By Jeff Haden, Contributing editor, Inc.@jeff_haden
Ronald Wayne, one of the three co-founders of Apple Computer. Photo: Getty Images
On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak walked into the home of Ronald Wayne, an engineer they had worked with at Atari.
Two hours later, Jobs and Wozniak decided to launch Apple with Wayne, signing the partnership agreement Wayne typed up on the spot that gave each of the two Steves a 45 percent stake in Apple.
Wayne received 10 percent ownership, at least in part so he could serve as a tie-breaker if Jobs and Wozniak disagreed on certain decisions. Wayne, who later described himself as "the adult in the room" (he was in his 40s while Jobs was 21 and Woz 26), was considered by the two to be much more "balanced and reasonable."
But just 12 days later, Wayne decided he wanted out. Even though he later said he "felt the enterprise would be successful," he knew there could also be "bumps on the road" to that success.
And he knew the cost of business "bumps" could be high -- his slot machine business had failed a few years prior, causing him to spend two years digging out of a considerable financial hole.
Jobs and Woz didn't have two nickels to rub together. I had a house, I had a car, I had a checking account.
When [the partnership agreement] was drawn out, Jobs went out and did exactly what he was supposed to do. He got a contract with a place called The Byte Shop to sell them a certain number of computers. He did exactly what he was supposed to do and borrowed $15,000 for the materials necessary to fill the order. Perfectly appropriate.
The only problem was, as I heard, The Byte Shop had a terrible reputation for not paying their bills. If this thing blew up, how's that $15,000 going to get repaid? Do they [Jobs and Wozniak] have the money? No. Was I reachable? Yes.
And then there's this: "I was getting too old," Wayne said, "and those two were whirlwinds. It was like having a tiger by the tail, and I couldn't keep up with those guys."
So Wayne relinquished his stake in the company for $1,500.
How costly was that decision? Founder's shares are naturally diluted by capital raises. By the time Apple went public in 1980, Jobs initial 45 percent ownership stake had become an 11 percent share. Had he held onto all of his shares, Wayne's initial 10 percent might have become a 2.5 percent ownership stake.
Since Apple currently has a market cap of approximately $3 trillion, that means Wayne's shares would be worth around $75 billion.
Granted, it's unlikely that Wayne wouldn't have at least partially cashed out along the way. It's even more likely that he would have left of his own volition. "The last thing I wanted to do was to spend the next 20 years of my life in a large backroom office shuffling papers," Wayne said.
Even so, Wayne doesn't regret his decision. Nor should he. Sure, in hindsight it seems like a mistake. But that's only in hindsight.
The information he had at the time? He had just teamed up with two inexperienced entrepreneurs to launch a venture at what would almost surely be the bleeding edge of a new industry. At least one of the founders was more than happy to borrow money to finance the business, and the partnership agreement meant Wayne would face unlimited personal liability for any debts incurred.
He didn't even like the work -- Wayne's passion was slot machines, not computers.
As a result, "I have never had the slightest pangs of regret," Wayne said, "because I made the best decision with the information available to me at the time. My contribution was not so great that I felt I have been [cheated] in any way."
In short, Wayne made the right decision, and decades later still feels that way.
That's the thing about decisions -- and regret.
Hindsight bias -- believing that after an event has occurred you knew what the outcome would be -- makes it easy to question your judgment. Looking back, it's easy to think you would have known Apple would succeed. After all, Apple had Steve Jobs.
But in 1976, Jobs wasn't Steve Jobs. He was just another guy with a dream.
And that's the real lesson of Ronald Wayne.
Looking back, we always think we knew more than we knew then. We always place more weight on something we considered and rejected at the time. Take gambling: If you thought about taking the Bengals and the points, when the Bengals covered...it's easy to say, "I knew it!"
But you didn't. Sure, you might have thought about it. Sure, it was an option you might have considered. But you didn't know.
Only now, in hindsight and after the fact, do you know.
As Mark Cuban says, "Life is half random. Being a billionaire requires a lot of luck and a lot of great timing."
The only thing any of us can do is make the best decisions we can with what we know today -- and then refuse to beat ourselves up if what we learn tomorrow causes us to rethink a decision.
Because we can't always know how things will turn out.
But we can choose to learn from every experience -- and keep trying to make the best decisions we can with what we know today.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Co-founder of Apple Computer Inc.
Founded: 1976
"We started out to get a computer in the hands of everyday people, and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."-Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs ' vision of a "computer for the rest of us" sparked the PC revolution and made Apple co an icon of American business. But somewhere along the way, Jobs' vision got clouded - some say by his ego - and he was ousted from the company he helped found. Few will disagree that Jobs did indeed impede Apple's growth, yet without him, the company lost its sense of direction and pioneering spirit. After nearly 10 years of plummeting sales, Apple turned to its visionary founder for help, and a little older and wiser Jobs engineered one of the most amazing turnarounds of the 20th century.
Born in San Francisco, Calif., and raised in Los Altos, the Apple Computer Company visionary was adopted by his father Paul Jobs, and mother, Clara Jobs. As the son of a Coast Guard mechanic, Steve Jobs showed an early interest in electronics and gadgetry. While in high school, he boldly called Hewlett-Packard co-founder and president William Hewlett to ask for parts for a school project. Impressed by Jobs, Hewlett not only gave him the parts but also offered him a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that Jobs met and befriended Steve Wozniak, a young engineer five years his senior with a penchant for tinkering. Together, they designed and sold the "blue box," which manipulated telephone networks for free long-distance calls.
After graduating from high school, Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore. but dropped out after one semester. He had become fascinated by Eastern spiritualism and took a part-time job designing video games for Atari to finance a trip to India to study Eastern culture and religion. "Steve was difficult but valuable," Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell told the San Jose Mercury News. He was very often the smartest guy in the room, but he let people know that." By not showering for days and constantly criticizing his co-workers, Jobs alienates so many colleagues that Bushnell forced Jobs to work the overnight shift so as not to interact with other workers.
Related: Steve Jobs: An Extraordinary Career
When Jobs returned to the United States, he renewed his friendship with Wozniak, who had been trying to build a small computer. To Wozniak, it was just a hobby, but the visionary Jobs grasped the marketing potential of such a device and convinced Wozniak to go into business with him. In 1975, the 20-year-old Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, dubbed the venture Apple, and began working on the prototype of the Apple I. They attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, which helped them develop and market their Apple product.
To generate the $1,350 in capital they used to start Apple, Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen microbus, and Steve Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard calculator.
Although the Apple I was sold mainly to hobbyists, it generated enough cash to enable Jobs and Wozniak to improve and refine their designs. In 1977, they introduced the Apple II - the first personal computer with color graphics and a keyboard. Designed for beginners the user-friendly Apple II was a tremendous success, disrupting Silicon Valley and ushering in the era of personal computing. First-year sales topped $3 million. Two years later, sales ballooned to $200 million.
But by 1980, Apple's shine was starting to wear off. The increased competition combined with less than stellar sales of the Apple III and its follow-up, the LISA, caused the company to lose nearly half its market to IBM. Faced with declining sales, Jobs introduced the Apple Macintosh in 1984. The first personal computer to feature a graphical user interface controlled by a mouse, the Macintosh was a true breakthrough in terms of ease of use. But the marketing behind it was flawed. Jobs had envisioned the Mac as a home computer, but at $2,495, it was too expensive for the consumer market. When consumer sales failed to reach projections, Jobs tried pitching the Mac as a business computer. But with little memory, no hard drive, and no networking capabilities, the Mac had almost none of the features corporate America wanted.
For Jobs, this turn of events spelled serious trouble. He clashed with Apple's board of directors and, in 1983, was ousted from the board by Apple's CEO John Sculley, whom Jobs had handpicked to help him run Apple inc. Stripped of all power and control, Jobs eventually sold his shares of Apple stock and resigned in 1985.
Related: As Steve Jobs Once Said, 'People With Passion Can Change The World'
No longer an Apple employee, later that year he used a portion of the money from the stock sale, and launched NeXT Computer Co., to build a breakthrough computer that would revolutionize research and higher education. Introduced in 1988, the NeXT computer boasted a host of innovations, including notably fast processing speeds, exceptional graphics, and an optical disk drive. But priced at $9,950, the NeXT was too expensive to attract enough sales to keep the company afloat. Undeterred, Jobs switched the company's focus from hardware to software. He also began paying more attention to his other business, Pixar Animation Studios - known for creating blockbusters like Finding Nemo - which he had purchased from George Lucas in 1986.
After cutting a three-picture deal with The Walt Disney Company, Jobs set out to create the first-ever computer-animated feature film. Four years in the making, Toy Story was a certified smash hit when it was released in November 1995. Fueled by this success, Jobs took Pixar public in 1996, and by the end of the first day of trading, his 80 percent share of the company was worth $1 billion. After nearly 10 years of struggling, Jobs had finally hit it big. But the best was yet to come.
Within days of Pixar's arrival on the stock market, Apple bought NeXT for $400 million and re-appointed Jobs to Apple's board of directors as an advisor to Apple chairman and CEO Gilbert F. Amelio. It was an act of desperation on Apple's part. Because they had failed to develop a next-generation Macintosh operating system, the firm's share of the PC market had dropped to just 5.3 percent, and they hoped that Jobs could help turn the company around.
At the end of March 1997, Apple announced a quarterly loss of $708 million. Three months later, Amelio resigned and Jobs took over as interim Apple CEO. Once again in charge of Apple, Jobs struck a deal with Microsoft to help ensure Apple's survival. Under the arrangement, Microsoft invested $150 million for a nonvoting minority stake in Apple, and the companies agreed to "cooperate on several sales and technology fronts." Next, Jobs installed the G3 PowerPC microprocessor in all Apple computers, making them faster than competing Pentium PCs. He also spearheaded the development of the iMac, a new line of affordable home desktops, which debuted in August 1998 to rave reviews. Under Jobs' guidance, Apple quickly returned to profitability, and by the end of 1998, boasted sales of $5.9 billion.
Against all odds, Steve Jobs pulled the company he founded and loved back from the brink. Apple once again was healthy and churning out the kind of breakthrough products that made the Apple name synonymous with innovation.
But Apple's innovations were just getting started. Over the next decade, the company rolled out a series of revolutionary products, including the iPod portable digital audio player in 2001, an online marketplace called the Apple iTunes Store in 2003, the iPhone handset in 2007, and he introduced tablet computing with the iPad in 2010. The design and functionality of these devices resonated with users worldwide. Plus, he introduced the Apple Store in 2001, which proved to be a wildly successful marketing tool.
Related: 10 Must-Read Inspiring Biographies of Business Leaders
Despite his professional successes, Jobs struggled with health issues. In mid-2004, he announced in an email to Apple employees that he had undergone an operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. In January 2011, following a liver transplant, Jobs said he was taking a medical leave of absence from Apple but said he'd continue as CEO and "be involved in major strategic decisions for the company."
Eight months later, on August 24, Apple's board of directors announced that Jobs had resigned as CEO and that he would be replaced by COO Tim Cook. Jobs said he would remain with the company as chairman.
"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know," Jobs said in a letter announcing his resignation. "Unfortunately, that day has come."
In October 2011, Jobs passed away at the age of 56 due to complications related to pancreatic cancer. He is survived by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, whom he met while speaking at Stanford University, and their three children - Erin, Reed, and Eve Jobs. Together they raised their family in Palo Alto, Calif., along with Jobs' fourth child, Lisa, from a previous relationship. 19-days after his death, author Walter Isaacson released his self-titled biography, which became a New York Times bestseller. The book was later adapted for Aaron Sorkin's 2015, with Michael Fassbender playing Jobs.
Jobs once described himself as a "hopeless romantic" who just wanted to make a difference. Quite appropriately like the archetypal romantic hero who reaches for greatness but fails, only to find wisdom and maturity in exile, an older, wiser Steve Jobs returned triumphantly to save his kingdom.
Related: 10 Must-See Documentaries for Entrepreneurs
Technology editor Jason Fell and research editor Carolyn Sun contributed to this report.
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