Apple Inc.

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Apple Inc. started with two men selling everything they owned. Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen Bus. Steve Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator. Together they scraped together enough to build a single circuit board in a garage in Cupertino, California. That was 1976. By 2018, the company they co-founded had become the first publicly traded US company valued at over $1 trillion. Today it is valued at just over $4 trillion.

  How did a partnership formed on the 1st of April 1976, by Jobs, Wozniak, and a third co-founder named Ronald Wayne grow into the world's largest company by market capitalization? The answer runs through a graphical user interface borrowed from a Xerox lab, a near-bankruptcy in 1997, a portable music player no one expected to transform an industry, and a phone that remade the modern world. Along the way, Apple survived bitter internal coups, catastrophic product flops, a decade of hemorrhaging market share, and the death of the man most responsible for its revival. What emerges is not simply a company history. It is a story about how ideas, personalities, and second chances converge.

• 2. The Garage and the IPO

  ›

  Wozniak debuted the first Apple I prototype at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The machine was not a finished personal computer. It was sold as a motherboard with a CPU, RAM, and basic video chips. The price was set at $666.66, a figure Wozniak later said he chose simply because he liked repeating digits, unaware of its coincidental association with the number of the beast.

  Thirteen days after the company was founded, Ronald Wayne sold his share back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. He never returned. Jobs and Wozniak incorporated Apple Computer, Inc. on the 3rd of January 1977, and secured crucial early funding from multimillionaire Mike Markkula, who also brought essential business expertise. The company's growth in those first years was startling. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from $775,000 to millions of dollars, an average annual growth rate of 533%.

  The product driving that growth was the Apple II, also designed by Wozniak and introduced on the 16th of April 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It stood apart from rivals like the TRS-80 and Commodore PET with its color graphics and open architecture. When VisiCalc, the first killer spreadsheet application, was released in 1979 exclusively for the Apple II, it created an entirely new business market for personal computers.

  On the 12th of December 1980, Apple went public on the Nasdaq, selling 4.6 million shares at $22 each and generating over $100 million. It was the largest IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. By the end of that first trading day, the stock had climbed to $29 per share, and roughly 300 people, including Jobs and Wozniak, had become millionaires. The company's market cap stood at $1.778 billion.

• 3. Xerox, the Mac, and the Coup

  ›

  In late 1979, Jobs and a group of Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in Palo Alto. Jobs had negotiated access in exchange for letting Xerox purchase $1 million worth of Apple's pre-IPO shares. What they saw there, the Xerox Alto with its graphical user interface and mouse, redirected the trajectory of Apple's product line.

  The first result was the Apple Lisa, introduced in 1983 as one of the first mass-marketed computers with a GUI. Jobs was pushed off the Lisa project during its early development. He moved instead to the Macintosh division, where he took over a project originally envisioned by Jef Raskin as a low-cost portable computer. Jobs redefined it as a mouse-driven GUI machine. Wozniak, who had helped with the Mac's development until a plane crash in early 1981 forced him to step back, later speculated that Jobs' rivalry with the Lisa project drove this shift.

  The Macintosh launched in January 1984, announced to the world by a television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott that aired during Super Bowl XVIII on the 22nd of January 1984. The ad cost $1.5 million to produce and was later called a "masterpiece" by CNN and one of the greatest TV advertisements ever made by TV Guide. But the Mac itself, priced higher than critics felt justified by its slow performance and limited RAM, saw strong initial sales followed by a sharp decline after the first three months.

  The sales slump ignited a power struggle. CEO John Sculley, whom Jobs had recruited from Pepsi in 1983 by asking him, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" stripped Jobs of all operational duties at the Macintosh division. Jobs then tried to stage a boardroom coup. Jean-Louis Gassée informed Sculley, an emergency meeting was called, and Apple's executive staff unanimously sided with Sculley. Jobs resigned in September 1985, taking several Apple employees with him to found NeXT.

• 4. Decline and Near-Bankruptcy

  ›

  After Jobs and Wozniak both departed in 1985, Sculley moved quickly. He launched the Macintosh 512K, introduced the LaserWriter, and helped create the desktop publishing market through the combination of Mac hardware, the LaserWriter printer, and PageMaker software released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985. For a time, this dominant position in desktop publishing kept Apple profitable by supporting a premium pricing strategy its executives called the "high-right policy," after its position on a price-profits chart.

  Jean-Louis Gassée summarized the philosophy with his slogan "fifty-five or die," referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II. But as desktop publishing software appeared on cheaper IBM-compatible PCs in the late 1980s, Apple lost its grip on the market it had created. The Christmas season of 1989 was the first in the company's history with declining sales, and Apple's stock price dropped 20%.

  Throughout the 1990s, Apple experimented with products that failed commercially, including the QuickTake digital camera, the Pippin video game console, and the Newton tablet, the last of which drew heavy criticism for high costs and limited usefulness. Meanwhile, Microsoft steadily gained market share by selling inexpensive Windows-based PCs. Apple sued Microsoft over Windows' GUI similarities to the Lisa, in a case that dragged through the courts for years before being dismissed.

  By 1993, Sculley was replaced by Michael Spindler, who oversaw the AIM alliance with IBM and Motorola and authorized Macintosh clones. By 1996, those clones were cannibalizing Apple's high-margin sales. Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio, who brought in extensive layoffs and cost-cutting. Years of failed attempts to modernize the Mac operating system ended when Amelio, with Apple weeks away from bankruptcy, chose to purchase NeXT in late 1996 for $400 million, bringing Steve Jobs back to the company he founded.

• 5. The Return of Jobs

  ›

  The NeXT acquisition was finalized on the 9th of February 1997. Five months later, on July 9, Jobs staged a boardroom coup that resulted in Amelio's resignation. The board named Jobs interim CEO. He immediately reviewed Apple's product lineup and canceled 70% of its models, ending 3,000 jobs and stripping the company back to its essential offerings.

  In August 1997, Jobs secured a $150-million investment from Microsoft and a commitment to continue developing Mac software, which many observers interpreted as antitrust protection for Microsoft following the company's settlement with the US Department of Justice. Jobs then ended the Mac clone licensing agreements and, in September 1997, bought the largest clone maker, Power Computing.

  On the 6th of May 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, an all-in-one desktop designed by Jonathan Ive, who had been hired under Amelio and would collaborate with Jobs for more than a decade. The iMac sold 800,000 units in its first five months. It abandoned the older diskette format, adopted the USB connector early, and came with Internet connectivity built in. Jobs described the product strategy as four quadrants: professional desktop, professional laptop, consumer desktop, consumer laptop. That framework produced the Power Macintosh G3, PowerBook G3, iMac, and the iBook laptop introduced on the 21st of July 1999.

  At the end of Jobs' first full year as interim CEO, Apple posted a $309-million profit. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share to over $80. When Apple surpassed Dell's market capitalization in January 2006, Jobs sent an email to employees reminding them that nine years earlier Dell's CEO had suggested Apple should "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

• 6. iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone

  ›

  On the 23rd of October 2001, Apple introduced the iPod. The device sold over 100 million units within six years. In 2003, the iTunes Store launched with songs priced at 99 cents each. By the 19th of June 2008, it had recorded over 5 billion downloads. Two years after that, it became the world's largest music retailer.

  The iTunes Store was built in part on software Apple had purchased. In 2000, Apple acquired SoundJam MP from Casady and Greene, simplified its interface, and relaunched it as iTunes. Apple also purchased Emagic, makers of the music software Logic, making Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The Emagic purchase also led to the development of GarageBand for consumers.

  At the Macworld Expo on the 9th of January 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. was being renamed Apple Inc., reflecting the company's expansion beyond computers. He also announced the iPhone. The company sold 270,000 first-generation iPhones in the first 30 hours of sales. Industry commentators described the device as a game changer for the mobile phone industry. By October 2008, Apple had become the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world.

  In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store. Within one month, it had sold 60 million applications and was averaging $1 million in daily revenue. Jobs speculated it could become a billion-dollar business. The App Store is now credited with creating the app economy. The iPhone has grown to account for nearly half of Apple's total revenue, and iOS remains one of the two dominant smartphone platforms worldwide alongside Android.

• 7. After Jobs

  ›

  On the 24th of August 2011, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO. He had taken medical leaves of absence in January 2009 and again in January 2011, each time handing day-to-day operations to chief operating officer Tim Cook. Jobs died on the 5th of October 2011. He was succeeded by Cook, who has led the company since.

  Under Cook, Apple continued introducing major product categories. On the 27th of January 2010, before Jobs' resignation, Apple had unveiled the iPad, which sold more than 300,000 units on its first day and more than 500,000 by the end of its first week. Apple has since sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013. In September 2014, Apple introduced the Apple Watch, initially marketed as a fashion accessory and later repositioned around health and fitness features. In May 2014, Apple acquired Beats Electronics for billions of dollars, its largest acquisition at that time, bringing in Dr. Dre's headphone brand and the Beats Music streaming service.

  On the 19th of August 2020, Apple became the first US company with a market capitalization of $2 trillion. Apple had previously crossed the $1 trillion milestone in 2018. In November 2020, Apple introduced its first computers powered by the in-house Apple M1 chip, transitioning away from Intel processors. The Wall Street Journal reported this shift left Apple better prepared to handle the semiconductor shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  In June 2023, Apple announced the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, released in February 2024. In June 2024, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, its on-device artificial intelligence system. In April 2026, Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO on the 1st of September 2026, to be succeeded by John Ternus, the Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering. Cook is slated to become Executive Chairman, with Arthur Levinson transitioning to Lead Independent Director.

• 8. The Brand and Its Tensions

  ›

  Apple's name, according to Steve Jobs, came from a visit to an apple farm while he was on a fruitarian diet. The original logo, designed by co-founder Ron Wayne, showed Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. That was quickly replaced by Rob Janoff's rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it, a design that persisted until the 27th of August 1999, when Apple shifted to single-color versions.

  The brand's advertising campaigns have been as closely studied as its products. The "1984" Super Bowl advertisement introduced the Macintosh. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think different" ran in campaigns still closely associated with the company. Fortune named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008 and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On the 30th of September 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand according to the Omnicom Group's Best Global Brands report.

  That brand reputation has coexisted with persistent legal and ethical controversies. In March 2020, France fined Apple 1.1 billion euros for colluding with wholesalers to keep prices high. In August 2020, Epic Games sued Apple after Fortnite was removed from the App Store for introducing a payment system that bypassed Apple's fees. In November 2023, Apple agreed to a $25-million settlement over allegations it had discriminated against US citizens in hiring by directing certain jobs to foreign workers. On the 31st of December 2024, a preliminary settlement was filed over Siri privacy violations, with Apple agreeing to a $95-million cash settlement.

  On the 5th of May 2026, Apple settled a shareholder lawsuit for $250 million over delays in AI upgrades to Siri, filed in 2024 by Peter Landsheft in US federal court in California. The company also faces ongoing antitrust investigations by the US Department of Justice and, in January 2024, made major changes to App Store rules in the European Union to comply with competition law. With more than 2 billion active Apple devices in use worldwide and services comprising about 26% of its revenue, Apple's next chapter will be shaped by the transition from Tim Cook to John Ternus in September 2026.