1976 · Business · Historical record
He sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800
Ronald Wayne helped found Apple, then decided the personal risk was larger than the promise. Eleven days later, he was out.
Remain Apple’s third co-founder with an original 10% partnership interest.
Wayne withdrew from the partnership and received $800; he later received another $1,500 to relinquish claims.
Apple grew into one of the world’s largest public companies. Wayne has repeatedly explained that, given his finances and the unlimited-liability partnership, leaving felt rational at the time.
A tidy viral number would be dramatic and misleading. The honest answer is that the unrealized value would be enormous, but not knowable from a simple 10% multiplication.
Any present-value figure depends on dilution, splits, dividends, taxes, and a counterfactual assumption that the stake was never sold.The score is editorial color, not a judgment on the person or the decision.
Method & sources
How we tell this one.
We report the documented transaction and avoid a false-precision present value. This is a hindsight story about risk capacity, not a recommendation to hold every early stake forever.