Investors have had plenty of different reasons for dumping Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares, but this one is rather unusual. Hedge fund legend Julian Robertson told CNBC that he dumped his shares after reading Steve Jobs’ biography and concluding that he was a “really awful” person.
Robertson doesn’t like Apple’s Steve Jobs
The biography which caused Robertson to dump his shares was the authorized one written by Walter Isaacson, which Jobs himself requested. He called Jobs “mean” and said he felt like it was “unlikely” that a man like Jobs would be able to “create a great company for the long term.” He just doesn’t think “bad guys” like Jobs can do good over the long term.
Robertson did acknowledge that Jobs had a number of good inventions during his career, including the iPad and the iPhone. In fact, he called the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder “one of the great geniuses of the world” and even said that if Jobs was still at the company, then he would have kept his shares. He said he sold all his shares in January simply because he didn’t think that someone with Jobs’ character would be able to create a company that will stand the test of time.
Robertson’s other views on the market
After bashing Steve Jobs’ leadership style, he did have some good things to say about Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and said that he does own shares of the search giant’s stock. He said he doesn’t plan to buy into Twitter Inc (TWTR) when its initial public offering is held.
The billionaire investor also said he sees the full market as “fully valued” and believes that currently we’re seeing “a kind of bubble market, where it’s going to take something bubble-like to happen to prick the bubble and will probably have a pretty bad reaction to the breaking of the bubble.”
He predicts that if or when something does happen, it will be after the current fiscal and political crises we have right now.
