meeting in Moscow and we’d like to speak to the Pope.'”
Why Wozniak Says Innovation And Humor Go Hand in Hand
In a 2013 interview on whether Silicon Valley needed more humor, Wozniak said engineers tend to have an unusual sense of humor because creative thinking in innovation closely mirrors the process of making jokes.
He argued that true inventors don’t simply repeat ideas they’ve heard before but create something new “out of thin air,” much like crafting an original punchline.
The Apple co-founder added that the same mental process drives breakthrough product ideas and fuels his long-standing interest in pranks.
Steve Wozniak’s Net Worth And His Role In Building Apple
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Wozniak has an estimated net worth of $10 million.
Wozniak’s technical genius powered Apple’s early success. He personally built the Apple I computer in Jobs’ garage in 1976, followed by the Apple II, which introduced color graphics and an open architecture that enabled third-party hardware.
The Apple II became one of the first mass-market personal computers, cementing Apple’s role in launching the PC revolution.
Wozniak met Jobs in 1971 through a mutual friend, Bill Hernandez. Reflecting on their introduction, Wozniak later said, “A friend said, ‘You should meet Steve Jobs because he likes electronics, and he also plays pranks.”
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo Courtesy: Viappy on Shutterstock.com
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