Apple Co-Founder Steve ‘The Woz’ Joins Next-Gen ATM Company

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has joined a payments company that’s looking to use the blockchain technology, the public ledger behind bitcoin transactions, for its next generation of ATMs.

Planet Capital — the multi-function crossover ATM operator — announced that Wozniak would be joining the company as an advisor and director. Planet Capital is a Los-Angeles-based FinTech company that is the developer of multi-function Next Generation ATM Kiosks. Last week, the company announced its launch into the self service payments space.

Outside of Wozniak, other board members include Reed Hundt, who served under President Clinton as FCC Chairman, Steve Mayer, the co-founder of Atari, John Harris, former CEO of The Carlyle Group, and Ken Hardesty, former IBM/Seagate Executive.

Speaking toward Wozniak’s addition to the team, Planet Capital Chairman Lee Caplin said: “Having an engineer as innovative as Woz around to look over our shoulders and make suggestions is priceless.”

“With an ‘All-Star’ team focused on exploiting our patent pending IP and “Blockchain” technology, Planet’s Next Gen ATM kiosks, unique network architecture and state-of-the-art wallet solution will make us a major payments industry disrupter,” A. Lyle Elias, Planet Capital CEO, wrote in a company blog post. “Planet’s strategy is geared toward capturing a significant share of the growing global market low cost payments kiosks. Planet will become the global market leader in self-service alternative payments.”

Elias is also the co-founder of the ATM Industry Association and co-founder and PAYe Network founder. According to the company, the Planet Network products and services, are utilizing the Blockchain, Cloud and Patent Pending technologies to enable faster, easier and more secure self service payments and solutions. The company says it is “dedicated to the concept of ‘smart money’ and revolutionizing the way people manage their daily finances and get instant interoperability.”