How Much Would You Have if You Had Invested $2,000 In Apple When It Went Public?

As difficult as this might be to digest, technology titan Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is now 50 years old. It reached the milestone on April 1, 2026.

And what a run it's been! From its uncertain beginnings in Steve Jobs' parents' garage to near-bankruptcy in 1997 to the $3.8 trillion behemoth it is today, this company is the quintessential corporate rags-to-riches story. It's also arguably changed the world along the way, introducing its first iPhone back in 2007, setting off a mobile technology arms race that would make smartphones the centerpieces of most people's lives.

And this begs the question: Just how well rewarded would Apple's earliest investors be if they'd patiently stuck with the stock since Apple's initial public offering back in December 1980?

Here's the answer.

Image source: Getty Images.

An amazingly big number

Apple's public offering price was $22 per share, for the record, although this number is meaningless now.

See, the company's split its stock five times in the meantime, with two of those splits resulting in far more shares than the typical 2-for-1 split. All told, owning just one share then would leave you with 224 shares of Apple today, dialing back its effective IPO price of $22 to only $0.10. Compared to the ticker's current price of $254.65, that translates into a 45-year gain of a little over 254,650%.

That's a big number. It's so big, in fact, that investors might struggle to wrap their minds around it. A more tangible numerical example might make it make more sense.

So to this end, a very plausible $2,000 investment made in this plucky company's 1980 public offering would be worth a little more than $5.18 million today.

Wow!

The (not so) secret of its success

It's unlikely anyone -- even including long-tenured employees and insiders -- would have held on to any of their stakes received or bought when the company went public this whole time.

Still, clearly at least some people have done incredibly well for themselves by being patient with this stock.

Just don't lose perspective on the matter. For every Apple, there's a Groupon, MySpace, Radio Shack, and a Juicero that the world at one point was just as certain to be destined for Apple-like greatness. That's why you own more than one stock. You want to give yourself more chances of holding one of the great ones.

That being said, don't feel like you have to get in on the ground floor to reap a massive reward. The vast majority of Apple's net gains have materialized just since 2007, when the company solidified a then-nascent smartphone industry it would end up leading. Given that Amazon and streaming giant Netflix did the same and similarly rewarded their shareholders as a result, that seems to be the real formula for Apple-like returns.

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Netflix and is short shares of Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.