American Tower vs Apple: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: American Tower and Apple side by side

1. 1976Apple

   Apple is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, turning an early personal-computer board into a company with a product and a market.

   Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple in 1976, when personal computing was still a hobbyist market.

2. 1977Apple

   The Apple II launches and gives the young company an expandable personal computer for schools, homes, and small businesses.

   The Apple II turned a garage project into a business. Color graphics, expansion slots and a consumer-friendly design carried it into schools, homes and small offices, giving Apple a revenue base years before the Macintosh.

3. 1980Apple

   Apple completes its initial public offering in December 1980, raising capital and turning personal computing into a public-market story.

   The December 1980 IPO gave Apple public-market capital and made personal computing look like a serious commercial category. It also raised the pressure to professionalize management, distribution and product planning as the company outgrew its founding team.

4. 1984Apple

   The Macintosh introduces a graphical interface and mouse-driven computing to a broad audience at a $2,495 launch price.

   The Macintosh brought a graphical interface and a mouse to a mass-market computer and defined Apple's design identity.

5. 1995American Tower

   Tower division formed inside American Radio Systems

   Steven B. Dodge set up American Tower Systems as a division of American Radio Systems to lease antenna space on broadcast and new cellular towers to multiple carriers at once.

6. 1997Apple

   Apple completes the NeXT acquisition, bringing Steve Jobs back and supplying the operating-system foundation for the years that followed.

   Apple's NeXT acquisition brought Steve Jobs back when the company was financially weak and unfocused.

7. 1998American Tower

   Spin-off from American Radio Systems and NYSE listing

   CBS acquired American Radio Systems in June 1998 and the tower business became the independent, NYSE-listed American Tower Corporation with more than 1,800 towers in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

8. 1999American Tower

   First international markets in Mexico and Brazil

   American Tower established operations in Mexico in 1998 and Brazil in 1999, beginning an international portfolio that later reached Europe, Africa and Asia.

9. 2001Apple

   Apple introduces the iPod on October 23, 2001, a 5GB music player priced at $399 that held about 1,000 songs.

   The iPod put a hard-drive music library in a pocket at $399 and went on sale on November 10, 2001.

10. 2002American Tower

    Telecom downturn cuts the company's market value

    Carrier and competitive local exchange carrier bankruptcies cut leasing demand and closed credit markets. American Tower's equity market value fell to about $690 million at the end of 2002 before recovering to roughly $2.4 billion a year later.

11. 2003American Tower

    James Taiclet succeeds founder Steven B. Dodge as CEO

    The board named James D. Taiclet chief executive officer on October 10, 2003, succeeding Steven B. Dodge. Taiclet added the chairman title in February 2004 and ran the company until 2020.

12. 2005American Tower

    SpectraSite merger completed

    The SpectraSite merger closed on August 8, 2005 in a stock exchange valuing SpectraSite's equity at about $3.1 billion, creating a portfolio of over 22,000 owned communications sites.

13. 2007American Tower

    Added to the S&P 500

    Standard and Poor's named American Tower as the replacement for ALLTEL in the S&P 500 in November 2007, after ALLTEL was taken private.

14. 2007Apple

    The iPhone is introduced as a phone, widescreen iPod, and internet communicator, moving Apple into the center of mobile computing.

    The iPhone moved Apple into mobile computing and shifted the company's center of gravity away from the Mac. It also created the hardware base that later supported services, accessories and developer economics.

15. 2008Apple

    The App Store opens with 500 apps, creating a controlled software marketplace that becomes a major Services pillar.

    The App Store launched with 500 apps and gave iPhone owners a single, controlled way to install third-party software.

16. 2011Apple

    Tim Cook becomes chief executive on August 24, 2011, after Steve Jobs resigns and the board names Cook to succeed him.

    Apple's board named Tim Cook chief executive on August 24, 2011, when Steve Jobs resigned and recommended the succession plan be carried out.

17. 2012American Tower

    REIT conversion takes effect

    After board approval in May 2011 and a stockholder vote in November 2011, American Tower qualified as a real estate investment trust for the taxable year beginning January 1, 2012 and began paying regular quarterly dividends.

18. 2013American Tower

    Global Tower Partners acquisition closes

    American Tower completed the purchase of MIP Tower Holdings, parent of Global Tower Partners, on October 1, 2013, paying about $3.3 billion in cash and assuming roughly $1.5 billion of debt.

19. 2014Apple

    Apple agrees to acquire Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion, its largest deal.

    Apple agreed to buy Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3 billion, about $2.6 billion in purchase price plus roughly $400 million vesting over time, and brought in founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.

20. 2015American Tower

    Verizon tower transaction

    American Tower took exclusive rights to lease and operate about 11,324 Verizon towers for roughly 28 years and bought about 165 towers outright for $5.056 billion in cash.

21. 2020American Tower

    InSite Wireless deal adds the first Canadian sites

    The $3.5 billion InSite Wireless Group acquisition closed on December 23, 2020, adding about 3,000 communications sites primarily in the United States and Canada.

22. 2020Apple

    Apple announces the Mac transition to Apple silicon, deepening control over performance, power efficiency, and software optimization.

    Apple began moving Mac computers off Intel processors and onto its own M-series chips in 2020.

23. 2021American Tower

    Telxius Towers and CoreSite reshape the portfolio

    American Tower agreed in January 2021 to buy roughly 31,000 Telxius Towers sites in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina for about $8.7 billion (7.7 billion euros), then closed the $10.1 billion CoreSite data center acquisition on December 28, 202…

24. 2024American Tower

    Leadership change and exit from India

    Steven Vondran became president and chief executive officer on February 1, 2024. On September 12, 2024 American Tower closed the disposal of ATC India, about 76,000 communications sites, to Data Infrastructure Trust for total cash proceeds of about $2.5 billio…

25. 2024Apple

    Vision Pro launches at $3,499 and gives Apple a shipping platform for spatial interfaces, sensors, and custom silicon.

    Vision Pro gave Apple a live platform for spatial interfaces, eye and hand input, high-resolution displays and custom chips.

26. 2025American Tower

    FY2025 results and a smaller, denser portfolio

    American Tower reported FY2025 revenue of $10,645 million and adjusted EBITDA of $7.1 billion, ended the year with 149,686 communications sites and net leverage of 4.9 times adjusted EBITDA, and repurchased about $365 million of stock.

27. 2026Apple

    John Ternus becomes chief executive on September 1, 2026, and Tim Cook becomes executive chairman.

    John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, became chief executive on September 1, 2026, and Tim Cook became executive chairman after 15 years as CEO.

Acquisitions

Questions about American Tower vs Apple