15 November 1971: Intel advertises the first microprocessor
Intel advertised the 4004, a computer on a single chip, in the trade paper Electronic News. Originally designed for a Japanese calculator maker, the tiny processor packed the power of room-sized early computers onto a fingernail-sized piece of silicon. It launched the microprocessor industry that Intel would dominate for decades and set the stage for personal computers, smartphones and nearly everything with an on switch.
The lesson: Revolutionary technology often starts as a component for something mundane, like a calculator.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Intel at the start of 1990 → $44,444 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 44.4 times the money, and $25,016 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Intel teaches: Market leadership is not permanent; Intel's manufacturing edge looked unassailable for decades and eroded through a handful of missed bets and execution slips.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $0.9 | $44,444 | $19,429 |
| 1995 | $3.90 | $10,256 | $14,783 |
| 2000 | $41.00 | $976 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Intel? Every starting year and the full story →
More Intel history
- 22 March 1993: Intel introduces the Pentium
- 6 June 2005: Apple announces a switch to Intel chips
- 18 July 1968: Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel
- 1 November 1999: Microsoft and Intel join the Dow
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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