AKU-2001-002

AKU Photo Archive (archival print)

Initial Public Offering: Apple Computer, December 12, 1980

1980

C-print, archival pigment ink

80 × 120 cm (Edition 1/3)

Acquisition

Purchased, 2001

Curator’s Note

Apple Computer went public on December 12, 1980 at $22 per share — the largest U.S. IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. The offering sold out in minutes. Steve Wozniak sold a portion of his shares to Apple employees who had been denied stock options by Steve Jobs. The photograph was acquired by the AKU in 2001 from the estate of a trader who had been present on the floor that day.

Exhibition

IPO: The Stock Market Listing as Spectacle