I didn’t spend my money on Apple stock, and all I got was this lousy PowerBook

Here’s a spreadsheet of infinite regret.

After Apple shares hit an all-time high of $272.18 on Friday, a few fanboys started reconsidering their purchases from long ago. Jason L. Baptiste wrote on Y Combinator’s Hacker News website, “If you spent the money on an original iPod in 2001 on Apple stock ($499), you would have $14,513.78 today.”

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Thus, a meme was born, as the comment was widely shared and retweeted.

UC Berkeley junior Kyle Conroy decided to actually put that idea to the test for hundreds of Apple products. He created a table comparing the original prices of the company’s products from the past 13 years with the total returns of an investment had you put the same amount in Apple shares. (Conroy didn’t factor in depreciation or inflation.)

It’s pretty stomach-churning to see what could have been. If, instead of spending $5,700 on an Apple PowerBook in November 1997, you decided to put that cash into Apple stock, you would have $330,563.38 today. Ouch.

The full table is here.