Steve Jobs’ first Silicon Valley boss turned down an offer to buy a third of Apple for $50,000—today, his share would be worth nearly $1 trillion
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Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell missed out on becoming a trillionaire because he snubbed an offer from his ex-employee, the late Steve Jobs.
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cryptocurrency
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August 15, 2025
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Fortune
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Success·Steve JobsSteve Jobs’ first Silicon Valley boss turned down an offer to buy a third of Apple for $50,000—today, his would be worth nearly $1 trillionBy Emma BurleighBy Emma BurleighReporter, SuccessEmma BurleighReporter, SuccessEmma Burleigh is a reporter at Fortune, covering success, careers, entrepreneurship, and personal finance
Before joining the Success desk, she co-authored Fortune’s CHRO Daily , extensively covering the workplace and the future of jobs
Emma has also written for publications including the Observer and The China ject, publishing long-form stories on culture, entertainment, and geo
She has a joint-master’s degree from New York University in Global Journalism and East Asian Studies.SEE FULL BIO Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell missed out on becoming a trillionaire because he snubbed an offer from his ex-employee, the late Steve Jobs.Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty ImagesAtari cofounder Nolan Bushnell turned down his former employee, the late Steve Jobs, when he was offered to buy a third of Apple for $50,000 in the 1970s
With the iPhone titan now standing at $3.1 trillion, the gaming pioneer missed out on making $1 trillion from his relatively small investment
But he isn’t troubling himself with regret, reasoning he might not be as happy—and Apple may not have been as successful—if he accepted the deal
Many people may be kicking themselves for not buying Bitcoin or in Nvidia stock sooner—but few will have missed out on a bigger deal than Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell, the first Silicon Valley boss of the late Steve Jobs
A young Jobs offered the gaming mogul an eye-popping deal: buy a third of Apple for just $50,000
What might come as a shock to many is that Bushnell turned it down
Apple has since grown into a $3.1 trillion sensation with over a billion iPhones sitting in people’s back pockets, and over 100 million Mac users worldwide—and if Bushnell had taken the deal, his cut would have made him $1 trillion today
But Bushnell isn’t crying over the missed opportunity Bushnell first witnessed Jobs’ potential as a man in the 1970s, when the college dropout joined Atari as a nician and games designer before moving into entrepreneurship
Jobs was an essential engineer “solving blems in the field” at Atari, Bushnell recalled, but his leadership mentality also meant some tension at the office
The Atari cofounder strategically employed Jobs during nightshifts, knowing that Wozniak would also join and help out on jects the brick- game “Breakout.” But Jobs would also barge into his office to tell Bushnell that the other employees weren’t good at soldering, offering to instruct them
Bushnell recognized that Jobs was a genius—albiet, a complicated one. “He was a difficult person,” Bushnell told ABC News in 2015. “He was very smart
Often he was the smartest person in the room, and he would tell everybody that
It’s generally not a good social dynamic.” But years later, the pioneer isn’t quietly simmering over his choice to reject the offer. “I could have owned a third of Apple computer for $50,000, and I turned it down,” Bushnell said in the interview. “I’ve got a wonderful family, I’ve got a great wife, my life is wonderful
I’m not sure that if I had been uber, uber, uber rich that I’d have had all of that.” In fact, Bushnell even thinks Apple may not have been so successful if he had taken the deal
And his potential payout may not have soared to that trillion-dollar height. “I’m still an Apple fan and you know I think that hindsight is 20/20,” he told Radar in 2013, when asked his decision to say no. “I can go through a thread very easily which, by me turning Steve down led to me introducing him to Don Valentine, and he introduced him to Mike Markkula who is as responsible for Apple’s success as Steve Woz[niak] and Jobs.” He’s not the first boss to have missed out on billions Bushnell isn’t the only one who missed out on critical opportunities that would launch them into billionaire —there are even others who blew it on big deals with Apple
Ronald Wayne, the lesser-known third Apple cofounder, was also working at the electronics company Atari when he stepped up as Jobs’ friend to help convince Wozniak of formalizing Apple’s launch
Wayne even typed up the contract, penning that he would receive a 10% in the company, while Jobs and Wozniak would each be awarded a 45% stake
However, less than two weeks after drafting up the document, Wayne sold his stake for just $800, also reaping $1,500 to forgo any claim to the company
Looking back, it’s a massive misstep as his 10% could now be worth between $75 billion and $300 billion today
His wasted opportunity isn’t as stark as Bushnell’s—and the decision mainly came from a desire to have financial stability in his life. “Jobs and Woz didn’t have two nickels to rub together,” Wayne told Insider in 2017. “I, on the other hand, had a house, and a car, and a bank account—which meant that I was on the hook if that thing blew up.” YouTube’s cofounders, Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Jawed Karim could also be sitting in a sizable nest egg today if they didn’t sell their company so early
The YouTube creators sold their platform to Google for $1.65 billion in fall 2006—each receiving millions of dollars worth of stock
Hurley got company s worth around $345 million, according to The New York Times, while Chen accepted $326 million worth
Karim, who left the early to go back to school, got $64 million of s
They were ecstatic the deal in the beginning, but the buyer’s remorse would potentially creep up less than 20 years later
Today, YouTube is valued at $550 billion—333 times higher than its market cap from nearly two decades prior, adjusted to inflation
If Hurley and Chen accepted the same stock deal today that they did in 2006, each could have more than $100 billion in their bank accounts
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