🍎 Why All Three Founders Left Apple

Issue 20 - Business Stories

Most people know that Apple had 3 founders: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and the 3rd guy… Together these 3 developed the world’s most valuable tech company worth a staggering 2.45 Trillion Dollars (2022)! What’s not as well known is that all 3 founders left the company at different points. In this article, we’ll take a look at the person, their role, and why/when they left.

Ronald’s Resignation

Meet Ronald Wayne, Apple’s little-known co-founder. Steve Jobs and Ronald met in the mid-1970s when they were both working at Atari. At the time, Jobs was an engineering consultant that Wayne worked with. Jobs worked on developing games by himself or together with Steve Wozniak. Jobs seemed to be interested in Wayne because Wayne was in his 40s and had a background in the computer industry and had experience.

Jobs proposed the idea of founding a company to Wayne and Wozniak. After some disputes, on April 1st, 1976, the company was founded. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were each given 45% ownership of the company, whereas Wayne only receive 10% as the tiebreaker. Ronald went to work and designed Apple’s first logo known as the ‘Newton Design’ (Isaac Newton sitting under a tree).

Everything seemed great on the outside as Steve Jobs started marketing their computers, Wozniak did his thing, but Ronald Wayne didn’t like his role. Jobs and Wozniak didn’t have any money at the time and Wayne knew that they would go to him because he had a house, a car, a bank account, etc., however, he says that this isn’t the main reason he left Apple. The way he put it, Ronald said that he was “standing behind two giants”, and that he would never have a project of his own. So with that, Ronald Wayne was officially out of the company taking his name off of the contract on April 12th, 1976, and selling his 10% stake in the company for a whopping $800. That money today is worth more than 95 Billion Dollars! Even to this day, Wayne says that he hasn’t regretted his decision, but says that it’s kind of a head-scratcher now.

Jobs’ Termination

Now you’re probably wondering, how can Steve Jobs be fired from the company that he started? Well in a way, Steve started his downfall. Jobs wasn’t the one at the top of the company, and he didn’t have the CEO title until his return in 1997. Apple had other CEOs in the past like Michael Scott and Mike Markkula, but they were both unsuccessful. Steve then poached John Sculley from the PepsiCo company who was CEO after the famous “You can either sell sugar water or do you want to come with me change the world” quote, and in 1983 he was appointed as CEO of Apple.

At this time the company wasn’t doing very well, because they were having trouble coming up with a successor to the Apple II. They were just selling iterations of this computer while trying to figure out their next big idea.

Jobs thought that the future of computing was based on a graphical user interface featuring a virtual desktop. Steve Jobs led the development of this seemingly revolutionary computer and called it LISA (named after his daughter). Unfortunately, the starting price was $10,000 which was out of reach for consumers, so this machine didn’t have very good sales.

Okay, so Steve led the development of Apple’s next computer (after Wozniak had been severely injured in a plane crash), the Macintosh. It came with the technology of the LISA, but with the low price of the Apple II. However, there was one debate on the machine: the price. Jobs wanted the Macintosh to be priced at $2,000 to compete with IBM and other computer manufacturers. John on the other hand wanted it to be priced at $2,500 to cover the marketing and development costs. This debate would end up with Sculley winning and the machine would be priced at $2,500. The Macintosh had been very well received by consumers, and although the sales looked good initially, the demand tapered off. This gave Job the excuse because he could simply say “it was priced too high”.

Tensions between Jobs and Sculley kept on rising. Jobs wanted to develop his own hit product because the Apple II was technically developed by Steve Wozniak. Jobs was still finding a mix and was using a lot of money from the company. Meanwhile, the Board at Apple wanted Sculley to have more control over Jobs, so John made the tough decision to reduce Steve’s decisions and responsibilities in the company. It was in a meeting that Job was told about this proposition, however, Job didn’t like it. He wanted the board to decide who they wanted as a leader; him or Sculley

Jobs thought that the board favored him over Sculley, so when the board unanimously voted that they’d rather have Scully, Jobs stormed out of the room (September 16, 1985). So, to wrap this up, Steve wasn’t fired, he kind of just went off on his own after this meeting. Of course, people could say that this was good in the end because we wouldn’t have had Pixar.

Wozniak’s Exit

Steve Wozniak was arguably the biggest factor in Apple’s success after developing the first 2 computers that got the company off the ground. However, the two Steves had differing philosophies. Jobs wanted a close approach to technology limiting the user, while Wozniak believed in an open approach in a way that consumers could expand their system. You see this closed approach even today with the 13-inch MacBook Pro only having USB-C ports or with the inability to expand storage in the new Mac Studio. I think this is the overarching reason why Wozniak left Apple. An example of this was when the pair were developing the Apple III. Job really wanted the computer to be fan and ventless which required the use of an aluminum base to get rid of heat. However, manufacturing the aluminum took time which required the design to be confirmed before the motherboard. In the end, it turned out the system was unable to house all the necessary components.

In 1985 Wozniak left Apple claiming ‘the company had been going in the wrong direction for five years, and that he missed being the engineer instead of the manager.

In conclusion, it’s safe to conclude that without this Trio, Apple wouldn’t be what it is today. Thanks for reading this week’s article. Be sure to share and subscribe, and with that, I’ll talk to you next week!

—Luke Rapaka