Home
As many of you may recall, at the end of the ’90s classic Forrest Gump, the
film’s eponymous main character invests some of his hard-earned money
in a “fruit company” by the name of Apple Computer Inc. A British site
has done the math on what his investment might be worth today, and the results are staggering.
If Forrest invested his Bubba Gump Shrimp Company earnings in Apple to the tune of $100,000, he would have an estimated seven billion dollars today.
Even at the end of the first day of public trading, when Apple’s IPO
happened in December 1980, Gump’s shares would’ve been worth over $42
million. When the movie was actually released, in July 1994 (almost 20
years after the movie is set), Gump’s stocks had climbed even further,
to over $91 million.
Then, in the early 21st century, with the release of all the things we know and love Apple
for today – the iPod, the iPhone, the Macbook Pro, etc. – Apple’s share
price really exploded. As of July 2, 2012, Forrest Gump’s investment
would have appreciated to just shy of seven billion bucks, at $6,980,702,880.
That’s quite an investment. And while all of this is obviously
fictional, it’s an interesting exercise in just what can happen if you
invest in the right startup tech company. More than perhaps any other
industry, technology companies have a tendency to get huge in a
relatively short period of time, as Apple has done in the last 40 years.
Of course, we’ll all have to come up with $100,000 to start with, if
we want to follow in Gump’s footsteps. I guess it’s time to start a
shrimp company…
film’s eponymous main character invests some of his hard-earned money
in a “fruit company” by the name of Apple Computer Inc. A British site
has done the math on what his investment might be worth today, and the results are staggering.
If Forrest invested his Bubba Gump Shrimp Company earnings in Apple to the tune of $100,000, he would have an estimated seven billion dollars today.
Even at the end of the first day of public trading, when Apple’s IPO
happened in December 1980, Gump’s shares would’ve been worth over $42
million. When the movie was actually released, in July 1994 (almost 20
years after the movie is set), Gump’s stocks had climbed even further,
to over $91 million.
Then, in the early 21st century, with the release of all the things we know and love Apple
for today – the iPod, the iPhone, the Macbook Pro, etc. – Apple’s share
price really exploded. As of July 2, 2012, Forrest Gump’s investment
would have appreciated to just shy of seven billion bucks, at $6,980,702,880.
That’s quite an investment. And while all of this is obviously
fictional, it’s an interesting exercise in just what can happen if you
invest in the right startup tech company. More than perhaps any other
industry, technology companies have a tendency to get huge in a
relatively short period of time, as Apple has done in the last 40 years.
Of course, we’ll all have to come up with $100,000 to start with, if
we want to follow in Gump’s footsteps. I guess it’s time to start a
shrimp company…