Steve Jobs’ first Silicon Valley boss turned down an offer to buy a third of Apple for $50,000—today, his share would be worth nearly $1 trillion

• Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell turned down his former employee, the late Steve Jobs, when he was offered to buy a third of Apple for $50,000 in the 1970s. With the iPhone titan now standing at $3.1 trillion, the video gaming pioneer missed out on making $1 trillion from his relatively small investment. But he isn’t troubling himself with regret, reasoning he might not be as happy—and Apple may not have been as successful—if he accepted the deal.

Many people may be kicking themselves for not buying Bitcoin or investing in Nvidia stock sooner—but few will have missed out on a bigger deal than Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell, the first Silicon Valley boss of the late Steve Jobs.

A young Jobs offered the gaming mogul an eye-popping deal: buy a third of Apple for just $50,000. What might com