February 1990. The air smelled of ambition and bad coffee. Cisco Systems went public then, at eighteen bucks a share. A couple of Stanford guys, tinkering with networks, figured out how to extend the reach. Not exactly rocket science, but they had a knack for timing. They traded textbooks for blueprints, and a payroll for a promise. The promise being, of course, that everyone needed to talk to everyone else, and they’d sell the cord.
Routers and switches. The unglamorous plumbing of the digital world. But essential. Cisco became the backbone, alright. The arteries and veins of this new network. A boom followed, naturally. The dot-com frenzy. It was a circus, and Cisco was the ringmaster, collecting the tickets. Nvidia’s current dance with AI? Same tune, different decade.
By ’93, the New York Times was writing about a “stunning rise.” Stunning is one word for it. 1,850 percent, adjusted for splits. That’s not a rise, that’s a vertical climb. It smelled like easy money, and easy money always attracts trouble.
The internet became an obsession. Cisco shares soared. By March 2000, the total return was over 100,600 percent. A small stake could buy a small island. Or a very large regret, as it turned out. The bubble burst, of course. They always do. Cisco tumbled, losing seventy percent of its value. It took until 2025 to claw its way back to that peak. The market has a long memory, and a cruel sense of humor.
The Long View
So, what about a grand invested back then? At eighteen a share, a thousand bucks bought 55.55 shares. Nine splits later, that became 16,000. Numbers on a screen, but they represented something real. A gamble, a risk, a long shot.
Friday’s close: $84.82. Those 16,000 shares? $1,357,120. Not bad for a couple of Stanford guys and a network extension cord. It’s not about getting rich quick. It’s about holding on, weathering the storms, and understanding that the best investments aren’t sprints, they’re marathons.
Cisco started paying a dividend in 2011. A little something extra. Now it’s $1.64 a share annually. That initial thousand-dollar position generates $26,240 a year. Income. A steady drip in a world of floods. It’s not a fortune, but it’s enough to remind you that sometimes, the long haul pays off. Sometimes.
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2026-02-10 21:52