Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reveals why he gave away all his shares that could have made him world’s 2nd-richest man today

Known as the engineering mind behind Steve Jobs’ vision, Wozniak designed and built the first Apple computers, earning the nickname "the inventor of the personal computer," according to Business Insider.

When Apple went public in 1980, Wozniak held about 8.7% of the company’s stock. Before leaving Apple in 1985, he offered $10 million worth of his shares to early employees, a gesture Jobs refused, before selling the rest, financial site The Street reported.

If he had kept his 1980 stake, his net worth would have exceeded $294 billion in August 2025, making him the world’s second-richest person after Elon Musk. His fortune today is estimated at about $140 million.

Some observers have called his choice a mistake. "Smart man. Great engineer. Bad decision. Happens to all of us," one commenter wrote on a thread in tech forum Slashdot, Inc. magazine reported.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Photo from Reddit

On his 75th birthday on Aug. 11 this year, Wozniak responded in the discussion: "I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for."

"I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns," he said.

"I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out."

Wozniak has long kept his distance from finance. In a 2017 interview with Fortune, he said: "I do not invest. I don’t do that stuff. I didn’t want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values." He added that when helping build Apple, his goal was to create innovative products and improve the world, not to get rich.

Apple was founded in 1976 by Wozniak, Jobs, and Ronald Wayne, who sold back his 10% stake for $800 less than two weeks after joining. Wozniak’s designs included the Apple I and the Apple II, one of the earliest personal computers available to the public. "The big computer companies said we were going to turn out to be nothing big," he recalled in a 2022 interview with Business Insider.

He left the U.S. tech giant in 1985, seeking a more engineering-focused role outside the pressures of running a fast-growing business. However, out of loyalty, he has remained on Apple’s payroll for decades, receiving about $50 per week.

While far from billionaire status, Wozniak remains a prominent figure in technology, frequently speaking at conferences and sharing his insights on innovation. Jobs, in comparison, had a net worth of about $10.2 billion at the time of his death in 2011, CNBC reported.