Options Trade Cost Steve Jobs $4 Billion

How much would Jobs have made if he had held on to those options?

His 10 million shares are now worth $1.2 billion. So he isn't hurting. (And he has made much more on stock in Pixar, which is now part of Disney DIS.)

As for those canceled options?

Try $5.6 billion.

Or ... $4.4 billion more than Jobs has made on the shares he took in exchange.

Jobs was not alone. Around the same time, in March 2003, others at the company were allowed to make a similar exchange. Many employees were holding bubble-era options that also seemed worthless because their strike prices were so high. So in March 2003, Apple set up a one-time program to let them swap these options for a smaller number of options at a lower strike price.

Bottom line: The exchange would benefit them so long as the share price stayed low. They would lose out only if it went to the moon.

Oops.

In total, the company canceled 20 million options (in today's terms). The move will have cost those employees, and saved shareholders, hundreds of millions of dollars.

All of which should offer at least a smidgeon of consolation to those who missed out on Apple stock. Why? Because it shows that four years ago, not even Steve Jobs, or other folks at Apple, dreamed the shares could possibly come this far.

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