My 22 year support of Apple contributed to Job's fortune. This makes me proud.

This lists the 400 richest AMERICANS. I assure you there are many other billionaires in the world. They don't all live in the USA, though a high percentage do.

I, by using apples then macs for 26 years, have contributed to this nonsense. What a sad world where we the people support the concentration of such vast sums of money into the accounts of individuals.

As a trendy-lefty liberal champagne socialist, I don't have any problem at all with people making money. I get really pissed off when that money is made illicitly, or is used for illicit ends, but other than at, good on them.

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Guest wrote:
My 22 year support of Apple contributed to Job's fortune. This makes me proud.

Jobs' wealth comes mostly from stock that he owns, rather than salary. If you had invested $1,000 in Apple stock 5 years ago, you would now have $19,586--a 1858% increase in value or 81% annual return. By contrast, the Dow Jones average has increased 73% in the same period, so Apple has outperformed the market by a factor of about 25.

If you go back to when Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 (for convenience, I started September of that year), Apple's stock has risen from $5.485 to $144.15, a 2528% increase. Thus, if you had invested $1,000 in Apple then, you'd have $26,280. It would have taken an investment of only $38,051 back then for you to now be a millionaire purely with Apple stock. That's a 38+% annual return.

In those 10 years, the DJI rose a bit less than it has in the last 5 years, from 7,971 to 13,358, or a bit less than 68%--a poor showing for 10 years--about 5.3% annual return. Over 10 years, then, Apple has outperformed the market by a factor of about 37. Not many major companies have done so well. (Google comes to mind.)

Jobs probably had something to do with that.

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I generally agree with LaurieF, but with some provisos: the executives have to have 1) really DONE something to make that money, other than just set their own compensation; 2) the company had to do at LEAST as well (many high-paid execs preside over companies that are failing/have failed on their watch); 3) they had to take a major risk, including losing their jobs AND nearly all their money; 4) they had to bring others up with them--that leaves out the jokers who manipulate stock prices, cash out based on inside information, etc; 5) ensure that their employees, suppliers, customers, and communities are treated well; and 6) be above-board in their dealings, e.g., not misleading investors nor employees. Jobs seems to have met most of those criteria.

Gates, on the other hand, does not, as he apparently led Microsoft into doing things that he was told were illegal. It also shows in Microsoft's stock. It's now at $29.04. That's only a 28% increase in 5 years (from $22.65)--5.06% annual return, 74% in 10 years (from $16.67)--5.7% annual return. In the last few years, MSFT has pretty much tracked the DJI.

How could a trendy-lefty not require some good to be done with the money besides making rich people richer? By my champagne-socialist meter, Bill Gates has done far more for the world than Steve Jobs. His contributions to world health initiatives (particularly poorly served areas of research such as malaria) come close to matching the UN world Health Organization. So I don't care if SJ "earned" the money or not; do something useful with it if you want to earn my respect.