The Home Depot: The best-performing stock in the S&P 500 since IPO (Audio)

By Acquired

Categories: VC, Startup, Product

Summary

Home Depot is the best-performing stock in S&P 500 history—a $1,000 IPO investment in 1981 grew to $17 million today, outperforming Apple by 100x the S&P 500 index. Founded by two fired executives with revolutionary warehouse-scale retail, it became a 470,000-person enterprise larger than Amazon's US tech workforce.

Key Takeaways

  1. Home Depot's $1,000 IPO investment (1981) compounded at nearly 25% annually for 45 years to reach $17 million—vs $170,000 for S&P 500 index investing, demonstrating the power of disciplined execution in massive markets.
  2. The founding insight was revolutionary warehouse scale: 5x the square footage of competitors at launch, turning perceived risk into category dominance by solving customer pain points through format innovation rather than incremental improvements.
  3. Home Depot became the world's largest specialty retailer and 45th most valuable public company ($350B market cap) while operating only in North America—proving dominant market capture in a single geography can rival global diversification.
  4. Founder Bernie Marcus came from poverty and gang involvement in 1930s Newark; the founding team were fired executives with minimal savings, showing outsider founders without traditional credentials can build all-time companies through bold operational models.
  5. Home Depot employs 470,000 people—more than any US tech company except Amazon and comparable to entire Fortune 500 industries—demonstrating that retail operations at scale can rival tech in employment and economic impact.

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Transcript Excerpt

I'm sorry I got tripped up. You used uh power tools, David Rosenthal. >> I built this whole door. I got the the Blake door from Home Depot. I had to cut it down to size to fit a non-standard size door opening in my studio. I drilled the door handle. I put the door knob on myself. It all worked great. >> We uh we got to get you to the pro desk. >> Yeah. >> And it's been part of every acquired episode since. >> All right, let's do this. >> Who got the truth? [music] Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is [music] it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Straight. Another story on the way. [music] >> Welcome to the fall 2026 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. >> I'm David Rosenthal. >> And we a…

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