Apple

The device is the platform; the platform is the store; the store is the moat — a closed stack the most valuable company in the world has compounded for 50 years.

Latest filing on file · 2025-09-27

Revenue: $416.2B; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-09-27Source
Operating margin: 32.0%; FY2025; Operating income / revenue · filingSource
Operating cash flow: $111.5B; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-09-27Source
Capital expenditures: $12.7B; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-09-27Source

Overview

Business model and origins

Personal computing for the rest of us — Wozniak built the machine, Jobs figured out who would buy it and what they would pay for the experience of owning it.

2 episodes2026-06 case file as of

Origin

Steve Wozniak built the Apple I in 1975 for the Homebrew Computer Club — a hobbyist circuit board. Jobs saw a product. They sold fifty to Paul Terrell's Byte Shop in Mountain View and incorporated in April 1976. The Apple II (1977) was the first mass-market personal computer, profitable from launch and the engine that funded the Lisa and the Mac. Jobs's 1979 visit to Xerox PARC showed him the graphical interface and mouse — ideas Xerox had not commercialized. The Macintosh (1984) shipped them to the world. Jobs was pushed out in 1985, founded NeXT, and was brought back via the NeXT acquisition in 1997. What he returned to had forgotten the lesson: hardware and software must be one company.