Microsoft Stock Has Grown Roughly 14-Fold Since Satya Nadella Became CEO in 2014, a 23% Annual Growth Rate That Ended 14 Years of Negative Growth. Can That Pace Continue Under Heavy AI Spending?

Bill Gates handed over the reins of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to Steve Ballmer in early 2000. Gates had built the software business into the world’s largest company by market cap, perhaps with a little help from dot-com stock enthusiasm.

To be sure, Ballmer took over the company in a precarious position. Not only were tech stock valuations extremely frothy, but Microsoft was also fighting its antitrust lawsuit. The stock dropped more than 70% as the dot-com bubble popped, but Ballmer never recovered the company’s old highs.

Missed AI’s “Act 1”? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn’t buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of “Act 1″—the R&D phase. “Act 2” is the global rollout. Continue »

The 2008 financial crisis took another bite out of the stock. And while it recovered somewhat with the rest of the market in the early 2010s, Microsoft’s stock price was…