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Why Steve Jobs Sold 99 Percent of His Apple Shares in 1997
- •Steve Jobs sold almost all of his 1.5 million Apple shares in 1997 for roughly $22 million because he had lost hope in the company and thought the stock would not go up.
- •If Jobs had kept those shares and accounted for Apple's multiple stock splits over the decades, his stake would have grown to 168 million shares.
- •Based on Apple's future soaring valuation, those sold shares would be worth nearly $56 billion or roughly Rs 5.39 lakh crore today.
- •Jobs famously kept just a single share from the NeXT acquisition package, which itself would have multiplied into 112 shares through subsequent stock splits.
- •Ironically, the massive sell-off happened just months before Jobs returned as CEO and steered Apple into becoming one of the most valuable corporations in history.
Key Questions Answered
Steve Jobs sold 1,499,999 of the 1.5 million Apple shares he received from the NeXT acquisition in 1997, keeping only a single share. He explained to TIME that he had given up hope in Apple's board and believed the stock was not going up because the company was struggling significantly.
If Steve Jobs had retained his 1.5 million shares, subsequent stock splits in 2000, 2005, 2014, and 2020 would have turned them into 168 million shares. Based on Apple's closing price of $332.89 in October 2026, those shares would be worth roughly $55.93 billion, or about Rs 5.39 lakh crore.
Steve Jobs kept one share during his 1997 stock sale, which subsequently went through all four of Apple's stock splits over the years. That single share multiplied into 112 shares, which would be worth approximately $37,284 based on Apple's October 2026 stock price.
