Apple's Founding Contract Sells For 1.59 Million

Mike Kayatta

Minister of Secrets
Aug 2, 2011
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Apple's Founding Contract Sells For 1.59 Million



A small business owner makes bank while one of Apple's original three founders gets screwed. Again.

During an auction at Sotheby's in New York, Apple's original three-page founding documents sold for a whopping $1,594,500.00 after being estimated by the auction house to bring only $150,000. According to Sotheby's, there were five bidders vying for the purchase, ending in a 1.35 million winning bid. A 12% buyer's premium added at point of sale took the total to the final monster it was.

Prior to its most recent sale, the document actually has a fairly interesting history. The three names signed across the bottom are Apple's initial founders: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Each of them penned their signatures to it on April Fool's Day, 1976. Eleven days after the three men signed the contract, Wayne backed out, fearing he was going to lose a lot of money by investing in the company. His buy out was $2,300 (feel free to insert your schadenfreude snickers and/or raucous guffaws anytime now). Eventually, Wayne took his copy of the initial contract (the one that just went to auction) and sold it to Wade Saadi, the founder of an IT recruitment company called Pencom Systems for a measly "few thousand dollars." Saadi remained in possession of the contract until the aforementioned auction earlier this week, and Ronald Wayne, poor sod, missed the boat on yet another fortune when it resold for 1.59 million.

If you ever had anything to do with Steve Jobs or Apple on any level, now's probably the time to dig up the evidence. With Jobs' death still fresh on people's minds, and his official biography doing well in stores, anything Apple-related is soaring in value. So, if you have an uncle who kept his credit card receipt from that one time he cut Jobs' hair in the eighties, now's the time to help him set up an eBay account.

Regardless, if you happen to see Ronald Wayne moping around the streets of Cupertino one morning, give that poor bastard a hug.

Source: Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/the-contract-that-created-apple-has-just-sold-for-1-59-million-20111214/]


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Angnor

New member
Nov 11, 2010
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Not to question your research, but both google and the picture of the document in this article list 1976 as the founding year...
 

Mike Kayatta

Minister of Secrets
Aug 2, 2011
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Angnor said:
Not to question your research, but both google and the picture of the document in this article list 1976 as the founding year...
No, you're right. Typo: fixed. :)
 

drthmik

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Jul 29, 2011
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in this PBS special: http://video.pbs.org/video/2163706349
they interviewed Ronald Wayne and he doesn't look like he's doing to bad for himself and he says that he wasn't cheated and doesn't feel like he is owed anything
 

Aidinthel

Occasional Gentleman
Apr 3, 2010
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I wouldn't say Wayne got screwed over. He made the decision to pull out of the company. In retrospect it's very easy to say this was a mistake but he couldn't have known it at the time and he decided to play it safe. He then willingly sold the contract for thousands of dollars, which is only a small sum compared to that utterly ridiculous number that is largely a result of Jobs' recent death.

It's not so much that Wayne is unfortunate as it is that he could have been a lot more fortunate if things had gone differently. Looking back it's simple enough to see what paths he could have taken to greater wealth but these decisions are never so clear at the time they're made. The company could have failed or Jobs could have outlived Wayne and then he'd have made the correct decisions. It's a matter of luck, really.
 

Azmael Silverlance

Pirate Warlord!
Oct 20, 2009
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Its bad enough how much $ he missed out on the first time.
BUt now years later when he has finally gotten around to forget about the whole deal it comes back to taunt him 1.59 million times more :D
 

The Sorrowful

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Jun 14, 2010
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does having something to do with apple count as having to buy new chargers for my macbook repeatedly because they brake down for no reason at all and cost 80$ to replace? Last time i buy an apple computer.
 

jdun

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Aug 5, 2008
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"A small business owner makes bank while one of Apple's original three founders gets screwed. Again."

Don't see why he got screwed again? It's not like Apple and the small business owner stole or own him anything.

He is an adult when he sold his share and the business contract would have been thrown in the trash can when he left the company. In hindsight he made a really bad business but so does a lot of people.
 

Micalas

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Mar 5, 2011
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jdun said:
"A small business owner makes bank while one of Apple's original three founders gets screwed. Again."

Don't see why he got screwed again? It's not like Apple and the small business owner stole or own him anything.

He is an adult when he sold his share and the business contract would have been thrown in the trash can when he left the company. In hindsight he made a really bad business but so does a lot of people.
Screwed by fate. He's not saying that anyone stole anything from him. Derp.