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Apple Becomes the First $1 Trillion US Company in History (reuters.com)
Apple became the first $1 trillion publicly listed U.S. company on Thursday, crowning a decade-long rise fueled by its ubiquitous iPhone that transformed it from a niche player in personal computers into a global powerhouse spanning entertainment and communications. Reuters: The tech company's stock jumped 2.8 percent, bringing its gain to about 9 percent since Tuesday when it reported June-quarter results above expectations and said it bought back $20 billion of its own shares. "Apple's $1 trillion cap is equal to about 5 percent of the total gross domestic product of the United States in 2018," David Kass, professor of finance at the University of Maryland, told The Washington Post. "That puts this company in perspective." The company's fortunes were turbocharged by the launch of personal gadgets such as the iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007. Since then 18 different iPhones have been launched and more than 1.2 billion of the devices have been sold.
Brad Stone, writing for Bloomberg: As critics enjoy pointing out, the company under Cook has failed to come up with another iPhone-type hit. But that's like saying da Vinci never came up with another Mona Lisa-type painting. The release of the iPhone is up there with the founding of Standard Oil as one of the greatest business moves of all time. And while the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it, Apple has also persuaded customers to embrace other inventions they never knew they wanted, such as connected watches that buzz and beep (to cure the distraction of the phone, Apple says) and wireless dongles that hang ridiculously from their ears.
Apple isn't alone on this mountaintop. Amazon.com, Alphabet, and Microsoft are likely at some point to pinwheel across the $1 trillion finish line, too, and they're almost as good as Apple at manufacturing customer desire. No one told Amazon they needed a speaker they could talk to, or Google a self-driving car, or Microsoft a ... OK, it's been a while since Microsoft has driven civilians wild with desire.
Brad Stone, writing for Bloomberg: As critics enjoy pointing out, the company under Cook has failed to come up with another iPhone-type hit. But that's like saying da Vinci never came up with another Mona Lisa-type painting. The release of the iPhone is up there with the founding of Standard Oil as one of the greatest business moves of all time. And while the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it, Apple has also persuaded customers to embrace other inventions they never knew they wanted, such as connected watches that buzz and beep (to cure the distraction of the phone, Apple says) and wireless dongles that hang ridiculously from their ears.
Apple isn't alone on this mountaintop. Amazon.com, Alphabet, and Microsoft are likely at some point to pinwheel across the $1 trillion finish line, too, and they're almost as good as Apple at manufacturing customer desire. No one told Amazon they needed a speaker they could talk to, or Google a self-driving car, or Microsoft a ... OK, it's been a while since Microsoft has driven civilians wild with desire.
...Everyone knows Apple is going out of business (71 predictions of Apple's demise)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
From the MacRumors article (emphasis mine):
Apple has officially become the world's only trillion dollar publicly traded company, in terms of market capitalization, which is simply the company's number of outstanding shares multiplied by its stock price. [...] As with most milestones of this nature, however, Apple reaching exactly a trillion dollar market cap doesn't have too much significance, beyond the vanity of it.
Pretty much sums it up.
You know, I have several Apple devices in my home ... I like Apple in general.
But, in the specific, under Cook Apple is mostly just rolling out slow improvements to things they already had, and taking the pointless decision to remove ports and the like. All the while letting other products stagnate.
I'm not sure anything they've done under Cook can be counted as 'innovation', just straight up evolution of a product.
I'm in awe of a trillion dollar company, because that is just such a crazy number, but I'd say they mostly got there on inertia since Jobbs died. Meanwhile, they're leaving their desktops and laptops to whither on the vine for the most part.
It's amazing what years of tax evasion can do for a company.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
One could imagine
It is impressive all the more because it is neither a government-guaranteed monopoly nor a pseudo monopoly -- they have a slice, large, but not even majority of a market they mostly created.
It is built by offering a great product with cachet, and free people choose to buy it over many others.
They deserve every penny of valuation.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And while the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it
Just because you were still in diapers when the first iPhone launched, doesn't mean the rest of us don't remember a time before it.