Yes, that is one of the main incentives for working.

Whenever I find someone at my company who has worked there over 30 years it's usually because of company doesn't pay enough to retire.

I suspect unless you have a gambling problem, that "34 years at Apple/Next" would be enough to retire on.

34 years? I have 10 years at a couple of FAANGs, and got $3M in stock, with maxed out 401k, etc. I am having thoughts about retiring early, maybe in 5 years. Long time Apple employees could definitely retire after 10 years. He most likely stayed there because he liked the job.

When did Apple start issuing stock/RSUs? Probably only in 2004 when Google got rich

$0.37 is the split-adjusted price, it was never actually quoted that low at the time (for anyone wondering if Apple really used to be a penny stock in the early 2000s).

Nit: share price was not $0.37, there's been a couple stock splits since.

In case anyone is curious, AAPL has split a combined 56-to-1 since 2003.

Jesus! Folks in the 30 years prior must be fuming

You could also have bought $1,000 worth of stock at the time and it would be worth one million today (since 1995 with reinvested dividends, source ChatGPT). Up to you whether the 32 years spent in the office makes the money more worthwhile to you.

Exactly how does one purchase $1,000 in stock of a company never listed on a stock exchange? NeXt was never public.

For the love of God, use the right tool. Portfolio back testers are a dime a dozen and easy to use and get 100% accurate answers. LLMs are the wrong tool to get investment expertise from.

Apple was, though. They went public in 1980. The IPO price, adjusted for splits, was a little under $0.10 per share. Ignoring any dividends, etc. your $1000 today is the equivalent of over 10,000 shares of Apple, worth almost $2 million today.