The history of the world is full of people who have had the winning lottery ticket in their pocket and have thrown it away. Of all the biggest, in terms of regrets, was Ronald Wayne. On April 12, 1976, twelve days after he founded it with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, he decided to leave Apple by selling his shares, equal to 10 percent of the company, for $ 800. For $ 800. Today, if he had kept them, he would have about 270 billion. How was it possible to leave the company you had just founded?
Innovation Almanac – April 8, 1983
The biggest mistake in Steve Jobs’ life
by Riccardo Luna
At the time Ronald Wayne was about to turn 42, he was an engineer who had gone through an unfortunate entrepreneurial venture into the world of slot machines – he knew what it meant to lose in business. He had met Jobs who was 20 years younger; the two must have liked each other because when Jobs and Wozniak decided to start Apple, they offered Wayne to do it with them. The two Steve were two nerds, while Wayne “knew about laws”.
So it was he who prepared Apple’s deed of incorporation. And not only that: the young partners entrusted him with the creation of the first logo of the company: a drawing of Newton sitting under the famous tree with an apple that is about to fall, surrounded by a quote from a poem by William Wordsworth (Newton… A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought, Alone“,” Newton … A mind perpetually traveling through strange seas of thoughts, alone “); and the first operating manual of the Apple I. In short, Wayne was central to the startup in Cupertino, but suddenly he decided to leave. “None. Fear, rather. Years later, he would say: I saw myself at a crossroads, ending up bankrupt or becoming the richest in the cemetery, that is, after death.”
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Why leave so soon? Because the pacts between partners said that all three were liable for any debts without limits; and Steve Jobs had made a deal to sell 100 Apple I’s in a large store that was reputed not to pay its creditors; but the money to produce those computers in the meantime had to be advanced. But while Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were two penniless kids who had nothing to lose, he was a wealthy engineer who feared becoming poor.
He left the scene that April 12, 1976 to go to work in a small semiconductor company. Fixed and safe salary. In his autobiography (“Adventures of an Apple Founder: Atari, Apple, Aerospace and Beyond“), released in 2011, admitted:” I was better as an engineer than a businessman “.