The lives of Apple's first 10 employees 1
1. Steve Wozniak – co-founder
Wozniak (right) almost didn’t join Apple when it was founded in 1976. He received an offer from HP and considered accepting it.
2. Steve Jobs – co-founder
Jobs (right) was kicked out of Apple, founded a new company called NeXT, then returned and brought Apple back to its peak.
3. Mike Markkula – investor
Markkula (right) is the person who poured $250,000 into Apple to get 30% of the company’s shares.
Markkula previously worked for Intel and became a millionaire at age 30 when the company IPO.
4. Bill Fernandez – the first employee after 2 Steves
Bill Fernandez first met Steve Jobs at Cupertino High School.
When Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple, they hired Fernandez first.
5. Rod Holt – extremely important person with the development of Apple II
Holt is a pretty good engineer and was hesitant to join Apple in the early days.
6. Randy Wigginton – rewrote the BASIC programming language
Wigginton’s main job was to rewrite BASIC to be compatible with the Apple II computer.
7. Michael `Scotty` Scott – Apple’s first CEO
Scott joked that he chose the number 7 because it reminded him of Agent 007. Scotty is the person who sets the numbers for employees and manages the company’s operations.
8. Chris Espinosa – worked for Apple since he was 14 years old
Chris Espinosa joined Apple when he was 14 years old.
On his personal blog, Espinosa said he is employee number 8 of the company.
9. Sherry Livingston – right-hand woman for Apple’s first CEO
Livingston was Apple’s first secretary.
10. Gary Martin – accountant
Martin thought it was unlikely Apple would succeed, but still joined the company.
