14 DAY TRIAL // An essay by Ronald G. Wayne details the reasons why Apple’s third co-founder decided to ditch Apple Computer after less than two weeks since he had signed the papers along with the two famous Steves that used to work in a garage.
Most people who know a thing or two about Apple as a company say Steve Jobs was the guy who created it. Not entirely true.
Most Apple fans know there was also this other guy called Steve Wozniak, a brilliant computer engineer who helped just as much, if not more than Steve Jobs, to create Apple. He actually made the things that made Apple, you know?
But, be they Apple fans or not, even fewer people know that there was a third man who helped out a great deal to make Apple Computer (as the company was called back in the ‘70s), particularly with the financing.
His name is Ronald Wayne, and he has a few things to clarify about how people misperceive his financial loss after choosing to step out of Apple - before it started to make its investors filthy rich.
Wayne has released an essay entitled "Why I Left Apple Computer After Only 12 Days, In My Own Words". A few excerpts are available below for your reading pleasure (though we strongly encourage you to read through the whole thing on Wayne’s Facebook page here):
“I didn’t separate myself from Apple because of any lack of enthusiasm for the concept of computer products. Aside from any immediate apprehension in regard to financial risks, I left because I didn’t feel that this new enterprise would be the working environment that I saw for myself, essentially for the rest of my days. I had every belief would be successful but I didn’t know when, what I’d have to give up or sacrifice to get there, or how long it would take to achieve that success.
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To counter much that has been written in the press about me as of late, I didn't lose out on billions of dollars. That's a long stretch between 1976 and 2012. Apple went through a lot of hard times and many thought Apple would simply go out of business at various times in its maturity. I perhaps lost tens of millions of dollars. And quite honestly, between just you and me, it was character building.
If I had known it would make 300 people millionaires in only four years, I would have stayed those four years. And then I still would have walked away. Steve and Steve had their project. They wanted to change the world in their way. I wanted to change the world in my own.