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

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"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Signed 4X6 LOGO Card:
$139.99

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

ES-6149

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 Hand Signed 4X6 Color Photo W/ Personal Watermark

$139.99

"Apple Founder" Ronald Wayne Signed 4X6 LOGO Card

$139.99