The first boss of Steve Jobs Silicon Valley refused an offer to buy a third of Apple for $ 50,000 – TODAY, his share was worth nearly 1 billion of dollars

A young job offered a breathtaking agreement in the game magnate: buy a third of the apple for only $ 50,000. What could be a shock for many is that Bushnell refused it.

Apple has since grown up in a feeling of $ 3.1 billion with more than a billion iphones seated in the rear pockets of people, and more than 100 million Mac users worldwide – and if Bushnell had concluded the agreement, its cup would have made him $ 1 billion today.

But Bushnell is not crying on the missed opportunity

Bushnell first witnessed the potential of jobs as a businessman in the 1970s, when the college dropout joined Atari as a technician and game designer before going to entrepreneurship.

Jobs was an essential engineer “solving problems in the field” in Atari, recalled Bushnell, but his leadership mentality also meant a certain tension in the office. The Atari co -founder strategically employed jobs during nights, knowing that Wozniak would join and also help projects like the “Breakout” brick game. But jobs would also hinder his office to tell Bushnell that other employees were not good to weld, offering to instruct them. Bushnell recognized that Jobs was a complicated genius – Albiet.

“He was a difficult person,” said Bushnell ABC News In 2015. “He was very intelligent. Often, he was the smartest person in the room, and he said to everyone. It is generally not a good social dynamic.”

But years later, the pioneer of technology did not simulate his choice to reject the offer.

“I could have had a third of Apple Computer for $ 50,000, and I refused it,” said Bushnell in the interview. “I have a wonderful family, I have a big woman, my life is wonderful. I’m not sure that if I had been Uber, Uber, Uber Rich that I would have had all that. ”

In fact, Bushnell even thinks that Apple may not have been so successful if he had concluded the agreement. And its potential payment may not be skyrocketed at this height of billions of dollars.

“I’m still a fan of Apple and you know that I think the hindsight is 20/20,” he said Technological radar In 2013, When asked for her decision to say no. “I can go through a thread very easily, which, to me, refusing Steve, led me to present it to Don Valentine, and he presented Mike Markkula to him who is also responsible for the success of Apple as Steve Woz (Niak) and Jobs.”

This is not the first pattern of technology to have missed billions

Bushnell is not the only one to have lacked critical commercial opportunities that would launch them to the billionaire status – there are still other people who have exploded it on business with Apple.

Ronald Wayne, the less known Apple’s third co -founder, also worked in the Atari electronics company when he intensified as a Jobs IMI to help Wozniak to formalize Apple’s launch. Wayne even hit the contract, thinking that it would receive a share of 10% in the technological company, while Jobs and Wozniak would be granted a 45% stake.

However, less than two weeks after writing the document, Wayne sold her participation for only $ 800, also collecting $ 1,500 to give up any complaint to the company. With decline, this is a massive misstep because its 10% share could now be worth between $ 75 billion and $ 300 billion today. His wasted opportunity is not as austere as that of Bushnell – and the decision mainly came from a desire to have financial stability in his life.

“Jobs and Woz did not have two nickels to rub,” said Wayne Initiate of Business In 2017. “Me, on the other hand, I had a house, a car and a bank account – which meant that I was in a grip if this thing exploded.”

The co -founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Jawed Karim could also be seated in a nest egg nest today if they did not sell their business so early.

YouTube creators sold their popular video platform in Google for $ 1.65 billion in the fall of 2006, each receiving millions of dollars in stock. Hurley has obtained the company’s actions worth around 345 million dollars, according to The New York TimesWhile Chen accepted about $ 326 million. Karim, who left the business early to return to school, obtained $ 64 million in shares. They were delighted with the agreement at the start, but the buyer’s remorse would potentially be less than 20 years later.

Today, Youtube is estimated at $ 550 billion, 333 times higher than its market capitalization for almost two decades previously, adjusted to inflation. If Hurley and Chen accepted the same stock market agreement today that they did in 2006, everyone could have more than $ 100 billion in their bank accounts.