My Sunday Washington Post Business Section column is out. This morning, we discuss Ronald Wayne, the third co-founder of Apple. He was there from the beginning, and owned 10% of the original Apple. He sold it for $800 after 12 days of working with the 2 Steves.
Not counting new dilution — outside VC investors, the IPO, and more share issuance — that $800 would be worth about $63 billion today. Even with all of the actual dilution, its in the billions.
The print edition was called What Can We Learn from the Guy Who Sold Apple in 1976?, while the online edition was titled What if you sold 10 percent of Apple in 1976, like co-founder Ronald Wayne did?.
Here’s an excerpt from the column:
“Apple was born 41 years ago, on April Fools’ Day 1976. The story of Jobs, the marketing genius/visionary, and Wozniak, the brilliant engineer/hacker, toiling away in a garage is well-known Silicon Valley lore. But less well-known history is that of Wayne, the third partner, who was there from day one.
His contributions were not insignificant: He designed the company’s logo, wrote the Apple 1 computer user’s manual and drafted the company’s original partnership agreement. But after less than two weeks with Apple, he had had enough, and on April 12, Wayne sold his stake for $800. In Wozniak’s autobiography (“iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon), he described Wayne’s contribution: “Ron ended up playing a huge role in those very early days at Apple.”
Wayne’s departure was 40 years ago this week. Let’s see what lessons we might take from this incredible but true story.”
There are some obvious — and not so obvious — lessons to be learned . . .
Source:
What if you sold 10 percent of Apple in 1976, like co-founder Ronald Wayne did?
Barry Ritholtz
Washington Post, April 17 2016
http://wapo.st/1p5sicO
