Man who sold 10% Apple stake for $801 in 1976 lost out on sickening amount of money that it's worth today
Topics: Apple, Technology, Money
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: BBC/GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Apple, Technology, Money
Today you wouldn’t dare think about selling Apple stocks, but one of its little-known founders sold his 10 percent stake and boy was that a mistake.
Apple is considered one of the biggest names in the technology industry.
So, if you were lucky enough to have some stocks in Apple, you would be pretty chuffed with yourself and happy with your regular dividend payments.
But imagine, instead of having 0.000003 percent of the company you had a whopping 10 percent of Apple.
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Now imagine you decided to sell this stock for only $801, not recently, mind you, but back in 1976, before the tech giant had such a chokehold on the industry.
Well, if that was you, you are businessman Ronald Wayne, the third co-founder of Apple.
In fact, this decision is often ridiculed on social media because if Wayne had kept this stock, he would likely be even richer than he is now, a lot richer.
One user on August 23 wrote on Twitter: “If anyone is having a bad day, remember that today is the anniversary of Ronald Wayne selling a 10% stake in Apple in 1976 for $801. Today it would be worth $341,200,000,000."
That is 10 percent of Apple's networth and in case you can't be asked to the math yourself, that means Apple's current net worth is about $3.4 trillion.
Admittedly, that does make me feel better, so cheers for that random internet user.
Wayne has often been asked about his decision to sign away his share and he doesn't actually seems that fussed about it.
Couldn't be me, I get annoyed enough if I lose out $10, let alone a couple hundred billion dollars.
Years later reflecting on the lost millions he said: “The reason I didn’t [complain] is very simple,”
“Should I make myself sick over the whole thing, in addition to everything else that’s going on? It didn’t make any sense. Just pick yourself up and move on. I didn’t want to waste my tomorrows bemoaning my yesterdays.
"Does this mean I’m unemotional and don’t feel the pain? Of course not. But I handle it by going on to the next thing. That’s all any of us can do.”
A lovely sentiment to be sure... couldn't be me though, at every bbq or birthday party I would end up telling people that I could have been a billionaire, but Wayne's attitude is probably healthier for you.