Whichever way you look at it, Apple’s assumption this week of the title of World’s Most Valuable Company is a milestone in what has become the business story of our age. Fourteen years ago, strapped for cash and with faith in his company at rock bottom, Steve Jobs was forced to go cap in hand to arch-enemy Microsoft for a $150m investment (let it be noted for the record that it was the managers reigning at the company after Mr Jobs’ earlier, forced exit who had brought things to this point).

Now, with appropriate allowances for the vicissitudes of Wall Street on any given day, Apple’s stock market value has topped that of ExxonMobil. A business worth just $1.7bn when Mr Jobs returned in 1997 is now worth more than $335bn and has been instrumental in overhauling both the personal computing and mobile communications industries. John D. Rockefeller, the archetypical self-made business tycoon, would surely applaud.

For Apple investors who are wondering how you top that, there may well be more in store. With its current trajectory and business momentum (and provided the stock market does not completely fall apart) there is every reason to believe that Apple’s dizzying rise will eventually take it past $400bn and could even see it approach the $500bn-plus that Microsoft reached during the last tech bubble.