1 April 1976: Apple is founded, and one co-founder cashes out early
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne formed Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Wayne, the grown-up in the room, got nervous about personal liability and sold his 10% stake back within days for $800. Apple went on to become the first US company worth $1 trillion. It is history's most expensive case of cold feet, and nobody has ever been able to call it an April Fools' joke.
The lesson: Selling early feels prudent in the moment; compounding only rewards the people who are still holding.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Apple at the start of 1990 → $833,333 today, vs $19,429 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 1990, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 833.3 times the money, and $813,905 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Apple teaches: The best returns often come from companies that looked finished; Apple was a near-bankrupt also-ran in 1997, which is exactly why it was cheap.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $0.3 | $833,333 | $19,429 |
| 1995 | $0.35 | $714,286 | $14,783 |
| 2000 | $0.9 | $277,778 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Apple? Every starting year and the full story →
More Apple history
- 2 January 2019: Tim Cook writes a letter nobody wanted to read
- 9 January 2007: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone
- 24 January 1984: The Macintosh goes on sale
- 27 January 2010: Apple unveils the iPad
- 11 April 1976: The Apple I goes on sale for $666.66
- 24 April 2015: The Apple Watch arrives
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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