Fortune: Jobs left $2.7 billion on the table
updated 01:45 pm EST, Wed March 7, 2007
How Jobs lost $2.7b
Apple CEO Steve Jobs left as much as $2.7 billion on the table by trading his options grants earlier this decade. Fortune Magazine reports that Jobs accepted a colossal stock option grant in 2000 that the publication calculated to be worth $872 million at the time, but the executive considered the stock "penniless" and eventually traded it in along with another large options grant for a sizable sum of restricted shares. Those restricted shares today are said to be worth around $848 million, but the stock options Jobs gave up to acquire his current shares would today total more than $3.6 billion. Interestingly, Fortune published a cover story in 2001 following Jobs first massive grant that spurred a response from Cupertino's headquarters. In a letter to Fortune's editor Jobs offered to sell his stock options to the magazine for "half" of what it claimed they were worth, or $436 million, saying that the stock was actually "worth zero." Fortune declined the offer due to insufficient capital, but now says "we should have hocked the office furniture, broken our kids' piggy banks, and taken the deal."
am I smarter than Jobs?
03/07, 02:31pm reply
amazing! I took a flier on AAPL @ $9.50. Of course if I were really smart, I would have taken out a 2nd mortgage and put it all into AAPL as well!
climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2001
cry not for Steve
03/07, 02:32pm reply
because he is still a filthy rich SOB! Maybe someday he will even surpass Gates...
climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2001
Or else...
03/07, 03:40pm reply
...They could have just bought whatever amount they wanted on the open market, pretty much anytime in 2001, and they would have made the same (or greater) percentage gain by now.
jamiec
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2006
Disdain?
03/07, 05:03pm reply
I don't understand the comments from Jobs. They sound like Jobs doesn't think in Apple's future. That or he does not care about "pocket change" like a few hundred millions dollars... but it's not very smart to go public with such comments IMHO.
Luke MacWalker
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Dec 2005
jobs
03/07, 08:54pm reply
Jobs has never had much hope in Apple's future. When he rejoined apple, he sold all the stock he received in the deal almost immediately.
BTW, can anyone believe you'd leave $2.7 billion on a table? I mean, I've forgotten a cell phone, a doggy bag, or a hat. But $2.7 billion? I can see if it were $1.5 billion, but $2.7 billion? It just seems unlikely....
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
typical arrogant jobs
03/08, 06:48am reply
statement, yet I don't begrudge him (or Apple) their success. At least they came by it through innovation. Something I can't say about Gates & Co. And to 'climacs', I still kick myself for not going out on a limb when Apple was being prematurely being pronounced 'dead' around '96/97. Bad time to be laid off.
Sprocket
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2002
re: jobs
03/08, 01:48pm reply
He had a serious reason for selling off the initial stock when he re-joined Apple.
Doing that guaranteed that he benefitted by Apple's success, and would be impacted by failure.
Sounds moderately motivational to me.
sehix
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2000