Buying AAPL in the early 2000s seems obvious now, but it was not obvious then. Prior to the iPhone, in the midst of a market dominated by the likes of Microsoft, a lot of people had very low expectations for Apple. The chances of AAPL beating companies like XOM or GE were not predictable at the time, and you can say the same today about any stock. At the time, you could of course argue for why AAPL would have enormous future growth, but it wouldn't be a prediction, but a bet.