Apple and Angels

Chris EdwardsThisCato study examines wealthy people funding startup businesses. Since the early industrial revolution, angels have been investing in highly risky businesses that financial institutions such as banks won ’t touch. Most such investments fail, but angels occasionally launch a revolution.Steve Wozniak is one of the heroes of America ’s high‐​tech boom. He designed the Apple 1 and 2 computers and co ‐​founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs. In the Cato study, I note that Mike Markkula was the angel who gave young and broke Wozniak and Jobs the money to launch their pathbreaking firm.So I was interested to findthis 2011 interview with Wozniak describing the importance of Markkula. At 15:54:The story of Apple is a little misunderstood because it ’s like Steve and I did it ourselves. And really, with the Apple 2 computer, we got funding. A guy funded us, an angel. And he joined us. He had made his money working in marketing at Intel and as an engineer before, and he was a mentor. He was kind of young, but he was wealthy and he owned as much of Apple as Steve and I did. Same amount of stock.Mike Markkula was his name. And he ran our marketing, but he was our mentor. He told us how we would organize the company —what Steve’s roles would be, what my role would be. So he was really more responsible for Apple’s success than anyone.[Markkula] kind of lays out of the picture because Steve and I c...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs