"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Hand Signed 4X6 LOGO Card For Sale

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"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Hand Signed 4X6 LOGO Card:
$199.99

Up for sale "Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Hand Signed 4X6 LOGO Card.  

ES-3576D

Ronald

Gerald Wayne (born May 17, 1934)

is a retired American electronics industry businessman. He co-founded Apple

Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) as a partnership with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs on April 1, 1976, providing administrative

oversight and documentation for the new venture. Twelve days later, he sold his

10% share of the new company back to Jobs and Wozniak for US$800 (equivalent to

$3,638 in 2020), and one year later accepted a final US$1,500 (equivalent

to $6,822 in 2020) to forfeit any potential future claims against the newly

incorporated Apple. Wayne was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States on May 17, 1934 to

a Jewish family. He trained as a technical draftsman at the School of Industrial Art in

New York. In 1956, aged 22, he moved to California. In 1971, Wayne started his

first business, 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." In 1976, Ronald Wayne

built the internal corporate documentation systems at the three-year-old Atari, when he met coworkers Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. To help settle one of their typical intense

discussions about the design of computers and the future of the industry, Wayne

invited the two to his home to facilitate and advise them. In the ensuing

two-hour conversation about technology and business, Jobs proposed the founding

of a computer company led by him and Wozniak. Those two would each hold a 45%

stake so that Wayne could receive a 10% stake to act as a tie-breaker in their

decisions. As the venture's self-described "adult in

the room" at age 41, Wayne wrote a partnership agreement, and

the three founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976.

Wayne illustrated the first Apple logo and wrote the Apple I manual. Wayne's business attitude was already

risk-averse due to his experience five years prior with the "very

traumatic" failure of his slot machine business, the debt of which he had spent one

year voluntarily repaying. Jobs secured a US$15,000 line of

credit to buy product materials for Apple's first order which had been placed

by The Byte Shop whose reputation as a

notoriously slow-paying vendor gave Wayne great concern for his future. 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 possibly seize. Furthermore, his passion was in original product

engineering and in slot machines, and not in the documentation systems he

assumed Jobs and Wozniak  robably wanted

him to do indefinitely at Apple. Believing he was "standing in the shadow

of giants" of product-design talent and avoiding financial risk, he quit

the company. Reportedly, "Twelve days after Wayne wrote the document that

formally created Apple, he returned to the registrar's office and renounced his

role in the company", therefore relinquishing his equity in exchange

for US$800 on April 12, 1976. This period of time however has been

disputed by Steve Wozniak, who in an interview said

that Wayne left the company after a few months. Wayne has stated in

following decades that he does not regret selling his share of the company, as

he made the "best decision with the information available to me at the

time" .He said he had originally believed that the Apple enterprise

"would be successful, but at the same time there would be significant

bumps along the way and I couldn't risk it. I had already had a rather

unfortunate business experience before. I was getting too old and those two

were whirlwinds. It was like having a tiger by the tail and I couldn't keep up

with these guys."] Although Apple ended up at one point becoming the

most valuable company in the world, he said that with the stress of staying

with Apple he "probably would have wound up the richest man in the

cemetery." He summarized, "What can I say? You make a decision based

on your understanding of the circumstances, and you live with it." 

"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Signed 4X6 LOGO Card

$139.99

"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Signed 4X6 LOGO Card

$139.99

"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Hand Signed 4X6 Color Photo W/ Personal Watermark

$139.99