Historical day: Apple becomes the second largest US company by market cap, taking over Microsoft

My friend Mikeul sent me this picture this afternoon:

Apple is now the second largest US company by market cap, just behind Exxon. Apple took over Wal-Mart and Microsoft in a well deserved victory.

This is a historical time for many, and more specially for me, being an Apple user since the early 1990s and a former employee of the firm.

It is time to remember:

• In an interview in June, 1998, on a Vanity Fair piece on the relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Bill Gates said: “What I can’t figure out is why he (Steve Jobs) is even trying (to be the CEO of Apple)? He knows he can’t win.”
• On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Today, Dell's market cap is about $25 billion, about a 10th of Apple's.

Of course, I'm not saying that the share is not overvalued, quite the contrary...

Disclosure: I am a very long time (and proud) shareholder of the company.