“It’s good to be Apple. Really good. As of this week, in fact, $700 billion worth of good,” Adrienne LaFrance reports for The Atlantic. “Apple’s closing price of $122.02 per share on Tuesday made it the first American company ever to cross that market-cap threshold.
“Apple has the financial influence of a not-even-that-small country at this point,” LaFrance reports. “The company’s $178 billion—$178 billion!—puts it on par with the gross domestic product of a country like New Zealand, surpassing the GDPs of Vietnam, Morocco, and Ecuador, according to the most recent World Bank data.”
LaFrance reports, “If Apple were a country, it’d be the 55th richest country in the world.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple: $710 billion and counting – February 11, 2015
Apple hits new all-time high, becomes first $700 billion company – February 10, 2015
Could this be better if Steve Jobs was never fired from apple? Was he in the right track from the beginning or it was that event what change him?
I’m sure we’ve all wondered about that, and I think the answer is:
Steve leaving led to NeXT, which led to OS X, which got us here today. I’m sure things would have been very different, and perhaps still very successful, but I don’t think that would have happened, and the Apple world wouldn’t be as successful, at least in the same way.
Before the flames start, note that I said *I* *think*. Strictly my opinion, and certainly not provable without time travel and/or alternate reality machines. I would be interested in other opinions.
In one or more of the parallel universes in our infinite, ever expanding multiverse, Jobs never left Apple.
Crabapple says to SJBMusic:-
I think, therefor I am.
But when I am part of a community, I am because we are, and we are because I am.
Crabapple’s judgement? SJBMusic is, because he is apart of the MDN community, and the MDN community is, because SJBMusic and others in the community are!
I would say… probably not. Market dynamics were much different then, and regardless what Steve would’ve done if he was never fired from Apple, Apple would’ve still had an extremely hard time getting any traction.
We can just look at NeXT and see what happened there. That was a fairly advanced and powerful system, but it failed to go anywhere. The industry had already hedged their bets on WIntel. Even to this day – the enterprise is “stuck”.
I’m goin’ Phishin’ & Play Some Grateful Dead. Apple IS American Beauty. Naysayers? ZuneTang?
I’m proud to have dual citizenship.
(Apple and the USA.)
Hahahah!!! Agreed!
And to all the morons who think that corporations are people a reminder:
Apple has always been and will always be a liberal giant.
The meaning of your comment is unclear. I think you might be calling me a moron. (Which would not bother me. If you are calling me a name then it just means that you have no cogent argument. An ad hominem attack is the form of argument used when the speaker does not have any other credible argument. So by calling me a name, you have conceded that you lost the debate). However, it’s not clear what you are saying in the first place, so, maybe there is no debate. So nevermind. 😉
Corporations are not people and cannot be liberal or conservative. Corporations are legal entities for the purpose of dealing with ownership liability.
In my opinion, corporations should be managed without political involvement of any sort. Just because corporate management is liberal or conservative does not mean that the corporation should reflect or financially support those views.
Apple is a progressive liberally minded, guided and populated entity,
Always has been and always will be.
I wonder if they’ll change their name again? The Republic of Apple?
Apple is like no other company in history, which is why all the analysts have no clue what the future holds. There’s no history to refer to, no precedent. However, I won’t hold my breath waiting for any of them to admit they haven’t a clue. Too many big egos.
measuring a country’s “richness” by g.d.p. misses most of the country’s riches: the land it occupies, the natural resources within its borders, where it is located on the planet in relation to other countries, its citizens, the accumulated culture and education, the infrastructure, etc. apple is certainly a great company, not just in cash on hand, but also its employees and its culture. but it doesn’t compare to a country. trying to measure apple by its cash on hand and a country by its g.d.p. does a tremendous disservice to both and devalues what really makes both so wonderful.
I totally agree with your point and I like the way you said it. For amusement, I point out that when Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” 300 years ago, he was introducing the idea of GDP. At the time the standard measure of the “wealth” of a nation was how much gold the king had in his war treasury, which did not help poor citizens. At that time, GDP was a new way to measure the “richness” of a country. It started the industrial revolution and the consumer economy.
Hell, even trying to compare GDP, which is related to a time period, to cash reserves, which is an instantaneous value, make no sense at all.
I get tired of hearing the meme regarding M$ made more adjusted for inflation.
The comparison to the GDP of a country does demonstrate that the market capitalization is truly huge. But before we take the comparison too literally, let’s remember that GDP is a country’s annual output, not it’s market capitalization — which is how much it would theoretically cost to buy the whole thing. Too often people will make false comparisons such as this and then use that comparison to justify some whacky policy.
This is what I was thinking. You said it better.
How much would it cost, anyone to buy Vietnam, outright, for example? How about New Zealand?
Can you even quantify a nation by market capitalization?
It would be interesting, if they did buy a whole nation, and stockpiled their cash, tax free of course. I don’t think it’s possible.
Well, if Tim Cook can take Apple to be a 700 Billion company, a first, well then by God, Tim Cook for president! Can you imagine the USA ran by Tim Cook and crew with the backing of the US government? We can get this deficit mess cleaned up in no time!
Tim’s campaign slogan: “An Apple a Day!” That’s it. Once you’ve said that you said it all!