You're not a special idiot. You're like the vast majority of people reading this post, and the one writing it. In 1998 I, like most other people were predicting the demise of Apple, (thus the crappy stock price) and we were all wrong. But keep in mind that the turnaround that Jobs engineered was a once in a lifetime occurrence. The equivalent of winning the World Series of Poker with $200 worth of chips, while everyone else at the table is flush.
I love to dream about having sunk $100K into Apple stock in 1998. But who in their right mind would have done so unless their last name was Jobs? It's sort of like what Ronald Wayne, the co-founder of Apple said when asked if he regretted bailing: He did the right thing for him with the information in hand.
So did most investors who didn't buy Apple in the late 90s.
