> WHY IN HELL they have so much actual cash piling up
In 1997, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy [1]. That experience deeply scarred the company's culture. Prior to that, Apple didn't hoard cash (relative to revenues). Afterwards, it did.
At this point, the instinct is overplayed. But cultures are difficult to change. So the obsession with runway remains.
The last time Apple’s culture was re-forged, runway was an existential priority for Steve. It remained a priority for the rest of his life. As such, it remains one today. Call it a ritual, if you like; an act once practical, now maintained for being part of a culture.
The limitless alternative to amassing cash piles is returning it to shareholders. Apple does that, but it is averse to accelerating its pace.
This a little misleading, as it's hard to imagine Apple making zero revenue well, ever. They could possibly be losing money, but there is no plausible scenario where they lose that much money. It's hard to imagine a scenario where they lose even an order of magnitude less money than that.
Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, purchases of books, movies, TV shows, music their 30% cut of App Store revenues and subscriptions; the $99 developer fee for the App Store; Final Cut and Logic; Apple Card interest fees, iCloud subscriptions, probably other smaller scale things.
I don’t know if the pricing adjusts regionally but when I just checked for here, the google drive plans are exactly the same price as the iCloud plans, bar the bottom
Google plan which is twice the price for twice the storage of the bottom iCloud plan.
Or worse than Scarface’s example - everything they have in China gets permanently appropriated by the government, and they have to rebuild all the supply chains somewhere else.
Also in this era the tech industry was highly competitive and cutthroat and cash reserves were a war chest against attacks and for rapid expansion (acquisitions). MS and others had similar cash reserves as a strategic asset.
>In 1997, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy [1] That experience deeply scarred the company's culture. Prior to that, Apple didn't hoard cash (relative to revenues). Afterwards, it did
In 1996, Apple's market cap was ~$3B and they had about $1.7B in cash and short term investments.[1] That's over half the value of the company. If they had proportional amounts of cash today they would have a trillion dollars.
I think the context of the talk about bankruptcy wasn't leverage like most companies have now, but simply that people might stop buying Macs and no revenue would be coming in.
The hoarding of cash I associate with Fred Anderson, who was CFO from 1996-2004.
This is a sign of distress. The equity markets were attributing minimal value to the non-cash parts of the business.
In 1996, Apple had about one fifth of its net turnover in cash. Today, it’s close to four fifths. Operating-to-operating metrics are a better indicator of management’s preferences than operations-to-markets.
Well, they lost like $800 million in 1996, which is why the market value was low, but look at the preceding years. Going back to 1992, revenue was $7-11B and they had $1-1.5B in cash and short term investments.[1] So $1.7B was not that much different, and asserting they acquired the culture in '97 is plainly wrong. Having a lot of cash was a consistent theme.
Similar thing happened to _all_ of corporate japan. Bubble era left a strong desire to hoard cash. Thus Japan Inc has vast reserves of cash. Ironic, but such reserves have not help valuations even during this pandemic.
There is a lesson on corporate financing here, but I am not sure what it says.
In 1997, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy [1]. That experience deeply scarred the company's culture. Prior to that, Apple didn't hoard cash (relative to revenues). Afterwards, it did.
At this point, the instinct is overplayed. But cultures are difficult to change. So the obsession with runway remains.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-comeback-story-2010-10...