Ronald Wayne

Ronald Wayne
Ronald Wayne at Macworld 2009
Born	Ronald Gerald Wayne (1934-05-17) May 17, 1934 (age 82) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Known for	Cofounding Apple Inc.

Ronald Gerald Wayne (born May 17, 1934) is an American retired electronics industry worker. He co-founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, providing administrative oversight for the new venture. He soon, however, sold his share of the new company for $800 US dollars, and later accepted $1,500 to forfeit any claims against Apple (in total, equivalent to $9,296 in 2016). As of March 2017, if Wayne had kept his 10% stake in Apple Inc., it would have been worth over $75.5 billion.

Wayne was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States on May 17, 1934. He trained as a technical draftsman at the School of Industrial Art in New York. In 1956 he moved to California. Wayne's first business venture was a company selling slot machines. The company failed, with Wayne reflecting in 2014 that, "I discovered very quickly that I had no business being in business. I was far better working in engineering."

Wayne worked with Steve Jobs at Atari before he, Jobs, and Wozniak founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Serving as the venture's "adult supervision", Wayne drew the first Apple logo, wrote the three men's original partnership agreement, and wrote the Apple I manual.

Wayne received a 10% stake in Apple but relinquished his equity for US$800 less than two weeks later, on April 12, 1976. Legally, all members of a partnership are personally responsible for any debts incurred by any partner; unlike Jobs and Wozniak, then 21 and 25, Wayne had personal assets that potential creditors could seize. The failure of a slot machine company that he had started five years earlier also contributed to his decision to exit the partnership.

Later that year, venture capitalist Arthur Rock and Mike Markkula helped develop a business plan and converted the partnership to a corporation. A year after leaving Apple, Wayne received $1,500 for his agreement to forfeit any claims against the new company. In its first year of operations (1976), Apple's sales reached US$174,000. In 1977 sales rose to US$2.7 million, in 1978 to US$7.8 million, and in 1980 to US$117 million. By 1982 Apple had a billion dollars in annual sales. In February 2015, Apple's value exceeded $700 billion, making it the most valuable U.S. company by far. Had Wayne kept his 10% stock until then, it would have been worth billions.