THE APPLE STORY!!
THE RONALD WAYNE STORY!!
He co-founded Apple in 1976. Twelve days later, he sold his stake for $800.
He has no regrets.
On April 1, 1976, three men signed a contract that would change the world. Steve Jobs was twenty-one. Steve Wozniak was twenty-five. And Ronald Wayne was forty-one—the adult in the room.
Wayne had met Jobs and Wozniak at Atari, where all three worked. The two young men argued constantly about computers and the future of technology. Wayne, older and more experienced, was brought in to mediate. To be the tiebreaker. To keep the peace.
Jobs proposed they start a company together. Jobs and Wozniak would each hold 45%. Wayne would get 10% for his role as the voice of reason.
Wayne agreed. He drafted the partnership agreement himself. He designed Apple’s first logo—a detailed illustration of Isaac Newton sitting beneath an apple tree. He wrote the operations manual for the Apple I computer.
For twelve days, Ronald Wayne was a co-founder of what would become the most valuable company on Earth.
Then he walked away.
The problem was simple. Jobs had just borrowed $15,000 to fulfill an order for fifty computers from a retailer called The Byte Shop. The retailer had a reputation for not paying its bills.
If Apple failed to deliver, or if the check never came, someone would owe that money.
Jobs and Wozniak were young and broke. They had nothing to lose.
Wayne had a house. A car. Savings. Everything he had built over two decades could vanish if this venture collapsed.
He had been burned before. A previous business making slot machines had failed, leaving him in debt. He knew what financial ruin felt like.
So on April 12, 1976, Ronald Wayne returned to the county registrar’s office and filed paperwork withdrawing from the partnership. He sold his 10% stake back to Jobs and Wozniak.
The price? Eight hundred dollars.
A year later, when Apple officially incorporated, Wayne accepted an additional $1,500 to forfeit any future claims against the company.
Total payout: $2,300.
He went back to his quiet life. He continued working in electronics. He pursued his true passion—designing slot machines. He never looked back.
Meanwhile, Apple exploded.
The Apple II became the first mass-market personal computer. The Macintosh revolutionized how humans interacted with technology. The iPod transformed the music industry. The iPhone redefined communication itself.
When Apple went public in 1980, both Jobs and Wozniak became instant millionaires. By 2024, Apple’s market value had reached $3 trillion, making it the most valuable company in history.
Ronald Wayne’s 10% stake—the one he sold for $800—would now be worth somewhere between $75 billion and $300 billion, depending on how much dilution occurred over the decades.
Either way, it would have made him one of the richest people who ever lived.
Instead, he lives in a modest home in Pahrump, Nevada. He collects Social Security. He has never owned an Apple product. He has never used an iPhone.
Steve Jobs came back three times over the years. He invited Wayne to lunch. He offered him a job at Apple.
Each time, Wayne said no.
Reporters have asked him the obvious question a thousand times. Do you regret it?
His answer has never changed.
“I made the best decision with the information available to me at the time.”
He understood something that most people miss. In 1976, Apple was just another garage startup. There were no guarantees. The personal computer industry barely existed. For every Apple that succeeded, hundreds of similar ventures failed and took their founders down with them.
Wayne chose stability over chaos. Peace of mind over potential fortune. A quiet life over the relentless intensity of working alongside Steve Jobs.
“If I had stayed with Apple,” he once said, “I would have probably ended up the richest man in the cemetery.”
He meant it literally. The stress, the pace, the constant battles—Wayne believed it would have killed him.
There is, however, one regret.
For years, Wayne kept his original copy of the Apple partnership agreement—the document he had typed himself in 1976. In the early 1990s, thinking it worthless, he sold it to a collector for $500.
In 2011, that same document sold at auction for $1.59 million.
“In that,” Wayne reflected, “you have the story of my life.”
But here’s what makes Ronald Wayne’s story more than just a cautionary tale about missed opportunities.
He’s at peace.
He doesn’t spend his days tormented by what might have been. He doesn’t curse the decision he made at forty-one. He made a choice based on his circumstances, his risk tolerance, his values—and he stands by it.
Most people who hear this story focus on the money. Three hundred billion dollars. The greatest missed fortune in business history. How could anyone walk away from that?
But Ronald Wayne asks a different question.
What good is infinite wealth if the path to it destroys you?
He watched from a distance as Steve Jobs built an empire, lost it, reclaimed it, and ultimately died at fifty-six. He watched the toll that relentless ambition takes on a human body and soul.
And he went home to his quiet house in the Nevada desert, content with the life he chose.
Ronald Wayne is now ninety-one years old. He has outlived Steve Jobs by decades. He has lived long enough to see Apple become the most valuable company ever created—and long enough to make peace with the fact that he was never part of it.
His story is not about the $800 he accepted.
It’s about knowing yourself well enough to walk away.
