“Ronald Gerald Wayne, who founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and sold his 10 percent share in the company just after 12 days, revealed the reason for his withdrawal from the Cupertino-based technology leader,” IBTimes reports.
“Had Wayne been holding the shares, which he sold for just $800 in 1976 and got additional $1,500 later that year in exchange for forfeiting any claims in the company, he would have got more than $35 billion for the stake today,” IBTimes reports. “Wayne further said his bad experience in entrepreneurship, when he started a slot machine company that failed, led to his decision to leave Apple”
IBTimes reports, “He said he doesn’t regret his decision because of the risk involved in Apple at that stage.”
Full article here.
WRONG!!!!!!! Writer is assuming that Wayne would have been able to keep his 10% through Apple’s growing years in the 80s. Absolutely would not have happened. Woz and Steve did not get to keep their founding percentages. When other investors come in and the company goes public, the initial investors’s ownership is diluted. It happened to Jobs and Woz, it certainly would have happened to Wayne who was much less important even if he’d stayed on.
Did the writer even watch this in action in The Social Network? Get a clue.
Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? 🙂
Good one – Pamela !!!
Darn, I was going to say the same thing. When my company went public, my stake dropped to 70% of what it was. Later on, it went lower with issues of new stock. I ended up with about 50% of my original holding. Then we sold the company.
Wayne sold his shares in the original Apple Computing, established in 1976. He did not have share in the corporation established in 1977, so the share he sold were technically for a different company than the Apple, Inc. of today.
No telling if the original 10% stake was transferable.
Not accounting for dilution is really STUPID (not to mention lazy).
They’re making it sound like this guy is the Pete Best of Apple.
didn’t steve Jobs sell all his shares except one when he started Next?
used part of the money to buy Pixar for 10 million ( 5 million to Lucas plus 5 million captital investment) and then sold it later to Disney for around 7 billion.
if he didn’t do Next would there had been a second coming, OSX etc ? The pepsi CEOs etc would have run the company into the ground so how much would the Apple shares be worth? (interesting time wasting speculation).
That isn’t entirely correct.. As venture capitalists and investors continued to invest, without further investment, that 10% share would have been diluted down substantially… that initial 10% just sitting there would probably be a minute part of a 1% share today… All this hype over his initial 10% share is just media fodder for a story to create drama.. It would be worth a dew million yes, but not 35 billion..
And I forgot to look at the other comments…. Sorry for repeating the same