Apple vs Hilton: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Apple and Hilton side by side

1. 1919Hilton

   Founding - Mobley Hotel Purchase

   Conrad Hilton purchases the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas for $40,000, marking the formal founding of what will become Hilton Worldwide Holdings. The purchase was unplanned; Conrad had originally traveled to Cisco to buy a bank.

2. 1925Hilton

   First Purpose-Built Hilton Hotel

   Conrad opens the first hotel built from the ground up bearing the Hilton name in Dallas, Texas, marking a transition from acquiring existing properties to developing new ones and formalizing the Hilton brand identity.

3. 1943Hilton

   Acquisition of the Stevens Hotel, Chicago

   Hilton acquires the Stevens Hotel in Chicago - then the world's largest hotel with over 3,000 rooms - transforming the company from a regional Texas operator into a nationally recognized lodging company.

4. 1946Hilton

   Hilton Hotels Corporation Goes Public

   Hilton Hotels Corporation lists on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming one of the first major hotel companies to access public capital markets and establishing a financial structure that would fund the company's continued national expansion.

5. 1949Hilton

   Waldorf Astoria Acquisition and International Debut

   Conrad Hilton acquires the well-known Waldorf Astoria in New York City and opens the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico - the company's first international property. Both transactions cement Hilton's status as a premier global luxury brand.

6. 1964Hilton

   International Division Spun Off

   Hilton Hotels Corporation and Hilton International are formally separated, with the international operations becoming an independent company. This bifurcation persisted for decades and would eventually be reversed through acquisition in the 2000s.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 1999Hilton

    Acquisition of Promus Hotel Corporation

    Hilton acquires Promus Hotel Corporation for approximately $3.7 billion, adding the Hampton Inn, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, and Homewood Suites brands to its portfolio - transforming Hilton into a multi-brand lodging company and expanding its focused-service…

13. 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.

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. 2007Hilton

    Blackstone Group Leveraged Buyout

    Blackstone Group acquires Hilton Hotels Corporation in a leveraged buyout valued at approximately $26 billion - the largest hotel acquisition in history at the time. Christopher Nassetta is installed as CEO.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 2013Hilton

    NYSE Relisting - Largest Hospitality IPO in History

    Hilton Worldwide Holdings relists on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2013, raising approximately $2.35 billion in what was then the largest IPO in the history of the hospitality industry. The listing valued Hilton at approximately $19.7 billion.

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. 2017Hilton

    Spinoff of Park Hotels & Resorts and Hilton Grand Vacations

    Hilton completes the spinoff of Park Hotels & Resorts and Hilton Grand Vacations as separately traded public companies, completing its transition to a fully asset-light franchise and management fee model and returning significant real estate value to sharehold…

21. 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.

22. 2020Hilton

    COVID-19 Pandemic - Deepest Revenue Shock in Company History

    The COVID-19 pandemic causes system-wide Revenue Per Available Room to fall approximately 57% as global travel shuts down.

23. 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.

24. 2024Hilton

    Revenue Reaches $11.2 Billion, Pipeline Exceeds 500,000 Rooms

    Hilton reports fiscal year 2024 revenues of approximately $11.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $3.3 billion, with the Hilton Honors program surpassing 190 million members and the global development pipeline exceeding 500,000 rooms under developme…

25. 2025Hilton

    9,000th Hotel and Record Openings

    Hilton opened about 97,000 rooms, passed 9,000 hotels, entered markets including Tanzania, Rwanda, and Pakistan, and returned $3.3 billion to shareholders.

26. 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.

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