Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr. (born 1942) is an American entrepreneur who was an
angel investor who provided early critical funding for
Apple. He was introduced to
Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak when they were looking for funding to manufacture the Apple II personal computer they had developed, after having successfully sold some units of the first version of this computer, the Apple I. With this funding and his guidance, Apple ceased to be a partnership and was incorporated as a company. After his stint there, he continued on to found
Echelon Corporation, ACM Aviation, San Jose Jet Center and Rana Creek Habitat Restoration and to endow the
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at
Santa Clara University, where he now chairs the Board of Trustees.
Markkula made millions on
stock options he acquired as a marketing manager for
Fairchild Semiconductor and
Intel, and retired at 32. He was lured out of retirement after Steve Jobs, who was referred to him by
Don Valentine, a venture capitalist who was not interested in funding Apple, visited him and convinced him of the market for the Apple II and personal computers in general. In 1977, Markkula brought his business expertise along with
US$250,000 ($80,000 as an equity investment in the company and $170,000 as a loan) and became a one-third owner of Apple and employee number 3. He also brought in Apple's first president,
Michael Scott, then took the job himself from 1981 to 1983. Markkula served as chairman from 1985 until 1997, when a new board was formed after Jobs returned to the company. Wozniak, who single-handedly created the first two Apple computers, credits Markkula for the success of Apple more than himself.
Markkula is an alumnus of the
University of Southern California. Markkula's family is from
Finland.
Markkula is an investor in
Crowd Technologies, a startup developing a web application called that applies the
wisdom of crowds to stock market predictions.