In the late 90s, jazz critic Ted Gioia made a $6 million mistake. He sold his stake in Apple, which would now be worth 700 times more. Gioia told The Insider this story.
300 shares that could have turned into 33,000
Ted Gioia first invested in the tech titan because he was an avid user of its products. While studying for an MBA at Stanford in the 1980s, he took a job at the Boston Consulting Group and received an Apple II desktop computer as a joining bonus.
“Today people would laugh at this computer, but back then it greatly improved productivity. I wrote my second book on an Apple computer and have never looked back since (I used to use a typewriter),” he said.
Gioia bought 300 shares of Apple at a price slightly higher than at the company's IPO – then they cost $22 each (since then there have been 5 splits with an adjustment of 10 cents). Apple is currently trading at $191 per share.
“If I hadn't sold those 300 shares (with all the splits) then, they would have turned into 33,600 shares today. At the current price, my investment would be worth $6.4 million — about 700 times what I sold it for,” Gioia wrote in X.
Gioia sold shares in 1997 (around the same time as Steve Jobs shortly before his return to the post of CEO of Apple). He received approximately $9,100 for them.
Why did I sell it?
Now it's hard to imagine selling Apple shares for such a small amount. But Gioia succumbed to general pessimism after the board of directors fired Steve Jobs in 1985, and the company began to stagnate.
“Without Jobs, Apple would have failed every time it tried something new, such as the Newton portable device, which was a huge disaster,” the investor notes.. – Probably should have bought those shares back when Jobs returned. And I eventually bought some and made some money, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to the profits I could have enjoyed if I had just held the original stock.”
Gioia is the author of 11 books, including Jazz Stories and Love Songs: The Hidden History, and has worked as a consultant for McKinsey. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he broadcasts a “bearish” sentiment, pointing out that the company's revenue declined in the last fiscal year, which is in stark contrast to the nearly 40% growth over the past 5 years under Steve Jobs.
He also pointed out that in the 10 years after Jobs was fired, Apple's only good seller was the Mac, which Jobs released anyway. Currently, the lion's share of the company's revenue is generated by the iPhone. That is, Apple still relies on Jobs' vision.