In August 2018, Apple became the first public U.S. company to reach a market capitalization of a whopping one trillion dollars. But this kind of success doesn’t just happen overnight. So what did Apple’s journey to one trillion dollars looks like?
It all started in April 1976 when two brilliant college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded the company in the garage of Jobs’ childhood home in Los Altos, California. Their first product was the Apple I, a personal computer designed and hand-built by Wozniak.
After that, it took Apple just four years to go public. On 12 December 1980, Apple conducted an initial public offering of its $4.6 million shares at $22USD per share and generated more capital than any American company since Ford Motors in 1956.
The 1980s started off well for Apple. In January 1983, Apple introduced the Lisa, a new brand of personal computer aimed at individual business users, and in January 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language. Macintosh’s debut is best remembered for the $1.5 million television commercial that aired during Super Bowl XVIII.
However, in 1985 a power struggle with Apple’s then CEO John Sculley, together with poor sales of Lisa and Macintosh prompted Steve Jobs to resign as the chairman of Apple. The same year he resigned, Jobs founded his own tech company, NeXT Software.
As soon as Gil Amelio became the CEO of Apple in 1996, he bought NeXT Software in a $400 million deal and brought Jobs back to Apple as interim CEO the following year. But Amelio was a poor fit for Apple, and in July 1997, he was ousted by the board of directors after a series of financial losses.
In 2000 Steve Jobs became the permanent CEO of Apple and held that position until August 24, 2011, when he announced his resignation for health reasons.
Want to know what happened next? Then check out the infographic below by The Watchstrap.co!
What do you think of Apple’s journey to becoming a one trillion
Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
