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Lot Essay
THE SPIRIT OF 1976: The original partnership agreement for Apple Computer Company, signed by its founders fifty years ago.
In the mid-1970s, two young men in Silicon Valley were about to change the world. The friendship of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, forged through a shared love of electronics, would become the cornerstone of Apple Computer—one of the most influential companies in history.
Jobs and Wozniak met in 1971 through a mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, when Jobs was still in high school and Woz was 21. Jobs had landed a summer internship at HP where Wozniak was working on calculator design. Despite their differences—Jobs was intense and charismatic, Wozniak quiet and deeply technical—they quickly bonded over technology and a shared love of pranks. One of their favorites was rigging TV remotes to randomly change channels in dorm rooms. They also built a device called the “TV jammer,” which disrupted nearby televisions until Jobs turned it off just long enough for someone to fix the screen—then back on again. Their most ambitious early collaboration was a version of Pong for Atari, which Jobs pitched to the company while Wozniak engineered the design. These projects revealed a powerful synergy: Wozniak’s ingenuity and Jobs’s instinct for turning ideas into products.
On the fifth of March 1975, Wozniak attended the first meeting of the famous Homebrew Computer Club in a garage in Menlo Park. There was much discussion around the newly released MITS Altair 8800, the first commercially successful personal computer. “What will people do with a computer in their home? Well, we asked the question and the variety of responses show that the imagination of people has been underestimated” (Homebrew newsletter no. 1).
Inspired by Homebrew, Wozniak sketched out a new kind of machine—an affordable computer with enough memory to program and the capability of a human interface: a keyboard and a monitor rather than beeps or flashing lights on something like the Altair. Wozniak spent his evenings designing. On 29 June, he successfully tested his prototype, watching typed letters appear on a screen. “It was the first time in history anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen,” Wozniak recalled (Macworld interview, 2025).
Wozniak started sharing his schematics freely with Homebrew members at their meetings every two weeks, but fellow members skewed towards software and few were up to soldering their own boards. Jobs saw the commercial potential and urged him to think bigger. Wozniak was 25 years old, still at HP, and Jobs was 21 and working a night shift at Atari.
To help convince Wozniak to turn the prototype into a business even if it eventually meant leaving HP, Jobs enlisted the help of Ron Wayne, a 41-year-old product designer he had met at Atari. Wayne had prior experience founding a company and brought a sense of maturity and caution to the table. He helped mediate between the two Steves and drafted this original partnership agreement (apparently cobbled together using prior examples to save the expense of a lawyer). On Thursday, April 1st, 1976, the three men signed the agreement in Wayne’s apartment in Mountain View. Wayne received a 10% stake and the remainder was split evenly between Jobs and Wozniak. Wayne’s responsibilities were listed as “Mechanical Engineering and Documentation;” Wozniak’s as “Electrical Engineering;” and Jobs’s as “Electrical Engineering and Marketing.”
However, just eleven days later, wary of the financial risk, Wayne withdrew from the partnership in exchange for $800. “I was standing in the shadow of giants,” he later said, “I knew I couldn’t keep up with them” (Cult of Mac).
Wozniak and Jobs were then the sole partners of Apple. Wozniak recalled: “Steve said, ‘Even if we don’t get our money back, at least we’ll have a company.’ So it was like two good friends having a company” (interview in Founders at Work, 2007). Later in April 1976, just over a year since his first sketches, he demonstrated the Apple computer at another meeting of the Homebrew Computing Club. It caught the attention of Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop in Mountain View, one of the first personal computer retail stores. Terrell agreed to buy 50 Apple-1 computers for $500 each—but only if they were fully assembled, not just kits. This forced Jobs and Wozniak to scramble for parts and hand-build the boards in Jobs’s family garage (or his sister’s bedroom—accounts vary), with help from friends and a $5,000 loan secured by selling Jobs’s VW van and Wozniak’s HP calculator. The “fully assembled” computers were boards only—not including keyboard, power supply, cassette interface or monitor. These first Apples retailed for $666.66 (because Wozniak likes repeating numbers) in July of 1976.
The Byte Shop sale marked Apple’s first revenue and validated the existence of a market for user-ready personal computers. Apple’s early success soon attracted Mike Markkula, a seasoned investor who became the company’s third co-founder. His investment helped Apple transition from a partnership of two into a formal corporation. In January 1977, Apple was officially incorporated, setting the stage for its evolution to global technology leader.
From Ron Wayne’s apartment in Mountain View—where this original Apple partnership agreement was signed—emerged a company that would transform the world. That document, drafted by Wayne and signed by three men who possessed little more than ingenuity and ambition, marked the birth of a revolution in personal technology. Apple’s rise from that moment to a global powerhouse reshaped how we communicate, create, and connect. Apple products are not just tools—they’re companions we carry in our pockets, wear on our wrists, and place on our nightstands. The founding agreement stands not just as a legal document, but as a symbol of how bold ideas, shared in small rooms, can ripple across the globe.
In the mid-1970s, two young men in Silicon Valley were about to change the world. The friendship of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, forged through a shared love of electronics, would become the cornerstone of Apple Computer—one of the most influential companies in history.
Jobs and Wozniak met in 1971 through a mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, when Jobs was still in high school and Woz was 21. Jobs had landed a summer internship at HP where Wozniak was working on calculator design. Despite their differences—Jobs was intense and charismatic, Wozniak quiet and deeply technical—they quickly bonded over technology and a shared love of pranks. One of their favorites was rigging TV remotes to randomly change channels in dorm rooms. They also built a device called the “TV jammer,” which disrupted nearby televisions until Jobs turned it off just long enough for someone to fix the screen—then back on again. Their most ambitious early collaboration was a version of Pong for Atari, which Jobs pitched to the company while Wozniak engineered the design. These projects revealed a powerful synergy: Wozniak’s ingenuity and Jobs’s instinct for turning ideas into products.
On the fifth of March 1975, Wozniak attended the first meeting of the famous Homebrew Computer Club in a garage in Menlo Park. There was much discussion around the newly released MITS Altair 8800, the first commercially successful personal computer. “What will people do with a computer in their home? Well, we asked the question and the variety of responses show that the imagination of people has been underestimated” (Homebrew newsletter no. 1).
Inspired by Homebrew, Wozniak sketched out a new kind of machine—an affordable computer with enough memory to program and the capability of a human interface: a keyboard and a monitor rather than beeps or flashing lights on something like the Altair. Wozniak spent his evenings designing. On 29 June, he successfully tested his prototype, watching typed letters appear on a screen. “It was the first time in history anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen,” Wozniak recalled (Macworld interview, 2025).
Wozniak started sharing his schematics freely with Homebrew members at their meetings every two weeks, but fellow members skewed towards software and few were up to soldering their own boards. Jobs saw the commercial potential and urged him to think bigger. Wozniak was 25 years old, still at HP, and Jobs was 21 and working a night shift at Atari.
To help convince Wozniak to turn the prototype into a business even if it eventually meant leaving HP, Jobs enlisted the help of Ron Wayne, a 41-year-old product designer he had met at Atari. Wayne had prior experience founding a company and brought a sense of maturity and caution to the table. He helped mediate between the two Steves and drafted this original partnership agreement (apparently cobbled together using prior examples to save the expense of a lawyer). On Thursday, April 1st, 1976, the three men signed the agreement in Wayne’s apartment in Mountain View. Wayne received a 10% stake and the remainder was split evenly between Jobs and Wozniak. Wayne’s responsibilities were listed as “Mechanical Engineering and Documentation;” Wozniak’s as “Electrical Engineering;” and Jobs’s as “Electrical Engineering and Marketing.”
However, just eleven days later, wary of the financial risk, Wayne withdrew from the partnership in exchange for $800. “I was standing in the shadow of giants,” he later said, “I knew I couldn’t keep up with them” (Cult of Mac).
Wozniak and Jobs were then the sole partners of Apple. Wozniak recalled: “Steve said, ‘Even if we don’t get our money back, at least we’ll have a company.’ So it was like two good friends having a company” (interview in Founders at Work, 2007). Later in April 1976, just over a year since his first sketches, he demonstrated the Apple computer at another meeting of the Homebrew Computing Club. It caught the attention of Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop in Mountain View, one of the first personal computer retail stores. Terrell agreed to buy 50 Apple-1 computers for $500 each—but only if they were fully assembled, not just kits. This forced Jobs and Wozniak to scramble for parts and hand-build the boards in Jobs’s family garage (or his sister’s bedroom—accounts vary), with help from friends and a $5,000 loan secured by selling Jobs’s VW van and Wozniak’s HP calculator. The “fully assembled” computers were boards only—not including keyboard, power supply, cassette interface or monitor. These first Apples retailed for $666.66 (because Wozniak likes repeating numbers) in July of 1976.
The Byte Shop sale marked Apple’s first revenue and validated the existence of a market for user-ready personal computers. Apple’s early success soon attracted Mike Markkula, a seasoned investor who became the company’s third co-founder. His investment helped Apple transition from a partnership of two into a formal corporation. In January 1977, Apple was officially incorporated, setting the stage for its evolution to global technology leader.
From Ron Wayne’s apartment in Mountain View—where this original Apple partnership agreement was signed—emerged a company that would transform the world. That document, drafted by Wayne and signed by three men who possessed little more than ingenuity and ambition, marked the birth of a revolution in personal technology. Apple’s rise from that moment to a global powerhouse reshaped how we communicate, create, and connect. Apple products are not just tools—they’re companions we carry in our pockets, wear on our wrists, and place on our nightstands. The founding agreement stands not just as a legal document, but as a symbol of how bold ideas, shared in small rooms, can ripple across the globe.