Ronald Wayne, the third co-founder of Apple, held a 10% stake in 1976 but exited about 12 days later. He drafted the partnership agreement himself: Jobs and Wozniak each held 45%, and he held 10%. The partnership's debts could be pursued against personal assets; among the three, only he, then about 40 years old and employed at Atari, had real estate and savings.

Jobs borrowed about $15,000 for the first Byte Shop order, with a reputation for poor payment from the buyer. Wayne worried that if there was a default, he would be pursued for debts, so he sold his shares back for $800, later receiving another $1,500 when the company converted to a corporation, completely relinquishing future rights, totaling $2,300. The exit documents were registered on April 12, 1976. He later remarked that it felt like grabbing the tail of a tiger, as those two in their twenties had little to lose.

Apple's current market value is around $4 trillion, and media estimates suggest that 10% could today be worth approximately $300 billion to $400 billion, not accounting for subsequent financing dilution. Wayne, now about 91 years old, lives in Nevada, relying on engineering work and trading stamps and coins for supplemental income, while also receiving social security. He has repeatedly stated that based on the information available at the time, his decision was clear, and he does not define success by money. There has been a miscommunication on social media that mistakenly reported the $800 as $800,000.

In market mechanics, the buyers were two young individuals with almost no realizable collateral, while the seller was the only partner with enforceable personal assets. The event was driven by unlimited joint liability, with equity flowing from a risk-averse middle-aged person to founders who could cut off the downside at "losing time"; the beneficiaries were the company that later converted the partnership into a limited liability structure and increased its market value, while the pressured party was the one who guaranteed the startup with personal assets.

Source: Public Information