The Bureau of Historic Losses · The Skeptics' Ledger
Entry № 011
Michael Dell
Founder and CEO, Dell Computer
“What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
$1,000 of Bitcoin the day they said it, at its peak
US$1.9M
its high so far — 1,920×, reached June 2026
Worth today
US$1.8M1,773×
live valuation · refreshed hourly · usd
As of 18 June 2026, $1,000 of Bitcoin bought when Michael Dell said it (US$0 a coin) is worth US$1.8M today, and peaked at US$1.9M — 1,920× — in June 2026.
On the record
On 6 October 1997, with Apple near bankruptcy and Steve Jobs newly returned, Michael Dell was asked at a tech conference what he would do if he ran Apple. He answered: 'I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.' Apple went on to become one of the most valuable companies ever. The figure above tracks the stock since he said it.
In the autumn of 1997, the question was a fair one. Apple was genuinely dying — months from insolvency, its products scattered, its board having just brought back a co-founder it had pushed out a decade earlier. Michael Dell, meanwhile, was running the most admired machine in the industry: Dell Computer, lean and soaring. So when someone at a Gartner conference asked him what he'd do in Steve Jobs's chair, he gave the answer the numbers supported. “I'd shut it down,” he said, “and give the money back to the shareholders.”
It was not a cheap shot; it was the consensus, said out loud by the man with the best seat in the house. Apple was a case study in decline, and the prudent thing — the shareholder-friendly thing — was to admit it. Jobs reportedly emailed his staff that Dell should keep his opinions to his own company.
What followed — the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone — is the most valuable second act in the history of business. At one point Apple's market value was many times Dell's, and the company Dell would have liquidated became, for stretches, the most valuable on earth. The figure above is what a thousand dollars in the stock he'd have shut down was worth since the day he'd have shut it.
Where they stand now
Dell has been gracious about it for years, noting the comment was an answer to a hypothetical and that Jobs went on to do “a great job.” He has never pretended he saw what was coming. Few did; the receipt above is simply the most expensive way to be part of a consensus.
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