{"id":576930,"date":"2026-03-31T19:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/576930\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:48:13","slug":"today-in-history-april-1-ron-made-the-worst-deal-in-business-history-for-800","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/576930\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – April 1: Ron made the worst deal in business history for $800"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wozniak and Jobs gave Wayne a 10 per cent stake in the company to act as a tie-breaker between them.<\/p>\n

But Wayne got cold feet, and sold his equity for $US800 12 days later.<\/p>\n

\"AprilRonald Wayne sold his stake in Apple for $US800. (Ronald Wayne)<\/p>\n

Wayne had lost a lot of money running a slot-machine business several years earlier, and did not want to take the risk.<\/p>\n

If he had held onto his stake, Wayne would be one of the richest men in the world.<\/p>\n

But Wayne said he never had “the slightest pangs of regret”.<\/p>\n

“My contribution was not so great that I felt I had been diddled with in any way,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It was like having a tiger by the tail and I couldn’t keep up with (Wozniak and Jobs).”<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went on to make a fortune.<\/p>\n

Had he kept his stake in Apple, he would be worth more than $500 billion today.<\/p>\n

Wayne sold the original partnership contract paper in the early 1990s for $US500. It was sold at auction by its new owner in 2011 for $US1.6 million.<\/p>\n

After being robbed of his life savings in 2004 when a burglar stole a strongbox full of gold and silver, he retired to a trailer park in the Nevada desert.<\/p>\n

He now makes a living selling stamps and rare coins.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Wayne later sold his initial contract with Apple for a few hundred dollars. (Sotheby’s International Realty)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wozniak and Jobs gave Wayne a 10 per cent stake in the company to act as a tie-breaker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-576930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}