Jobs, Wozniak Form Apple in 1976 to Build Microcomputers for Everyday Use

Q: Why did Apple's forgotten founder trade a stake now worth $360 billion for just $800?

Ronald Wayne gave up his Apple stake because, in 1976, it looked like a dangerous personal financial risk, not a future fortune. Wayne was Apple’s third co-founder alongside Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and he initially received 10% of the company. But Apple began as a general partnership, not a corporation. That meant each partner could be personally liable for the company’s debts. Wayne, then about 40 and with assets such as a house and savings, feared that if Apple failed, creditors could come after him personally. That risk did not seem theoretical. Apple was a tiny startup built around the Apple I, and Jobs had taken on debt to fill an early order from a retailer Wayne reportedly viewed as unreliable. Compared with Jobs and Wozniak, who were younger and had less to lose, Wayne believed he was exposing himself to disproportionate downside. He left just 12 days after Apple was founded, receiving $800, and later an additional payment to waive future claims. In hindsight, that 10% stake would be worth roughly $360 billion based on Apple’s modern market value. But at the time, Apple was an unproven venture in a market where personal computers were still seen largely as hobbyist machines. Wayne has long said he does not regret the decision. His view is that he acted rationally with the information he had: protecting his existing financial security from a startup that, at the time, could easily have collapsed.

1 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Jul 1

April 1976 marked Apple’s founding, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up the company three months before the U.S. bicentennial.
Working from a suburban California house, the pair focused on microcomputers rather than the large mainframes dominant in the tech industry.
Their bet was that small computers could move beyond hobbyists and become useful tools for nontechnical people in everyday life.
That idea helped frame Apple’s early identity as a company aiming to bring personal computing into the mainstream.