Have you ever wondered who owns Apple? The answer may surprise you. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in a garage. Over time, the company grew from a small tech startup to one of the most valuable companies in the world. It is now worth over $1 trillion, with more than 4 million employees around the globe. Still, few people know who owns this giant company.
Who Owns Apple?
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in a garage in Silicon Valley. With the help of Ronald Wayne, a friend of Wozniak, the two built the first Apple 1 and then the Apple II. They sold the computers for $666.66 each. They received $600 and $200 respectively to pay for the components for the computers, with Wayne keeping the money for himself. However, Steve Jobs later returned the payment.
Initially, Jobs and Wozniak used the money from selling the Apple I and II to buy a one-way ticket to the Bahamas. But after realizing they could not live with themselves, they decided to return it to Wayne.
Despite this, Wozniak ended up keeping about $200 of the money.
Jobs and Wozniak’s Original Plan
Jobs and Wozniak were computer engineers that worked in their parents’ garage after high school. In 1976, they decided to quit their jobs to start their own company. They designed the Apple I, an 8-bit home computer. They decided to name it after the company Apple Inc.
Macintosh vs Apple
After the Apple I was a huge success, Apple decided to market it to computers stores around the United States. However, the computer was selling well, and some of the stores wanted to sell the machine for $600. However, Jobs and Wozniak considered that to be “out of the ordinary.” Instead, the two decided to sell it for $666.66 (plus the storage unit).
This is where things got interesting. The actual storage unit, located in the Bahamas, was auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak: The Story of a Friendship That Changed the World
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are the founders of Apple, Inc. They met during their high school days in Palo Alto, California. Jobs was a student at Homestead High School, and Wozniak was a senior at nearby rival, Cupertino High School. It is said that Jobs became interested in electronics from a young age, taking apart radios and telephones to see what made them work. At one point, he even built an electronic device capable of cracking a security system used by his father’s company. The two friends started working together on jobs for neighbours who needed help with fixing broken devices. They would dismantle the device to find out what was wrong with it and then reassemble it for the customer – who would pay
Jobs and Wozniak meet.
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met as teenagers in Silicon Valley. Wozniak was already an accomplished inventor, and Jobs was beginning to develop the ideas that would become the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Jobs even had the idea for the Apple logo, which consisted of a circle with a line through it.
The two engineers would spend most of their free time looking for parts and components to build a microcomputer. Eventually, they found enough parts and pieces to build what they called the Apple I. Jobs and Wozniak made the computer in Wozniak’s garage with some office equipment in 1977. Wozniak even helped design the battery that they used in the computer. They later found a buyer for Apple I, and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak became a team.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s Adventures
It all started back in 1976 when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple as a small software development company in Jobs’ parent’s garage. The two tech enthusiasts developed the personal computer and were hired by local phone company Hewlett Packard to sell PCs through their stores. This deal with HP helped them develop the Apple I, and they started to distribute them in mail-order stores. HP eventually fired them, but they soon created their computer, the Apple II, and started to sell them through Apple Stores. They managed to get HP to bring their computers back to their stores, and they eventually became successful and larger than HP.
Apple’s Success With the iPhone and iPad
In 1997, Steve Jobs died from pancreatic cancer.
Apple’s journey to Success
Jobs and Wozniak started Apple Computer in Jobs’ garage with $1,000 of their own money and a few tools. Apple started as a home computer for the Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group in California. The pair were essentially responsible for making the personal computer affordable for home users.
They convinced 25 friends and family members to invest $800 each into the company to fund the project. Their first product, the Apple I, came out in 1976. It was a computer that individuals with some basic mechanical knowledge could put together. However, the unit was a bit bulky and had only 16KB of RAM and 400KB of RAM.
However, the I was a success, and within two years, the company had sold 10,000 IIs; the company had 15 employees and was valued at $2.2 million.
What is the Current Owner of Apple?
The current owner of Apple is Apple’s founder, Steve Jobs, who inherited $2 million from his father in 1982. Jobs’ stake is worth more than $1.1 billion, making him one of the richest men in the world.
Jobs’ brother and other family members have also invested in Apple over the years.
According to reports, Jobs’s nephew, Evan, bought shares in Apple in 2012 for around $640 million. That was when the company was selling shares at an average of $13.70 a share. As of April 2018, shares of Apple are trading at $176.39.
Apple’s current owner is the Softbank Group Corporation, with around a 6% stake in Apple. In 2015, Softbank invested in Apple to receive board seats and other perks for a 5% stake.
What Does the Owner Have To Do With Anything?
The answer is simple. The current owner is none other than billionaire investor Warren Buffett. He founded Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A ) with a small startup in the 1950s. In 1988, Berkshire became the largest publicly traded company in the world.
While Buffett is the main shareholder, he also owns 5% of Apple shares and has another 5% directly. He may have a small share, but the billionaire owns a big chunk of one of the most valuable companies in the world. This is the case for many other companies.
In his book, the Oracle of Omaha, he wrote the following about owning companies:
“Over the years, I have come to realize that my home runs are home runs and my singles are singles.
The history of Apple ownership
When Steve Jobs founded the company in 1976, he named it after a Scottish football team. In 1983, Apple Inc. was established in California, though it had no offices, no employees and almost no products. In 1987, Wozniak came back to Apple Inc. to design the Apple II computer, and Apple started to develop their first product. In 1991, Jobs returned to Apple Inc. with his new team to start developing the Macintosh.
In the early days, the founders of the company controlled the company’s stocks. In 1985, Wozniak gave away his stock, and Apple became a public company. About a year later, Jobs also gave up his shares of stock and resigned from the company.
In 1996, Jobs sold his shares of the company for $740 million. Today, Steve Jobs’s shares of the company are worth more than $1 billion.
Looking into the Future of Apple
For the last 37 years, the most valuable company globally has been publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock market. However, at the beginning of 2019, the Apple stock price reached an all-time high, putting Apple among the most valuable companies in the world.
Apple has shown incredible resilience in the last few years. The reason for that is largely due to the iPhone. The smartphone, the main product of Apple, has transformed the company into the biggest technology giant in the world. The company dominates the mobile industry, and Apple’s Services segment is growing faster than ever. Not to mention that Apple has plans to take on other traditional computing products, including the PC, the living room and the car.
Thanks For Reading our Article. Who Owns Apple?
Suppose you have any further questions regarding this article; Who Owns Apple? You can leave us a comment.
Our blog itsknows tells you who owns what to help you increase your awareness and general knowledge.