Ronald Wayne

Ronald Gerald Wayne was working as a draftsman and engineer at Atari when he met Steve Jobs, who was a colleague there. In 1976 Jobs and Steve Wozniak asked him to act as a senior adult voice in their new venture, and Wayne became the third partner in Apple Computer when the partnership agreement was drawn up on April 1, 1976. He typed the contract himself, and it gave him a 10 percent share.

Wayne also produced the earliest Apple artwork: a pen-and-ink drawing of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree served as the company's first logo. He also wrote the manual for the Apple I. A few days after the agreement was signed, concerned that the partners' personal liability for company debts could expose his own assets, he withdrew from the venture. He received 800 dollars for his stake and, a year later, 1,500 dollars to give up any further claims.

Wayne continued working in engineering and design and later ran a stamp and coin business. He has said he does not regret the decision given the risk he saw at the time, though he has described selling his copy of the contract for a small sum as a mistake. The original agreement later sold at auction for about 2.5 million dollars. He published an autobiography, Adventures of an Apple Founder, in 2010.