Nowadays it seems practically impossible for any company in the world of technology to have the means to buy Apple at the stroke of a checkbook, however things were not exactly the same in 1996 and the fact is that the already former president and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch , had the opportunity in his hands to buy Apple for 2 billion dollars and they missed the opportunity.
This information has come to us thanks to Bob Wright, a writer who recently gave an interview to The New York Post regarding his book The Wright Stuff. Regarding the purchase, we have to remember that at that time, Apple was struggling to stay afloat before the return of Steve Jobs, with its CEO at that time, Michael Spindler who took over the company once John Sculley got fired.
Bob Wright, author of "The Wright Stuff"
In one of the parts of the book he explains that it happened at that time inside Apple ...
“The price was $ 20 a share and Spindler was explaining how difficult it was for the company to move in the right direction fast enough to improve the situation. He was sweating like crazy and everyone said, 'We can't manage technology like this. We had a 2 million dollar purchase opportunity. "
The purchase by General Electric would have radically changed the history of the company and I wonder if Apple would still be the company it is if this acquisition had taken place. Later that year, after GE refused to make the purchase, Apple bought NeXT for $ 427 million and Steve Jobs took over the company in 1997.
One of Jobs' first major projects was the iPod, which launched in 2001 and established the way forward for the company. The iPhone followed in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. Then the Apple Watch would arrive as the newest product launched by Apple in 2015.
Today, Apple as a company is worth more than double that of General Electric.