Apple's 50-year odyssey has redefined technology, pop culture and comeback stories
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Apple's 50-year odyssey has redefined technology, pop culture and comeback stories
AP — A scrawny hippie and a nerdy engineer who became prank-playing friends vowed to change the world when they founded a Silicon Valley startup on April Fools' Day 50 years ago and then — no joke — pulled it off.
The improbable odyssey began April 1, 1976, when a then-shaggy Steve Jobs and his gadget-tinkering friend Steve Wozniak signed a two-page partnership document that created Apple Computer Co.
Jobs, a 21-year-old college dropout, and Wozniak, a 25-year-old Hewlett-Packard employee, each received a 45% stake in Apple, with the remaining 10% going to their 41-year-old adviser, Ron Wayne.
The company got off to such a shaky start while trying to build a personal computer in the Los Altos, California, home of Jobs' parents that Wayne relinquished his stake for $2,300. It proved to be a $370 billion mistake, based on how much his holdings would have grown now that Apple boasts a $3.7 trillion market value.
But Apple nearly toppled before building its current empire.
Read the full story | AP
