What if you bought Autodesk in 2000?
US Tech · Software. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play37.5× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Autodesk at the start of 2000 would be worth about $37,500 today — 37.5 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Autodesk makes design software, beginning with AutoCAD in 1982, used by architects, engineers and manufacturers to draw everything from bridges to bolts, and later by film studios through animation tools such as Maya. Its fortunes track construction and manufacturing, which shows in the path: strong growth into 2008, then a near-halving of the share price as the financial crisis froze building projects.
Around 2016 Autodesk stopped selling perpetual licences and moved customers to subscriptions, a transition that depressed reported revenue for a while and then made it far more predictable. It pushed cloud collaboration tools for construction and design and acquired several construction software firms. In 2024 an activist investor pressed the company over governance and margins after an internal investigation into its financial reporting practices. Over the full period the stock multiplied many times, though an investor who bought just before the 2008 crash waited several years to see their money again.
The lesson: Business software tied to building and manufacturing is still exposed to the economic cycle; Autodesk's loyal professional users did not stop it halving in 2008.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $8.00 | $37,500 | $4,626 | 37.5× |
| 2003 | $7.00 | $42,857 | $7,727 | 42.9× |
| 2005 | $38.00 | $7,895 | $5,763 | 7.9× |
| 2007 | $41.00 | $7,317 | $4,789 | 7.3× |
| 2008 | $50.00 | $6,000 | $4,626 | 6.0× |
| 2010 | $26.00 | $11,538 | $6,071 | 11.5× |
| 2012 | $31.00 | $9,677 | $5,312 | 9.7× |
| 2015 | $60.00 | $5,000 | $3,301 | 5.0× |
| 2018 | $105 | $2,857 | $2,519 | 2.9× |
| 2020 | $185 | $1,622 | $2,092 | 1.6× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2003, turning $1,000 into $42,857. The S&P 500 from that same year: $7,727.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. Autodesk is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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