Hindsight is 20/20.
Posted on 06/03/2010 8:16:58 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
PAHRUMP, Nev. — It's usually past midnight when Ron Wayne, co-founder of Apple, leaves his home here and heads into town. Averting his eyes from a boneyard of abandoned mobile homes, he drives past Terrible's Lakeside Casino & RV Park, then makes a left at the massage parlor in the shape of a castle.
When he arrives at that night's casino of choice, Wayne makes a beeline for the penny slot machines. If it's the middle of the month and he has just cashed his Social Security check, he will keep battling the one-armed bandits until 2 a.m.
Wayne is waiting to hit the jackpot, and he is long overdue.
If Ron Wayne, 76, weren't one of the most luckless men in the history of Silicon Valley, it wouldn't have turned out like this.
He was present at the birth of cool on April Fool's Day, 1976: Co-founder — along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak — of the Apple Computer Co., Wayne designed the company's original logo, wrote the manual for the Apple I computer, and drafted the fledgling company's partnership agreement.
That agreement gave him a 10 percent ownership stake in Apple, a position that would be worth about $22 billion today if Wayne had held onto it.
But he didn't.
Afraid that Jobs' wild spending and Woz's recurrent "flights of fancy" would cause Apple to flop, Wayne decided to abdicate his role as adult-in-chief and bailed out after 12 days.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
Timing is everything.
Pahrump.... one of Art Bell’s neighbors.....
Art Bell a very interesting character
Hindsight is 20/20.
Woz, Jobs and ... Wayne? Apple's forgotten founder still wandering in the desert
Wow, I had no idea this guy lived in my town here (Pahrump NV), I even go to that casino once and a while.
iDesk?.................
What if you owned 10% of the shares of Apple?
BTW, few years ago I unloaded a couple thousand shares of Apple at $13.25, so I can sympathize. ;-)
I wonder what year Wabg came out with WP. I was using it in 1978.
Wayne obviously made quite a few more mistakes after bailing out of Apple, if he's living month to month on Social Security after this employment history (and the stint at Atari before Apple).
What a coulda/woulda story!
I’ve never been that close to success, I just work hard, put a little money away every payday and never gamble. It’s a little ironic that I’ll probably be in the same boat when Obama is done.
12 days? I can imagine the conversation if Steve Job's was contacted:
SJ: Who? Ron Wayne?.................. Never heard of him.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
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A friend of mine, who is living on a small pension, turned-down the chance to be Badge # 9 at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957. Bummer, man.
Dang I bought'em at $13.25 and sold at $111.00, sad but true story. We both would be rich if we had kept them.
“Afraid that Jobs’ wild spending and Woz’s recurrent ‘flights of fancy’ would cause Apple to flop, Wayne decided to abdicate his role as adult-in-chief and bailed out after 12 days.”
Twelve days? Wow, ADHD. No wonder I don’t remember hearing the name. Any mention of Markkula? He made the bullets and shot ‘em for years.
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