It really surprised the entire tech world, when the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak announced on Thursday that he will serve as the chief scientist at Fusion-io, a startup storage company famous for its incredibly high speed NAND flash technology.

Fusion-io is best known for its ioDrive, a direct-attached, PCIe-based solid-state storage technology. It is also known for featuring the ioDrive in its ioSAN networked enterprise SSD and its consumer-focused ioXtreme consumer-based storage device.

Steve Wozniak, the tech world knows, is the legend in personal computing. He is one of the major engineers who worked to develop the first Apple computers. Before his appointment as chief scientist, Wozniak joined the advisory board of Fusio-io in October, 2008.

Joining the advisory board of Fusio-io, Wozniak, at that time, said, "Seldom have I seen technology advances that win in almost every way at the same time, in terms of speed, capacity, reliability, endurance, power usage and simplicity. The products from Fusion-io are extremely useful to so many different applications, not to mention most of the world’s servers."

According Fusio-io’s statement, Wozniak, as chief scientist, will advise the research and development group of the company; will work closely with the company’s executive team on strategies to help expand its business in major global accounts.

In a statement, the CEO of Fusion-io, Don Basile said, "Steve Wozniak has been among the most elite innovators of his age and we are honored by his enthusiasm for our technology and our company. Steve's inventions and insights have inspired generations of IT professionals and we look forward to the influence he will have on the future direction of Fusion-io as we continue to transform the enterprise."

In his interview, Steve Wozniak said, "No, I never resigned from Apple, and I still receive a small paycheck because I want to be an employee forever. The press constantly tries to make it out that Steve and I are enemies but we are not and have not been. You'll find virtually no negative words and definitely not a single person who ever saw us argue or fight. It's just something that the press likes to say. The Wall Street Journal once printed that I was leaving Apple because I was disgusted, even though I'd told the reporter that was not the case. If it were true, it's hard to imagine me staying on the payroll with employee agreements in effect. Every book from then on printed that story and it became history."