By John Boudreau

Mercury News

Posted: 02/05/2009 03:29:08 PM PST

Steve Wozniak doesn't need a job interview to get hired.

In fact, it's the other way around for the Apple co-founder.

Startup Fusion-io, which uses high-speed flash memory for storage systems, won over Woz. On Thursday, the Salt Lake City company announced he was joining it as chief scientist. Wozniak previously was on its advisory board.

The company, which has a research center in Redwood City, says its technology, typically used in consumer products like the iPod, can dramatically increase server processing power.

Fusion-io packs 200 pieces of flash silicon onto a module that slides into a server slot like a graphics card. Information stored on the flash chips can be accessed much quicker than those lodged in separate storage systems that must be accessed through a slow connection, said founder David Flynn.

"We are taking a rack full of disks and shrinking it down to a board full of slivers — little slivers of sand," he said.

The company's efficient computing is what attracted Wozniak.

"You are talking about something that will change computing across the board," Flynn said. "We are elated he saw our vision.

"I'm sure he sees just about everything that's out there. He has a broad purview of everything," said Flynn, who is also the company's chief technology officer. "That's a lot of the value he brings. Just about everybody approaches him with ideas."

Though at 58 he has yet to repeat the kind

of success he experienced with Apple and his former partner Steve Jobs, Wozniak never lost his love for computing elegance.

"I get e-mail requests all the time — look at our idea," Wozniak said in an interview. "I dodge most of them."

But Fusion-io caught his technical eye. During a meeting in a Los Gatos restaurant with company executives, Wozniak initially agreed to join the company's advisory board.

"I was really astounded by the benchmarks they had — case after case after case," he recalled. "I started to realize this was an architecture a lot of people missed. The server world is a big world. Companies put an awful lot of money into those machines. If you have half as many servers — that's half the cost."

Eventually, Woz suggested he join the company's board. But Fusion-io instead offered him the position of chief scientist.

Wozniak, though, is no regular employee. The company agreed to work around his busy schedule, which includes regular speaking engagements around the world.

Wozniak sits on boards and advisory boards of other companies.

One is Axiotron, a company that converts Apple MacBooks into tablet PCs. A past venture included Acquicor Technology, now called Jazz Technologies, which he launched in 2006 with former Apple Chief Executive Gilbert Amelio and Ellen Hancock, former Apple chief technology officer. The public company acquired other technology companies.

In 2006, Wozniak sold the assets of Wheels of Zeus, a global-positioning system and wireless company for which he was president and chief technology officer.