OWNING a tenth of Apple today would net you $100billion. But Ron Wayne sold that same share for just $800 four decades ago.

The little-known Apple co-founder sold his 10% stake in the company back in 1976 – never guessing that the company would be worth its August 2018 high of $1TRILLION.

Apple was famously started by tech titan Steve Jobs and his programmer pal Steve Wozniak.

But there was also a third member of the founding Apple clan.

Ron Wayne helped the pair set up Apple on April 1, 1976, but sold his share after 12 days in the company for just $800 – around $10,000 today, after inflation.

Little did he know, Apple would eventually balloon to become the world's most valuable company, the first to reach a coveted $1,000,000,000,000 valuation.

Wayne, then 41, was brought on in a supervisory role, given that Jobs 21, and Wozniak, 25, were relatively inexperienced.

He was conscripted to oversee engineering, as well as an documentation that needed handling.

The original Apple logo was even penned by Wayne: a scene depicting Sir Isaac Newton underneath an apple tree.

Of course, that motif was eventually killed off for Apple's current iconic logo – a nibbled apple.

So what made Wayne flog his share in Apple's fortunes?

Jobs took out a $15,000 loan to fulfil a contract with The Byte Shop, a local Californian computer store.

But Wayne was concerned that The Byte Shop wouldn't pay up, leaving Apple out of pocket.

Given Jobs' and Wozniak's general lack of funds, Wayne – a homeowner – was concerned he'd end up having to bail out the firm.

So less than two weeks after he penned the original contract, he sold his shares back to Jobs and Wozniak (who already owned 45% Apple holdings, each) for $800.

He later received an additional $1,500 for the shares, too.

In a 2017 interview with Business Insider, Wayne revealed he didn't regret his apparent gaffe.

He explained how his time at Apple almost certainly would've been soul-destroying: "I would wind up in the documentation department shuffling papers for the next 20 years."

Speaking to Cult of Mac in 2014, Wayne described his time working with Jobs and Wozniak as "standing in the shadow of intellectual giants".

"I was 40 and these kids were in their 20s," he explained.

"They were whirlwinds – it was like having a tiger by the tail.

"If I had stayed with Apple I probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery."

He added: "Nobody could have anticipated how big Apple would become."

Fellow co-founder Wozniak, who left Apple in 1985, reckons Wayne made the right choice.

"He would never feel badly or have regret about his decisions, since they all had a logical derivation at the time," he told Cult of Mac.

"I am a lot like that and seeing Ron reinforced much of this in myself."

But while Wayne didn't regret his sold Apple shares, he did feel bad about another financial misstep associated with the tech giant.

He sold his original Apple contract for $500 in the '90s.

"I had this Apple contract sitting in my filing cabinet, covered in dust and cobwebs, and I thought, 'What do I need to hold onto that for?'," he revealed.

Sadly for Wayne, that same contract was sold for $1.6million in a 2011 Sotheby's auction.

Perhaps if he'd held onto his Apple shares, he could've been the person to buy the contract back himself.