Slightly OT: Apple, Inc. amazes the financial world with strong quarterly profit report and record setting market capitalization of over one trillion dollars.

Ben with his first Apple Computer. A Blueberry iBook. At his own desk in my studio.

Ben with his current Apple Computer. A MacBook Pro. At the dining room table.

I was reading the financial news this morning, over coffee, and this was the story that jumped off the screen. Apple hit ultimate financial unicorn territory and hurdled over the one trillion dollar mark for valuation to make market history. I'm thinking that Michael Dell's advice, given in the late 1990's, that they (Apple) just shut the company down and give the shareholders their money back, is one of the few utterances that Mr. Dell has come to regret...

Why am I writing about financial stuff? I'm just a photographer... but I've always followed a good piece of advice I got from a financial heavyweight back in the early 1980's. He told me that the mantra "invest in your own business" was misguided and that one should direct as much of one's independent business profit as possible into investments outside one's own company. 

Over the years we've had many opportunities to invest in photography stuff that would have probably bankrupted the business instead of helping it gain momentum. I'm thinking of the first few generations of digital backs for medium format and large format cameras that hit the market in the 1990's. Or giant, multi-page sourcebook ads.  Giant, fancy vehicles. Esoteric optics that I might actually use only once or twice a year. An army of office managers and assistants that I'd need to pay whether business rose or fell. Or the early, professional Apple
Macintosh Computers with deadly expensive RAM......

$50,000 video cameras that depreciated at near the speed of light. Big leases for charming studio space that became mostly unnecessary once PhotoShop got "undo" and "selection." Etc. Etc. 

My financial advisors always pushed me to put as much money as I could in equities, bonds and other financial instruments. When I'm ready to retire my  financial security will not have come from how much I could bill in a day or how many stock image sales I was able to negotiate, rather it will come from the money we scrimped and saved and put away over the years; keeping it out of the "hands" of the business. And, no matter what the external investment (given enough diversification) we've generally seen our investments grow about seven to ten percent per year. 

Occasionally you get lucky, make a smart buy and hold it for the long term. (I guarantee that I'm not talking about camera bodies or lenses right now). Using Apple, Inc. as a hypothetical example, an investment of about $10,000 in the mid-1990's would be worth about 1.5 million dollars, as of today. That would beat the hell out of trying to keep piecing together more weddings or headshots or product shots as you head toward retirement....

We might not all be lucky enough to have made investments that pay off as well as Apple, Inc. stock but even money placed each month in a stock index account, over time will add up to real $$$$$$$. That new Nikon D6 will probably depreciate at a rate precisely the inverse of your retirement account's appreciation. And that's before you factor in the opportunity cost of tossing hard to find money into yet another depreciating asset. 

Something to think about for all three of you younger, commercial photographers who come by and read the blog...

tomorrow maybe we should talk about the cost of accessory creep....