AOL considered buying Apple in the 90s

Andre Yoskowitz
26 Aug 2011 12:43

According to former Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis, AOL considered buying Apple in the 90s, as the computer maker floundered.
In 1996, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy and AOL was growing at exponential rates and had reached 10 million dial-up customers.
Says Leonsis (via BizJ):

Ironically, at one point at AOL, we looked at acquiring Apple and saving it. We were all concerned that it wasn’t going to do well. Little did we know.

The company would have bundled AOL software onto Macs, as it was widely expected that Microsoft would build something similar into Windows.
Today, Apple is the most valuable company in the tech world, while AOL has lost 98 percent of its value since 2000.