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People see the iPhone sell for over $1,000 and assume it must cost hundreds to build. The truth is far less comfortable. At its peak, the assembly labor per iPhone in China was estimated at around $10. Not the parts. Not the R&D. Just the hands putting it together. Apple didn't win on innovation alone. They mastered scale, supply chains and global labor economics before anyone else. Millions of devices, razor-thin labor costs, and margins so large they rewrote what a technology company could be worth. This isn't an exploitation-versus-ethics debate. It's about seeing where value is actually created, and who captures it. Most people fixate on the product. The real money sits somewhere else entirely: in control, leverage and systems that run at massive scale. That's the lesson worth internalizing. If you don't own the system, you're paid by it. Building wealth means owning the machine, not just working inside it. (via IG/innovologys) #Investing #BrandValue #Business #Apple #WealthBuilding