Apple Inc. is an American technology giant headquartered in Cupertino, California — maker of the iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and creator of iOS/iPadOS/macOS. The first publicly traded company to be valued above one trillion, and since 2025 above four trillion dollars.
Apple Inc. is an American technology corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California, founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. It began with the Apple I — a motherboard hand-designed by Wozniak and sold for $666.66. Incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. in January 1977, NASDAQ IPO on December 12, 1980. After years of PC dominance in the Macintosh era and the 1990s crisis, the company returned to relevance in 1997 through the NeXT acquisition and Jobs' return, who built another era around the iMac, iPod, iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).
Today Apple is one of the world's largest companies — market capitalization above $4 trillion (October 2025), $416B revenue in FY2025, 166,000 employees, 540 Apple Stores worldwide. The company's ecosystem covers iPhone (primary revenue driver), Mac (since 2020 powered by Apple Silicon), iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Vision Pro (since 2024), and services (App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, Apple Pay).
In AI, Apple focuses on on-device intelligence — in 2024 it introduced Apple Intelligence, a generative AI platform combining proprietary foundation models running on Apple Silicon, optional Private Cloud Compute (designed to protect user privacy), and integration with third-party ChatGPT. Tim Cook has been CEO since 2011 (to be succeeded by John Ternus in September 2026), CFO is Kevan Parekh, board chairman is Arthur Levinson.
Founders
Co-founder and long-time CEO of Apple (1997-2011). After returning to the company in 1997 through the NeXT acquisition, he built Apple's second era around the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Died in October 2011.
Co-founder of Apple and designer of the company's first computers — Apple I (1976) and Apple II (1977). Stepped back from day-to-day operations in 1985 while remaining a formal employee-representative.
Apple's third co-founder. Sold his stake back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 just 12 days after founding, in April 1976.
Classification
