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The Thesis
Jobs returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple and bet the company's future on beautifully designed consumer products — the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad — creating the most valuable company in history.
The Story
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was 90 days from bankruptcy. Microsoft invested $150 million to keep Apple alive. Jobs immediately simplified Apple's product line from 350 products to 10, killed Newton and other failing projects, and focused the entire company on making a few products insanely well. The iMac (1998) stopped the bleeding. The iPod (2001) showed Apple could create entirely new product categories.
Then came the iPhone in 2007 — arguably the most important consumer product launch in history. Jobs saw that mobile phones would become the primary computing device for billions of people, and he bet everything on creating the best one. The iPad followed in 2010. Under Jobs's leadership, Apple went from near-bankruptcy to becoming the world's most valuable company. An investor who bought Apple stock when Jobs returned in 1997 and held through his passing in 2011 earned returns exceeding 10,000%. The Apple comeback is the greatest corporate turnaround in business history.
Key Insight
Focus is about saying no — the greatest turnarounds come not from adding more but from ruthlessly cutting what doesn't matter to concentrate on what does.
“Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.”
Steve Jobs
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See how Glen Bradford applies these principles to his own investing. Long Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac junior preferred — conviction meets patience.