Apple Breaks Company Value Record

Apple shattered two records on Monday, beating its own all-time stock price and stealing away from Microsoft the crown as the most valuable public company ever. The house that Jobs built now has a market value of $622 billion, storming right past the upper limit set by Microsoft’s 1999 value of $618.9 billion. The tech-market dynamics that kept Microsoft in the lead through the first decade of the 21st century now lean toward Apple, with the company’s iPhone sales alone netting more than the entirety of Microsoft. The growth has come fast: Apple held a market value of $100 billion in 2009.