Happy Birthday Apple: The World’s Most-Admired Company

Apple Computer Company, now popularly known as Apple, has turned 43. The iconic technology firm was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The Apple 1 computer was the first product of the company to be launched at $666.66 in July the same year. The device was sold as a simple IC board. In January 1977, Apple Computer Inc. was formally incorporated but its third co-founder– Ronald Wayne had quit by then. Wayne had left Apple twelve days after the company founded and sold his 10% share to both Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Later, he settled for a full-and-final $1,500 settlement. It is estimated that Wayne’s 10% share is now worth over $100 billion.

Apple grew rapidly initially at a rate of 533% in the initial five years with sales touching $118 million. Last year Apple had touched the $1 trillion market cap to become the first publicly listed U.S. company to ever reach $1 trillion in market capitalisation. Not to forget, Apple also claimed the title of the world’s most-admired company in 2018 according to a Fortune survey for the second time in a row.

However, CEO Tim Cook in a memo had said that the $1 trillion market capitalisation was “not the most important measure” of the company’s success but was instead a result of its focus on its products, customers and company values.

“Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values,” Cook said in the memo last year.

In the two decades since, Apple has risen to become the most valuable company in the world by helping popularise yet another era in computing, the smart phone. The iPhone, introduced by Jobs in 2007, has sold more than one billion units. In his memo, Cook referred back to Jobs, who died in 2011.

“Steve founded Apple on the belief that the power of human creativity can solve even the biggest challenges – and that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do,” Cook wrote in the memo.―Times of India