The Late Apple's Steve Jobs' Final Prediction Is Starting to Play Out

Steve Jobs' visionary status was built on reacting to and learning from the things around him...

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Jobs was fortunate enough to have access to a computer in the NASA Ames Research Center. Starting with computers at such a young age led Jobs to spend his life dreaming about what computers could do.

His love of computers led him to cross paths with his future business partner at an incredibly early age. As teenagers, Jobs and his childhood friend Stephen Wozniak began to build electronic devices together. 

Computers were prohibitively expensive at the time. So like many tech hobbyists, they decided to build them from scratch for much less money. 

From that passion project, the two Steves realized they might be able to build computers at a reasonable cost for other people. 

Just eight years later, they later formed Apple (AAPL). 

The Apple I was the first computer that Jobs and Wozniak built. It was a failure, selling only 200 units total. 

However, a year later, they released the Apple II, which became one of the first successful mass-produced computers. 

Thanks to the popularity of the Apple II, Apple gained significant attention in the community. Between 1977 and 1980, Apple grew its sales by 252 times and quickly became the leading computer manufacturer in the U.S. 

Jobs knew how to make computers more accessible...

He could see that most people would find computing inaccessible if the first thing they saw when they turned it on was a green or white line of code on a blank screen. 

Prompt-based operating systems expected too much knowledge from users just to get started in the system itself. 

Jobs knew PCs weren't yet at a point where it could see true mass adaption. When he visited the Palo Alto Research Center ("PARC") in 1979, he finally realized what was missing. 

As soon as he booted up Xerox's (XRX) new Alto computer, he didn't have to enter any lines of code. Instead, it had a graphic user interface ("GUI") operating system controlled by a mouse, which allowed users to navigate by clicking through icons instead of memorizing lines of code. 

While he saw the potential for Alto's GUI, Xerox never sold it as a commercial product. Convinced that it was destined to be an expensive workstation, Xerox executives only sold the Alto and its successor, the Xerox Star, to universities and research centers. In today's money, it was priced at about $45,000, well out of the budget for most at-home users. 

Jobs knew computers were bound to be ubiquitous at some point...

But the only way they would be was if they were easy to use. So, he abandoned Microsoft's (MSFT) MS-DOS platform on which the Apple II had been built. 

He developed Apple Lisa, naming the operating system after his daughter. In 1983, Apple Lisa was launched as the first GUI-controlled personal computer available to the masses. 

Unfortunately, Apple Lisa was a commercial failure. In what would become a pattern for Jobs, he was so far ahead of the curve that it took the market years to catch up to him. 

In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first mass-production PC with a GUI-based system, a built-in screen, and a mouse. The Macintosh offered many new features for users: The icon-based GUI helped users navigate easily, the menu bar allowed easy access to apps, and the "Finder" helped find documents and applications. 

Now famous for the Ridley Scott-produced 1984 inspired ad that marked its launch during Super Bowl XVIII, the Macintosh was a smash hit. 

It was termed "the first $2,500 impulse item" because of how it brought the GUI to the masses before everyone recognized they needed it. 

For the rest of the 1980s, Apple continued to thrive on the back of Jobs' vision with Macintosh...  

He had such foresight about what was needed that Apple was able to ride on the back of his innovation for almost half a decade after he was pushed out in 1985. 

But without Jobs' innovative vision to push the company forward, Apple's profitability started to decline in the early 1990s. 

While as-reported metrics made it look as though the company was still doing well, Uniform Accounting showed that returns fell by more than half in four years. The data predicted Apple's post-Jobs, post-innovation struggles long before Wall Street caught on... 

But this wasn't the end of the line for Apple, nor Jobs on his amazing predictive power...

Jobs' final 'prophecy' is now starting to play out...

The inventor and business magnate's final prediction came only months before he passed away in 2011. 

At the time, much like his original vision for PCs, Jobs' prediction didn't get much attention, and few people understood what he meant. 

But today, with so many tech stocks crashing, it's becoming clear that Jobs' "final prophecy" is coming to life right now. 

While the rest of the market is focused on cryptocurrencies, 5G, electric and self-driving cars, the blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, non-fungible tokens, space exploration, and cloud computing... they're missing the bigger picture. 

These are all digital technologies, and although most investors don't realize it, they are largely yesterday's news. 

In my brand-new presentation, I explain how Jobs' final prediction will transform the economy and your investments... how early investors are set to make a fortune... and I even share the name and ticker symbol of my favorite way to invest in Jobs' final prophecy (no e-mail address, credit card, or phone number required). 

Make sure you're on the right side of investing history and watch my urgent presentation right here. 

Regards,

Joel Litman
March 10, 2022