The Contract That Founded Apple To Be Offered At Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is delighted to announce that on 13 December 2011 it is to offer the founding partnership agreement of the Apple Computer Company – the firm that revolutionized technology, business, personal computing and the world. The 1976 document, which once belonged to Ronald G. Wayne, one of Apple’s founders along with Steven P. Jobs and Stephen G. Wozniak, is the first chapter in the story of one of America’s most important companies. The contract, along with the agreement documenting Ron Wayne’s withdrawal from the company for $800, will be offered as a single lot in the Fine Books and Manuscripts sale and is estimated to fetch $100/150,000.

In 1974 Steve Jobs left Reed College and was given a job at Atari by Al Alcorn, the company’s chief engineer. It was whilst working on the night shift that he met Ron Wayne, a 41 year old who had started a business that later failed. Wayne became a sufficiently important figure to Jobs that he would become a shareholder in the fledging company that Jobs started with Steve Wozniak two years later. The three partners met on 1 April 1976 to draft the agreement being offered here. Wayne wrote the two and a half page document in legal jargon setting out the division of shares – 45% each to Jobs and Wozniak and 10% to himself. However, the failure of his previous venture had made Wayne nervous of taking on the risks associated with the new partnership, and just eleven days later, he withdrew from the company. Wayne was paid $800 and received another $1,500 shortly thereafter. Today this share would be worth over $2 billion.

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