Apple just hit a $1 trillion market cap—here's why its little-known third co-founder sold his 10% stake for $800
Apple shares hit a historic $1 trillion market cap value on Thursday, becoming the first publicly traded U.S. company to ever reach the milestone. The stock briefly hit the $207.05 per share price that was needed to bring Apple to the $1 trillion mark before retreating.
"I think it just speaks to just how powerful the Apple ecosystem has become over the last few decades," GBH Insights analyst Dan Ives told CNBC after the historic market move. "This is not the end, that they hit $1 trillion. I view this as just kind of speaking to a new a stage of growth and profitability."
Owning 10 percent of Apple right now sounds like a dream. But one man actually knows what it's like to watch that opportunity slip away: Ronald Wayne, the little known third co-founder of Apple.
Wayne joined Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who were 21 and 25 at the time, to provide the company with "adult supervision" and to oversee mechanical engineering and documentation, in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the business, according to an episode of CNBC's "The Filthy Rich Guide."
On April 1, 1976, Wayne sat down at his typewriter and drew up an agreement outlining each man's responsibilities, making his role with Apple official. He also drew the company's first logo, which was used for less than a year before being replaced by the symbol associated with the company today.
Wayne rapidly grew concerned that any debts incurred by the business would fall on him, personally. Jobs had taken out a $15,000 loan so he could buy supplies to fulfill Apple's first contract with a Bay Area computer store, The Byte Shop, which had ordered around 100 computers, Wayne tells Business Insider. But The Byte Shop was known for failing to pay its bills and Wayne worried that Apple wouldn't be able to recoup the money.
While both Jobs and Wozniak were young and broke, Wayne had assets, including a house, and feared that the financial burden would fall on him if the deal went south.
So after spending a mere 12 days with Wozniak and Jobs, Wayne had his name taken off the contract and sold his shares back to his co-founders for $800.
Wayne's decision to leave the start-up cost him big. Today, a 10 percent stake in Apple would be worth more than $95 billion. That kind of a fortune would make Wayne one of the richest people in the world.
Amazingly, Wayne says he doesn't regret his decision, mostly because he knows he wouldn't have thrived at Apple. "I would wind up in the documentation department shuffling papers for the next 20 years," he tells Business Insider.
Wayne felt out of place, like he was "standing in the shadow of intellectual giants," he tells Cult of Mac of his brief tenor with the company. "I was 40 and these kids were in their 20s. They were whirlwinds — it was like having a tiger by the tail. If I had stayed with Apple I probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery."
The one thing he does regret, however, stems from his time with Apple. Wayne kept his original contract from 1976 for years. Then, in the early 90s, he sold it for $500.
"I had this Apple contract sitting in my filing cabinet, covered in dust and cobwebs, and I thought, 'What do I need to hold onto that for?'" he tells Cult of Mac.
According to "The Filthy Rich Guide," in 2011, the same contract sold at auction for $1.59 million.
This is an updated version of a previously published story.
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