Wednesday, December 14th 2011
Apple Founders: The Third Man
It's common knowledge that Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, as is often parroted in news stories, history articles and documentaries about Apple. However, what isn't such common knowledge, is that there was actually a third man who founded Apple, one Ronald Wayne. This fact has now become very apparent, because the original contract to found the company and signed by the three men, has just been sold at upmarket auction house, Sotheby's, for a cool $1.35 million. Yes, seriously, $1.35 million. There's much better things to spend that kind of money on, we think. On top of that, the winning bidder, Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive officer of Miami-based Cisneros Corporation, had to pay Sotheby's a 12% commission, making the total amount spent $1.6 million, which caused his credit card to catch fire and explode (we made that last bit up). Anyway, the document was expected to sell for a maximum of around $150K, but somehow did much better. Perhaps this is because of Jobs's fame and the fact that he has sadly passed away recently.
The contract reveals that the original partnership for the Apple Computer Company gave Wayne a 10% stake in the company and the two Steves 45% each. However, in what must have been the biggest business blunder of his life, Wayne wanted out and was therefore paid just $2300 for his part in founding the company. Apple's market cap shot past Microsoft some time ago to make them the number one technology company, they are now a market leader in various gadgets such as the iPhone and have a very loyal following for their Macintosh computers. Due to this incredible success, his contract would have been worth a staggering $2 billion! Ouch. However, today, Wayne is retired and sells stamps and rare coins from his home in Nevada. Oh, what could have been...
Source:
HEXUS
The contract reveals that the original partnership for the Apple Computer Company gave Wayne a 10% stake in the company and the two Steves 45% each. However, in what must have been the biggest business blunder of his life, Wayne wanted out and was therefore paid just $2300 for his part in founding the company. Apple's market cap shot past Microsoft some time ago to make them the number one technology company, they are now a market leader in various gadgets such as the iPhone and have a very loyal following for their Macintosh computers. Due to this incredible success, his contract would have been worth a staggering $2 billion! Ouch. However, today, Wayne is retired and sells stamps and rare coins from his home in Nevada. Oh, what could have been...
12 Comments on Apple Founders: The Third Man
The 1.6 Million is a Colossal waste of anyone's money for this document.
I hope it gets eaten by paper mites or gets coffee spilled all over it.
Better to give someone a job or give it to charity.
As I see it:
MS mostly designs software for other hardware.
Apple mostly designs hardware and gadgets , then puts their software on it.
MS is in the big market, working and coexisting with other companies to deliver the final product the user (at which point, most of the work is done by companies other than MS). While Apple lives in their own market with their proprietary designs and own shops. If anything, Apple is more like Dell, than MS, back in the days, when they used to have Dell stores all across US.
This is not a critique, but just a thought.
He has to live with it for the rest of his life and seeing Apple products being advertised all over the place will probably drive him to insanity or suicide even if he hasnt already made peace with the decision he made back then.
If that was me, id definitely be kicking myself
Also, happiness can come from being able to help others, animals or other causes with it, perhaps by running charities. It's not all about benefitting personally from it. Take a look at Bill Gates and his charity and how much of his money he just gives away.
The fact that some people and it seems especially celebrities, abuse it and/or can't make the best of it, is no reason to say that money doesn't buy happiness. It damned well does!Yes, MS & Apple get compared quite a lot. They're both technology companies with a huge influence over people's lives, so they're in the same broad category. I remembered something about Apple overtaking MS, so I googled it and came up with that handy NY Times article. I'm sure there are better explanations of why they should be compared, but this is what I can think of at the moment.
Ritchie didn’t wear enough turtlenecks :laugh:
Id start investing in properties. stockmarket and local business which will lead to bigger things like schools, hospitals and possibly goverment run projects....
right after i have a massive orgy with some hookers.
with careful investment, I will have more money then i started off with in year one if I play it correctly.
Those hookers especially, sound like an excellent idea...
Here's another tidbit:
"Wayne received a 10% stake in Apple but relinquished his stock for US$800 less than two weeks later, on April 12, 1976." Oops.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne