Stephen Silver
There's just one billionaire in Apple's current leadership, who didn't make his money from Apple. But the company has produced billion-dollar fortunes for suppliers.
The word "billion" comes up a lot when it comes to Apple, whether it's the company's $873 billion market capitalization, more than $280 billion in cash on hand, or the more than $11 billion Apple reportedly spent on research and development last year.
Despite that, Apple has produced few billionaires, and no one currently in the main leadership of the company who earned billionaire status directly through their involvement with Apple. According to a Bloomberg report Tuesday Apple stands in contrast with other Silicon Valley companies, in which CEOs and other investors have achieved net worths in the billions.
Steve Jobs was a billionaire; his net worth was estimated at around $10 billion at the time of his death in 2011. But due to his departing the company and coming back, which resulted in his selling his shares and having to re-acquire them, Jobs' net worth ">was much lower than that of his contemporary Bill Gates. Much of Jobs' fortune came from non-Apple sources, including his cofounding of Pixar Animation Studios and its subsequent acquisiton by Disney.
Current CEO Tim Cook is not a billionaire; his net worth is estimated in the $600 million range. Art Levinson, Apple's chairman, is the only known billionaire in Apple's present leadership, although he earned most of his fortune from non-Apple business, mostly his time with Genentech. Bloomberg's Billionaires Index consists of 500 names; the only name on the list with any direct association with Apple is Laurene Powell Jobs, the entrepreneur and widow of Steve Jobs, although she has no role with the company.
Suppliers cash in
Not mentioned in the report, are the founders and/or CEOs of several top Apple suppliers. Zhou Qunfei, founder of Lens Technology, is ranked 217th with a listed fortune of $7.3 billion. Terry You, the founder of major Apple supplier Foxconn, is at #273, with a net worth of $6.16 billion, as is Barry Lam, founder and CEO of Quanta Computer, whose $4.12 billion fortune places him 486th.
Apple's wealth has always been spread around employees and suppliers more than other tech companies. None of its cofounding generation is still with the company, as Jobs is deceased, Steve Wozniak's stake is estimated in the millions rather than billions, and the third cofounder, Ronald Wayne, infamously walked away from the company for $800 in 1976. Mike Markkula, an early investor in Apple and employee number three, is said to have a net worth over $1 billion, but he left Apple in the '90s.
Apple doesn't have a Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Ellison, a dominant executive figure who's both still in the picture and in position to demand overwhelming compensation.
Apple also hasn't spent the amount on acquisitions that would put billions in the pockets of those with significant equity in the acquired companies. Despite various reports to the contrary at the time, Apple's purchase of Beats in 2014 did not make Dr. Dre the first billionaire rapper. However, Bloomberg did speculate that some longtime Apple employees, such as Jony Ive, may hold enough equity in the company to push their net worth over a billion dollars.
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Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
24 Comments
Apple was also founded in the mid 1970’s which was a very different time for tech and investment.
People like myself, who invested in Apple after the return of Steve Jobs but before success became obvious, have done very well. I started buying Apple stock right after the release of the OS X Public Beta. Those shares split 2-1 and then 7-1 later, so 1 share then is 14 now without dividend reinvestment.
I stopped buying new shares in the low-mid $300/share range before the 7-1 split.
When I got home with the Public Beta and installed it- bugs and all- on my Mac, I knew Apple had a winning product if they kept pushing.
I’ll never be a billionaire, but there are many like me who will retire very well because we got on the train before most of the crowd. If you go to the shareholders meeting you can meet quite a few ordinary people who have done very well by betting on Apple early. I also had the good fortune to buy Amazon stock when the financial papers were constantly griping about Bezos growing the company rather than chasing profitability.
In other words, nobody at Apple is gouging the other employees, grabbing all the money for themselves. Look at other companies where multiple people grab the majority of the money leaving the actual workers with peanuts, like the Walton family having everything and Walmart employees close to nothing.
Well honestly...after you have a few Million, why do you need a few Billion? If I'm an executive at Apple and have $200 Million in the bank, what difference does it make to have a $1 Billion? I guess some people just want to feel like they need to have that much money. If I have $200 million already, getting a raise isn't going to make me any happier. I guess some people are different though.
If you like what you do and get paid for it and can live a healthy and happy lifestyle, then why do you need all of that money? Why do people think they're worth Billions of dollars?
It kinda sounds to me like Apple Executives don't necessarily do this for the money, but rather they do it because they like what they do and they enjoy where they're working. They realize the big picture and aren't just out to get rich. If you're successful at Apple, you'll make the money you deserve.
I expect that there are very, very few billionaires who got there just by being a CEO. If you aren't a founder of a company (therefore a major shareholder), you're not going to capture a significant portion of a company's value. Business isn't like professional sports where superstars are bought and sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. The way to get stratospherically rich is to be in on the ground floor of a company that takes over the world.