Daring Fireball: As of the close of markets Friday, Apple was worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined.
This leads to another classic LOL Bill Gates rewind, this time, a quote via Bob Cringely, circa June 1998, regarding Steve Jobs’s return to Apple as CEO:
“What I can’t figure out is why he [Steve Jobs] is even trying? He knows he can’t win.”
Pure hubris, coming from Gates at the peak of power for the Wintel juggernaut.
In June 1998, the average market cap of all 3 companies for the month that quote was made was quite different from today (using an average is better than cherry picking any one day). Between the tech boom and Long Term Captial management collapse, it was a volatile summer, so using the mean market cap shows not just an aberrational trading day, but the actual long term market caps. According to Wolfram Alpha the Wintel combination of MSFT and INTC was worth $339.0 billion, vs. $3.5 billion for AAPL.
The math on this: Microsoft and Intel combined were worth 96 times more than Apple back then.
Only now, not so much..
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