Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen to raise $1,300 for Apple’s first computer. He became a millionaire just two years later at 23

If it weren’t for a Volkswagen bus and a calculator, Apple might never have existed. At the time, the late cofounder Steve Jobs was in his early twenties and strapped for cash, but hooked on the idea that everyone should be able to own a home computer. The only problem? Like many founders, he didn’t have enough money to bring his vision to life.

So Jobs sold off his Volkswagen bus while fellow cofounder Steve Wozniak got money for his programmable calculator, raising $1,300 to pay for the prototype’s parts. And the first Apple computer, the Apple I, was born on April Fools’ Day, 1976.

The sacrifice paid off: A local computer dealer placed a $50,000 order for 100 units soon after it launched, with the product mainly bought up by hobby enthusiasts. But it made the entrepreneurial duo enough money to create Apple II for the mass market—the first personal computer to include a keyboard and color graphics. A year after its 1977 debut, it made nearly $3 million. 

“I was worth about over $1 million when I was 23, and over $10 million when I was 24, and over $100 million when I was 25,” Jobs told PBS in 1996. “And it wasn’t that important, because I never did it for the money.”

The days of selling their belongi...