Levinson is the author or co-author of 80-plus scientific articles. He holds 11 U.S. patents and was inducted into the Biotech Hall of Fame in 2003. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) is among one of BlackRock’s largest ETFs with more than $594 billion in net assets as of February 28, 2025. Apple briefly became the world’s first $3 trillion company during intraday trading on Jan. 3, 2022.
- Its technology has contributed to Apple’s Vision Pro headset and the development of spatial computing applications.
- Sewell is an Apple executive who joined the company from Intel Corporation in 2009.
- When Apple bought NeXT in 1996 for $429 million, they gained both Jobs’ leadership and NeXT’s software.
While NeXT’s computers weren’t commercial successes, the company’s software proved more valuable. By February 1993, NeXT stopped making hardware entirely to focus on software development. Jobs, just 30 years old at the time, had helped build Apple from a garage startup into a major tech company. While primitive by today’s standards, the Apple I represented an important step forward. It was among the first computers aimed at individual users rather than businesses or universities.
Between the years 1977 to 1980, the corporation had an average annual growth rate of 533%. Jobs owned about 11 percent of Apple when the company went public in 1980. Five years later, he was pushed out of the company and angrily sold off all but one of his shares, saying he didn’t have faith in the company’s leadership. He kept the single share so that he could access investor reports. Warren Buffett’s investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, has earned legendary status for its stunning performance over several decades.
Top Apple Shareholders
Shazam, a popular music identification app, was acquired by Apple in 2018 for $400 million. The app allows users to identify songs, movies, and advertisements by analyzing audio snippets. Apple integrated Shazam’s technology into Siri and Apple Music, making it easier for users to discover music seamlessly. The net worth or market capitalization of Apple as of March 2025 stood at roughly $3.61 trillion reflecting its substantial net worth. The real turning point came in 2007 with the launch of the iPhone. Combining a phone, music player, and internet device, the iPhone revolutionized technology.
The Macintosh launch in 1984 introduced the graphical user interface to the masses. The company was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne to market the Apple I computer. From desktop computers to smartphones and wearables, Apple continues to shape our digital lives. Their impact on personal computing will likely be felt for generations to come. Apple’s story teaches us that taking risks can lead to great rewards. Their commitment to quality products has built one of the world’s most valuable brands.
The Birth of the Apple II: Personal Computing Takes Off
Wozniak was the engineering genius who built the Apple I—an affordable, single-board computer—while Jobs was the visionary who saw its potential beyond the hobbyist crowd. Wayne, though less involved, drafted their original partnership agreement and even designed the first Apple logo. Apple spent who owns apple now way too much time talking about widgets and continues to make design changes that move the iOS experience further and further away from the original user experience. Things really began to falter with the introduction of iOS 6 and the release of Apple Maps. Today, Berkshire’s reliance on Apple shows up in each quarterly filing.
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Cook has been a part of the company since 1998 and was the chief operating officer, overseeing company sales and operations worldwide. Cook has been Apple’s chief executive officer since 2011, after Steve Jobs. Since he took the CEO position in 2020, he has succeeded in doubling the company’s profit and revenue. The company’s net worth has also exponentially increased from $348 billion to $1.9 trillion.
The PowerBook G4, introduced in 2001, shifted to a titanium body with a widescreen display. This premium design established Apple’s reputation for creating high-end portable computers with professional appeal. The PowerBook series, launched in 1991, brought true portability to Mac users. These laptops featured innovative designs including a palm rest and trackball positioned in front of the keyboard. The journey toward portable Macs began with the Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple’s first battery-powered computer.
- Unlike in traditional investment funds, if you buy stocks of Berkshire Hathaway, you don’t just buy a portfolio of stocks.
- Timothy Donald Cook, aka Tim Cook, is the current CEO of Apple and holds about 0.021% of the stocks in Apple Inc.
- Their Board of Directors has guided strategic decisions through ups and downs.
- In the last quarter, BlackRock increased its holdings by 9.69M shares, a 0.93% change.
- Top institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group with 8.27% ownership and BlackRock with 6.66% ownership.
The company’s COO since 2015, Williams oversees worldwide operations and also manages Apple’s health initiatives. By the late 1970s, Apple was thriving and had a production line and a team of computer designs as staff. The company decided to go public in December 1980 and sold 4.6 million shares at $22 per share. This generated over $100 million, going down in history as the highest capital of an IPO since 1956, generated by the Ford Motor Company. Apple (ticker name AAPL) thus created 300 millionaires when it decided to go public. As of July 2020, the net income of Apple is nearly $60 billion, along with a trailing 12-month revenue of $268.0 billion.
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When Jobs was ousted from the company in 1985, he sold his Apple shares and moved on to Pixar. According to the Apple proxy statement, he still owns 112,064 shares which, if he was going to sell at the current price – $215.36 – he could sell for over $24 million. As reported on Apple’s proxy statement for 2018, “5,087,056,000 shares of Apple’s common stock were issued and outstanding as of 2018.
Apple Music, iCloud, Apple TV+, and Apple Pay diversified revenue beyond hardware sales. While Google and Facebook built businesses on user data, Apple positioned itself as a defender of customer privacy. Apple’s design philosophy has pushed the entire tech industry toward more elegant, user-friendly products. The innovative products that shaped the 21st century set new standards for competitors. After leaving Apple, Jobs quickly founded a new company called NeXT Inc. in 1985. The company focused on creating high-end workstations aimed at the education and business markets.
Apple Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in Los Altos, California. The company started in Jobs’ parents’ garage with the vision of making computers accessible to individuals, not just businesses and large institutions. Notice that former US Vice President, Al Gore, has been on Apple’s board of directors since 2003. That is why Steve Wozniak sold to those early employees at a symbolic price of $10 million worth of stocks.
Apple’s mythical founders, Steve Jobs, and Wozniak, at that point already missed as they now owned less than five percent of the company’s stocks. Roughly 60% of its ownership is in the hands of institutional giants.1 You have a few high-net-worth individuals putting their faith in the company, too. Apple is owned by a blend of everyday investors and financial giants. Together, their shares add up to a mind-blowing value of $2.9 trillion+. Large numbers of Apple shares are also owned by Apple insiders — executive employees and those on the board of directors. Since its founding in 2003, Elon Musk has been an integral part of Tesla as a co-founder and the company’s largest shareholder.
Millions of people adopted it, and it became synonymous with portable music. The success of the iPod introduced a whole new generation to Apple products. By the mid-1980s, internal power struggles at Apple led to Steve Jobs leaving the company he helped create. Although the company released several products during this period—including the Macintosh II, PowerBooks, and Newton MessagePad—it was losing ground to Microsoft Windows PCs. Jobs left Apple in 1985 after conflicts with management, only to return in 1997 when the company was struggling.
Who was Apple’s first CEO?
Apple’s largest shareholders are asset managers who invest other people’s money. This is to be expected for one of the largest companies in the world. None of the Apple founders (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) or their families own significant stakes anymore. Today, Apple is an international institution that is continuing its growth and is profiting immensely from it.