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Worst investment decision ever?
04-02-2021, 06:09 AM
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#1
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Moderator
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Flyover country
Posts: 25,155
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Worst investment decision ever?
Can you just imagine?
Quote:
Today marks the 45th anniversary of Apple, co-founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976. Wayne sold his 10% share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak just 12 days later to avoid financial risk, which is unfortunate in hindsight given that his stake would be worth more than $200 billion today.
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https://www.macrumors.com
He sold his share to Jobs for $800 and later received another $1,500 to forfeit any potential future claims. He has always said he doesn't regret it.
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I thought growing old would take longer.
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Worst investment decision ever?
04-02-2021, 06:29 AM
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#2
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Twin Cities
Posts: 3,927
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Worst investment decision ever?
Wayne probably doesn’t regret the part about extracting himself from a partnership with a maniacal narcissist. Maybe it took him 12 days to figure it out?
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04-02-2021, 06:35 AM
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#3
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Seattle
Posts: 5,991
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As a percentage though, how does that investment compare to the guy who bought a pizza with like 10,000 bitcoin?
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04-02-2021, 06:37 AM
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#4
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 3,652
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Heck, I could put up with a "maniacal narcissist",
for a lot less than $200 billion.
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04-02-2021, 06:55 AM
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#5
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Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 13,846
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Hah so this made me look, and I did find one apple-decision - THIS he regrets:
(per wiki)
"In the early 1990s, Wayne sold the original Apple partnership contract paper, signed in 1976 by Jobs, Wozniak, and himself, for US$500. In 2011, the contract was sold at auction for $1.6 million.[16] Wayne has stated that he regrets that sale.[5][6][17]"
And I like this - which is why most of us strive to ER and leave a lot of potential cash on the table, leaving bosses and teams with plenty of narcissists, maniacal or not:
'he said that with the stress of staying with Apple he "probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery." He summarized, "What can I say? You make a decision based on your understanding of the circumstances, and you live with it." '
sounds like he's very zen with it.
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04-02-2021, 07:00 AM
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#6
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: gypsy traveller
Posts: 673
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I worked for a maniacal narcissist for 4 years at Mega. No, I did not earn anywhere near $200B.
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04-02-2021, 07:16 AM
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#7
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 1,360
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My worst choice was probably turning down a job at MSFT in 1995.
They wanted to make a lot of my compensation these "stock options" that weren't really worth anything right then and I had college loans to pay. So I politely told the recruiter that I'd rather have $5k more each year in compensation than a bunch of "stock options" that I didn't understand. They told me they'd pass.
(Is there an emoji for shooting yourself in the head?)
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Luck is when Preparation meets Opportunity.
FIRE'd 1/1/24
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04-02-2021, 07:19 AM
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#8
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Seattle
Posts: 5,991
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Closet_Gamer
My worst choice was probably turning down a job at MSFT in 1995.
They wanted to make a lot of my compensation these "stock options" that weren't really worth anything right then and I had college loans to pay. So I politely told the recruiter that I'd rather have $5k more each year in compensation than a bunch of "stock options" that I didn't understand. They told me they'd pass.
(Is there an emoji for shooting yourself in the head?)
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My wife took a job at Microsoft in 1999 and was granted a ton of stock options that expired worthless after 7 years. Don't feel too bad...life is a roulette wheel.
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04-02-2021, 07:22 AM
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#9
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Tellico Village
Posts: 2,596
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Retired May 13th(Friday) 2016 at age 61.
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04-02-2021, 07:26 AM
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#10
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Central MS/Orange Beach, AL
Posts: 9,067
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Worldcom. Rode it up and then into the toilet like a good soldier. So much for buy and hold.
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Retired 3/31/2007@52
Investing style: Full time wuss.
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04-02-2021, 07:43 AM
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#11
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Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 9,070
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But maybe if Wayne stayed, the infighting might have derailed the path that the Steves ended up taking. Hard not to, but you can’t look back.
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Every day when I open my eyes now it feels like a Saturday - David Gray
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04-02-2021, 07:59 AM
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#12
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Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 10,622
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It's easy to presume Wayne would have held it all until today, but that's highly unlikely.
It's like the guy who bought $5 worth of bitcoin in the era where you could get tiny fractions of coin for free at bit dripper. How likely is it he wasn't tempted to get out at 10x or 100x?
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04-02-2021, 08:00 AM
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#13
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 1,120
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Being sold a Variable Annuity.
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04-02-2021, 09:31 AM
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#14
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 1,390
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Not exactly a worst investment decision of all time, but I do wish I would have understood the power of compound interest earlier in my life than I did. The concept of compound interest didn't become real for me until my numbers got big enough for compound interest to take over and to be honest the numbers had to be bigger than I initially thought.
In regard to Wayne, it's impossible to know what might have been. there is a very good chance he would have sold his positions along the way and might not have ever even sniffed at 200B and deep down he might know it.
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Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things. Charlie Munger
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04-02-2021, 09:36 AM
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#15
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 2,232
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Well, he is still breathing, and Jobs is not.
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04-02-2021, 09:42 AM
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#16
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 11,701
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His attitude of no regrets is important. You are not living until you look back and realize some mistakes. Can't dwell on them.
One reason I like the series "Halt and Catch Fire" is it explores what it would be like working with a Jobs kind of person.
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Retired Class of 2018
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Worst investment decision ever?
04-02-2021, 10:24 AM
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#17
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Twin Cities
Posts: 3,927
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Worst investment decision ever?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Time2
Heck, I could put up with a "maniacal narcissist",
for a lot less than $200 billion.
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If you have not had the experience, consider yourself fortunate. Eventually, you want nothing more than to cash out. If Wayne figured that out in only twelve days, he is smarter and more decisive than most.
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04-02-2021, 10:25 AM
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#18
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: The Great Wide Open
Posts: 3,779
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I rode mega corp stock from $6 (cost) all the way up to $118.50 just before the Great Financial Crisis. I sold bits and pieces on the way up, but I was going to sell 10,000s of shares when it hit $120. Never made it. I ended up selling the shares, on the way back down in various lots to the $70's. Had it went to $120, we would have hit our number in 2009, instead of 2014. But we could have easily lost all of those gains during the GFC as well.
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Give me Liberty or give me Death. Patrick Henry
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04-02-2021, 10:33 AM
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#19
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Aug 2019
Posts: 691
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Even Steve Jobs left Apple Computer from 1985 to 1997. Few things are as straightforward as the seem in retrospect.
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--At what age does spending less now in order to have more later stop making sense?
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04-02-2021, 10:35 AM
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#20
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Texas
Posts: 10,836
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Quote:
Originally Posted by braumeister
He sold his share to Jobs for $800 and later received another $1,500 to forfeit any potential future claims. He has always said he doesn't regret it.
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He says he doesn't regret it? He may have said it but that's BS....
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20's "something" mind, trapped in a 70's "something" body
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