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  • They say, to become a billionaire you should get lucky but sometimes, even when luck comes

  • to you with open arms, you might be too dumb to accept it. Some people had the opportunity

  • right under their nouse, but their arrogance led them to think that they smarter than that.

  • So they ended up missing the greatest opportunity of their life. If they would have been a little

  • bit more humble and gave it another thought, they would have been today on Forbes billionaire's

  • list. You better watch this video till the end,

  • because who knows, you might come across a similar opportunity and miss it as well.

  • A lot of people don't know but Apple wasn't only founded by Steve Jobs. Some of you might

  • have heard about Steven Wozniak but I am sure that most of you don't know that Ronald Wayne

  • was also one of the founders of apple in 1976. He was assigned to supervise jobs and Wozniak

  • since he was in his 40s while they were in their 20s and didn't have any professional

  • experience so they asked him to join the company in exchange of 10% of ownership. Ronaldo wrote

  • down their first partnership agreement and created the first logo with Isaac Newton sitting

  • under a tree. Back then, Apple was a tiny company with 3

  • people in Job's garage. Of course, Steve had his vision to grow the company bigger

  • and make great computers but Roland didn't get the idea. So he left the company and sold

  • his 10% stake for 800 bucks. If he would have kept his shares, he would

  • have been a billionaire today, since Apple became the most valuable company in the world.

  • Of course, he would not own exactly 10 percent because the company raised money multiple

  • times and had 4 stocks splits since going public.

  • That wasn't the only opportunity he missed. Remember the first contract he wrote down

  • when he joined the company. He sold it for 500 dollars in 1990s. However, the exact same

  • contract was resold at an auction for 1.59 million dollars.

  • I really feel sorry for this guy.

  • But our second hero missed even a greater opportunity. In 1976, Apple was running out

  • of cash, so Steve jobs approached Nolan Bushnell to invest 50 thousand dollars in exchange

  • of 1/3 of the company. Nolan was a pretty successful guy at that time so he didn't give

  • a damn about a guy who is trying to make computers and missed the greatest opportunity he would

  • ever come across. If he wasn't so stubborn and had a little bit of faith in jobs and

  • accepted the offer. He probably would be as rich as bill gates today.

  • At least he didn't accept the deal and then wasted it as Laszlo Hanyecz did. He was one

  • of the first believes in bitcoin back then when most of us didn't even know about its

  • existence. And mining it was pretty easy since the network was tiny. In fact, no one even

  • used bitcoin to buy something so Laszlo decided to be that first person. In May of 2010, when

  • the price of the bitcoin was 0.08 cents, he ordered 2 pizza and paid for them with 10K

  • bitcoins. This is the picture of the 2 pizzas. If he would have kept his bitcoins and sold

  • them in December of 2017. He would have made at least 150 million dollars. He definitely

  • wouldn't be a billionaire but that's better than a pizza.

  • However, I would say a pizza is better than nothing. James Howells was one of the first

  • six people to mine bitcoin. He would set his laptop to mine bitcoins all night But his

  • girlfriend stopped him because apparently, the noise of the fan was simply too loud.

  • Even in a such a short period of time, he had mined 7500 bitcoins. Imagine if he kept

  • mining all of these years, he would have owned tenths of thousands of bitcoin today. But

  • that's not the sad part of the story. In 2010, his computer broke down, so James took out

  • the hard drive that contained the bitcoins and left it in a drawer and forgot about it.

  • After 3 years when he was cleaning up his house, he accidentally threw out that hard

  • drive. A few months later when he reconnected with the network, he realized that the bitcoin

  • price has enormously increased, he rushed to the landfill site to find it but he couldn't.

  • If he didn't thew that hard drive, he could have sold it for a 140 million dollars in

  • December of 2017.

  • 5. Joe Green

  • When Mark Zuckerberg was developing Facebook in his dorm room, he asked Joe Green to help

  • him out in exchange of 5 percent of ownership, since both of them previously worked on a

  • project called Facesmash, which you might have heard about. But Joe's father who was

  • a professor discouraged him. Unfortunately, he listened to his dad and lost the opportunity

  • because that tiny ownership would definitely have made him a multi-billionaire.

  • Listening to your parents is good, but sometimes you have to take the initiative and decide

  • for yourself. Who do you think missed the greatest opportunity out of these five, let

  • me know in the comments below? As always hit that like button if you have

  • enjoyed the video and subscribe if you don't want to miss the next video. Thanks for watching

  • and I will see you in the next one.

They say, to become a billionaire you should get lucky but sometimes, even when luck comes

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