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Co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks Apple should be broken up
By Christopher Carbone
Published August 29, 2019
Apple icon Steve Wozniak thinks Big Tech companies, including the one he helped found, should be broken up.
In an interview with Bloomberg News this week, the mogul known as "Woz" didn't shy away from his view that Silicon Valley's biggest companies -- Facebook, Google and Apple, to name a few -- have become too powerful.
"I am really against monopoly powers being used in unfair, antitrust manners -- not opening up the world to equal competition ... and I think that's happening a lot in Big Tech," he told Bloomberg News.
Wozniak continued: “I’m pretty much in favor of looking into splitting up big companies. I mean, I wish Apple on its own had split up a long time ago and spun off independent divisions to faraway places and let them think independently the way Hewlett-Packard did when I worked there.”
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Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple/ (Getty Images)
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Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon are all facing a broad backlash on antitrust grounds, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice opening up probes of their practices.
The Apple co-founder, who is reportedly worth an estimated $100 million, explained that his main concern is the lack of honesty in terms of how tech giants have treated their customers.
“If you think you’re getting one level of protection — of your security and your safety and your knowledge about you — you should be getting that level,” Woz said. “If you send mail to somebody and say a few little things, ‘Hey my favorite color is green’ to my wife, well, that should be kinda private. It’s kinda like whispering in an ear. And it shouldn’t be that anyone else had access and heard it.”
However, Wozniak did have some kind words for Apple's current chief, Tim Cook.
“Making life easy is what we were known for in computers,” Wozniak told Bloomberg News. “And now Apple Pay, the Apple credit card, is even more secure.”
Wozniak has previously said that he thinks everyone should ditch Facebook.
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/apple-cofounder-steve-wozniak-broken-up