The Sad Tale of a Forgotten Apple Inc. (AAPL) Co-Founder and His Lost Billions

Years later, as Apple would grow to become the world’s largest public company, and Wayne’s forsaken stake had grown to make him the man who gave up on being one of the world’s richest, CNN caught up with him to see how he copes with the knowledge of lost billions:

“I’m living off my Social Security and I do a modest trade in collectors’ stamps and coins,” [Wayne] said. …

Wayne, whose net worth is mostly tied up in his extensive coin and stamp collection, said he’s as “enamored with money as anybody else.”

“But when you’re at a focal point of history, you don’t realize you’re at a focal point of history,” he said.

A retired engineer, who has worked at various companies since his departure, Wayne said he never has owned an Apple product.

“I never had a real use for computers,” he said. He recently purchased a Dell, saying he’s too familiar with Windows to want to switch.

Even the founding documents Wayne signed turned out to be worth far more than his original buyout offer. At the end of 2011, a Sotheby’s auction brought in $1.35 million for the original contract, which Wayne had also abandoned too soon — it had been out of his hands since the mid-’90s, sold a time when everything Apple was trading at a bit of a discount.

Don’t lament the big gainers that got away. You’re not likely to miss out on more than a rounding error of what Ronald Wayne gave up in 1976 for just $800.

The article The Sad Tale of a Forgotten Apple Co-Founder and His Lost Billions originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Alex Planes has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Apple.

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