Apple’s march to $1 trillion—here’s a timeline of how it got here

Today, Apple earned both a company and world record: It hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion, making Apple the first U.S. company to reach this milestone. How long it will stay there remains anyone’s guess. The stock price is still rising today, so we’ll have to wait until the market closes to see if it can sustain this valuation. Nonetheless, this is historic.

Fast Company has long covered Apple with both a skeptical and inquisitive eye. The company’s ups and downs have punctuated the history of the technology space at large. So it’s both insightful and entertaining to look back.

Here’s a surely non-exhaustive list of our coverage of Apple under both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook–from the end of the 1990s up until now. It shows us how Apple has grown over the last two decades, as well as how it became one of the most powerful companies in the world. Enjoy.

1999: “Why we buy” by Charles Fishman
2004: “If he’s so smart… Steve Jobs, Apple, and the limits of innovation” by Carleen Hawn
2007: “All eyes on Apple” by Adam L. Penenberg
2007: “The Tao of Steve” by Elizabeth Spiers
2010: “Invincible Apple: 10 less from the coolest company anywhere” by Farhad Manjoo
2011: “The great tech war of 2012”  by Farhad Manjoo
2012: “The lost Steve Jobs tapes” by Brent Schlender
2013: “An oral history of Apple design: 1992-2013” by Max Chafkin
2014: “Can Apple’s Angela Ahrendts spark a retail revolution?” by Jeff Chu
2015: “Tim Cook on Apple’s future: Everything can change except values” by Rick Tetzeli
2016: “Regis McKenna’s 1976 notebook and the invention of Apple Computer, Inc.” by Harry McCracken
2016: “Playing the long game inside Tim Cook’s Apple” by Rick Tetzeli
2018: “Why Apple is the world’s most innovative company” by Robert Safian