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Worst investment decision ever?
Old 04-02-2021, 06:09 AM   #1
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Worst investment decision ever?

Can you just imagine?

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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.
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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Worst investment decision ever?
Old 04-02-2021, 06:29 AM   #2
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 06:35 AM   #3
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 06:37 AM   #4
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Heck, I could put up with a "maniacal narcissist",
for a lot less than $200 billion.
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Old 04-02-2021, 06:55 AM   #5
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 07:00 AM   #6
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 07:16 AM   #7
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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.

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Old 04-02-2021, 07:19 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Closet_Gamer View Post
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.

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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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Old 04-02-2021, 07:22 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by Time2 View Post
Heck, I could put up with a "maniacal narcissist",
for a lot less than $200 billion.
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Old 04-02-2021, 07:26 AM   #10
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 07:43 AM   #11
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 07:59 AM   #12
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 08:00 AM   #13
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Being sold a Variable Annuity.
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Old 04-02-2021, 09:31 AM   #14
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 09:36 AM   #15
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Well, he is still breathing, and Jobs is not.
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Old 04-02-2021, 09:42 AM   #16
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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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Worst investment decision ever?
Old 04-02-2021, 10:24 AM   #17
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Worst investment decision ever?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Time2 View Post
Heck, I could put up with a "maniacal narcissist",
for a lot less than $200 billion.


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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Old 04-02-2021, 10:25 AM   #18
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 10:33 AM   #19
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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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Old 04-02-2021, 10:35 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by braumeister View Post
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.
He says he doesn't regret it? He may have said it but that's BS....
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